Is the Western Digital 6Gbps 2TB Caviar Green the right choice?

runswithascript

I am out of space on my drive for media and Windows programs and I have been considering a Western Digital 2TB SATA 6Gbps Power Saving Internal Hard Drive OEM - Caviar Green WD20EARX for £98.63/€118.757 delivered.

My current drive is displayed in GParted as a 298GB ATA ST3320620AS although googling that model number tells me it's a 320 GB Seagate Barracuda.

On this drive I have segmented the following partitions:

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        7273    58414048+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            7273       38914   254154752    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            7273        9231    15727600   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            9231       11030    14448640   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           11030       38391   219781120    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8           38391       38913     4192256   82  Linux swap / Solaris

The largest partition is used for media storage and accessible from Windows and linux. The other two main partitions are for Windows XP and linux my primary OS.

I find this drive very slow for loading games like CoD4: MW1 and World of Warcraft but the most pressing problem is having to delete old and wanted media to download newer more wanted media.

I was thinking that once I have the new drive I can copy all my media to it, back up the OS partitions on it, format the old drive and then reinstall my old partitions to it with a larger Windows partition. I could then replace the old drive with an SSD in 6 to 12 months when the prices have hopefully dropped for a decent size.

What do you think?

Nothingbetter2d

dont use that drive as your c drive.... green edition hard drives have slower read times and your pc will run really slowly.... my dad's was like that until i put in a barracuda 10000rpm drive as his c drive...now his pc runs really fast.

runswithascript

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

dont use that drive as your c drive.... green edition hard drives have slower read times and your pc will run really slowly.

dusf wrote: »

I was thinking that once I have the new drive I can copy all my media to it, back up the OS partitions on it, format the old drive and then reinstall my old partitions to it with a larger Windows partition. I could then replace the old drive with an SSD in 6 to 12 months when the prices have hopefully dropped for a decent size.

The third it refers to my old drive, although admittedly I could have made that clearer

Would you choose the WD drive I have mentioned for media storage or something else?

*That is to say, would you use a different drive for media storage.

GreenWolfe

dusf wrote: »

The third it refers to my old drive, although admittedly I could have made that clearer

Would you choose the WD drive I have mentioned for media storage or something else?

*That is to say, would you use a different drive for media storage.

WD use those Green HDD's for a lot of their external drives, it would be fine.

runswithascript

EarthlyPangaea wrote: »

WD use those Green HDD's for a lot of their external drives, it would be fine.

I'm sure it would be fine, but what I am asking is if there is a better drive for media.

Skerries

as long as you can play your avi's or whatever without lag then you don't need anything more from an external drive other than transfer speed and that seems a good price for an external considering the HD shortage

runswithascript

Skerries wrote: »

as long as you can play your avi's or whatever without lag then you don't need anything more from an external drive other than transfer speed and that seems a good price for an external considering the HD shortage

It's for internal use.

Well, personally for my money, I need the best available media drive I can get which is why I am asking if it is what people would recommend.

I like this drive because it's energy efficient but seems fast enough for media, but that is not to say that there's not a drive out there that does both of these better and/or possibly cheaper unbeknownst to me which is the reason for the thread.

Firblog

Be careful what you're buying, AFIK WD are reducing the warranty on all drives (except black) down to 1 year from 3..