Western Digital's Caviar Green 3TB Hard Drive Is World's Largest Capacity SATA Drive

Western Digital announced today that the company is beginning shipments of a brand new SATA hard drive. The new drive is already labeled as the world's biggest SATA hard drive, capacity wise. To add to the bullet points, though, WD decided to make the new hard drive part of their Caviar Green line-up of drives, making it an eco-friendly option for all those out there who think about that kind of stuff.

The new 3TB hard drive is the world's largest capacity SATA hard drive to date. It is also the latest edition to WD's Caviar Green lineage of SATA hard drives. As the title suggests, you can get the new hard drive at a maximum capacity of 3TB, which is equal to about 3,000GB. WD managed to wrangle up the ridiculous amount of space by placing 750GB of storage per-patter, along with Advanced Format (AF) technology.

The eco-friendly factor comes in the fact that WD's Caviar Green line-up of drives feature WD GreenPower Technology, which use lower operating temperatures by reducing power consumption. And, while the press release (which you can read below) focuses mainly on the larger 3TB drive, WD is also throwing in a new 2.5TB hard drive as well. You can pick both of them up right now through authorized resellers in the United States. The 2.5TB drive will cost you $189.00, while the 3TB model will run you $239.00.

Press Release

WD® Now Shipping the World's Largest Capacity SATA Hard Drives

WD Caviar® Green™ 3 TB Hard Drives Support the Continuing Demand for Increased Capacity in External Storage and Advanced PC Applications

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ — WD® (NYSE: WDC) today announced that the company is shipping the world's largest capacity SATA hard drive. As the latest addition to its WD Caviar® Green™ family of SATA hard drives (photo), the new hard drives deliver up to a massive 3 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity on a single drive. WD is leading the industry in capacity for SATA hard drives by utilizing 750 GB-per-platter areal density and Advanced Format (AF) technology.

WD Caviar Green drives are an eco-friendly storage solution with WD GreenPower Technology™, which reduces power consumption by enabling lower operating temperatures for increased reliability and decreases acoustical noise for quiet operation. The WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB and 3 TB hard drives are designed for use as secondary external storage and next-generation PC storage in 64-bit-based systems.

Drives with capacities in excess of 2.19 TB currently present barriers for PC hardware, firmware and software. To satisfy the new set of requirements of which users must be aware to successfully integrate larger capacity drives, WD is bundling its WD Caviar Green 2.5 and 3 TB hard drives with an Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI)-compliant Host Bus Adapter (HBA), which will enable the operating system to use a known driver with correct support for large capacity drives. For more information on solving the 2.19 TB drive barrier, please see the WD information sheet at http://products.wdc.com/largecapacitydrives.

"WD remains a leader of hard drive capacity and low power innovation. With our WD Caviar Green drives, we enable energy-conscious customers to build systems with the highest capacities that deliver the optimal balance of system performance, ensured reliability and energy conservation," said Jim Morris, executive vice president and general manager of WD's client systems storage group. "Customers will be able to take advantage of this breakthrough capacity point now for secondary external storage in legacy 32-bit systems that run on Microsoft® Vista® or Windows® 7 platforms."

Price and Availability

WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB hard drives (model number WD25EZRSDTL) and 3 TB hard drives (model number WD30EZRSDTL) are available now in the U.S. at select resellers and distributors. MSRP for the WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB hard drive is $189.00 USD and the 3 TB hard drive is $239.00 USD. WD Caviar Green hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty. More information about WD Caviar Green hard drives may be found on the company's website at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=866.