WD’s first terabyte drive is one a bit off the beaten path. Citing growing consciousness for the environment as well as cost of ownership accounting that affects bottom lines, the firm today introduces its “GP” (GreenPower) series of drives. Pointing out that CPU manufacturers have shied away from brandishing specs such as gigahertz, WD likewise is quite coy about the traditional specs associated with hard drives when it comes to the GP.
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The one spec the manufacturer is willing to trumpet is power consumption. The firm claims its GP drives will save a full 4-5 watts over standard 7200 RPM drives both when idle and when seeking… delivering not only reduced power consumption itself, but also of course reductions in associated heat and noise. WD also states that such savings should come with a relatively minimal hit to application-level performance which, of course, we always present as the bottom line here at StorageReview. Given the solid performance exhibited by the firm’s 5400 RPM Scorpio when contrasted with some 7200 RPM competition, the claim might not be that far-fetched.
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Based on extensive customer input toward supporting ENERGY STAR 4.0 compliance and incorporating the latest in engineering technology, WD has successfully developed the first 3.5-inch hard drive platform designed with power savings as the primary attribute. The GreenPower family gives customers more of a choice when it comes to purchasing hard drives. The initial drive that will take advantage of WD’s new GreenPower technology is the WD Caviar GP. The WD Caviar GP 1 TB hard drive will first ship in July in the My Book™ range of storage appliances at a capacity of 2 TB, with 1 TB desktop channel shipments following in August 2007. The WD RE-GP enterprise-class and WD AV-GP CE-class hard drives are expected to ship in volume within calendar Q3.
ENERGY STAR 4.0 computing systems are designed to enable organizations to minimize their carbon footprint as well as realize significant savings in electricity costs. By WD estimates, in certain applications, the new GP platform can save organizations greater than $10 per drive per year in electricity costs in the U.S. On a large scale, those savings result in significant bottom-line IT operations cost reductions, as well as a meaningful decrease in environmental impact. For example, a large data center with approximately 100,000 drives can yield up to $1,000,000 in saving per year in energy costs. That power savings also equates to reducing CO2 emission by up to 60.5 kilograms per drive per year – the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 14 days each year.
“WD is addressing environmental issues, as well as customers’ cost of ownership, with the development of the GP storage product family,” said John Coyne, WD President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our focus on power efficiency will pay off for commercial customers and consumers alike, with the addition of our new more energy efficient high-capacity storage solutions.”
Power savings can be even greater when storage consolidation is taken into account. Storage is amongst the biggest consumers of energy in a data center. Currently available 1 TB hard drives will have a typical power consumption rating greater than 13.5 watts. Replacing these drives with a 1 TB WD GP hard drive can cut that rating by over 5 watts, significantly reducing heat, power consumption and cost.
Ensuring Energy Efficiencies:
The GP family of hard drives employs technologies and features that are designed to deliver power savings as the primary attribute. GP drives deliver average power savings of 4-5 watts compared with conventional drives. In addition, these solid performing drives are the coolest and quietest in their class. The following technologies enable WD’s GP platform.
• IntelliPower™: A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and cache size designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance.
• IntelliPark™: Delivers lower power consumption by automatically unloading the heads during idle to reduce aerodynamic drag.
• IntelliSeek™: Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration.
For more information on WD’s new GP hard drive family, visit WD at http://www.wdc.com/en/company/greenpower.asp.
About WD
WD, one of the storage industry’s pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company produces reliable, high-performance hard drives that keep users’ data close-at-hand and secure from loss. WD applies its storage expertise to consumer products for external, portable and shared storage products.
WD was founded in 1970. The company’s storage products are marketed to leading systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company’s Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.
