Western Digital pushes GreenPower hard drives
updated 03:50 pm EDT, Mon July 23, 2007
Western Digital GreenPower
Western Digital is following in the popular trend of "green" technology with its new GreenPower drives, designed to meet the Energy Star 4.0 standard. This may be able to reduce power consumption by as much as 40 percent, in turn contributing to lower demands on power stations. For most users the major incentive will be cost savings: while desktop drives will generally save $2-3 per year, these savings rise to $5-7 in consumer electronics (DVR units, etc.), and $10 in enterprise drives. A datacenter with 1,000 drives could (theoretically) cut power costs by more than $10,000.
The first GreenPower drive is to be the 1TB Caviar GP, shipping later this month with updated My Book external hard drives. Separate desktop drives will arrive in August. In the third quarter of the year, the first electronics and enterprise-level drives should begin shipping en masse.
