Western Digital recently announced a new 2 Terabyte enterprise hard disk drive that has 64MB cache. This HDD has been specifically designed for use in data centers.
The new HDD, the WD RE4-GP, features the latest generation of the storage company's GreenPower technology with IntelliPower, allowing the HDD to alter platter speed and caching algorithms depending on usage. WD uses GreenPower to reduce power consumption up to 50 percent, as more IT managers look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce electricity costs in data centers.
IntelliSeek and IntelliPark features also allow the HDD to limit seek time and parks the drive head so power consumption is lowered even further than previous HDDs.
The HDD can be used by home PC users since it's an SATA-enabled device, while most HDDs used in the enterprise use the SAS interface.
"Every data center in operation worldwide contributes to CO2 emissions, and storage systems are at the core of these data centers," IDC research director John Rydning said in a statement. "Many storage applications are a great fit for high-capacity, low power-consuming disk drives like the WD RE4-GP 2 TB that help to reduce power consumption and positively impact the environment."
The new HDD also has a 1.2 million hour MTBF (mean time before failure) in high duty cycle environments, which the HDD says makes it a sturdy product for enterprise usage.
The WD RE4-GP HDD is available now for $329 MSRP.
In January, WD became the first manufacturer to release a 2TB HDD, which caused competing companies to announce and release their own 2TB products. However, the popularity of increasing storage capacity while reducing power consumption is an interesting twist WD hopes will help differentiate its product from others on the market.
