Western Digital introduces new GreenPower HDDs - bit-tech.net Forums

Tim S · 24th Jul 2007, 09:37

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/07...enpower_hdds/1

Western Digital's new GreenPower family of hard drives will use up to 40 percent less energy.

Jamie · 24th Jul 2007, 09:52

Marketing BS.

If you want to use less power, get solid state!

Glider · 24th Jul 2007, 09:56

..Or turn of your PC when you don't need it...

Bindibadgi · 24th Jul 2007, 09:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

Marketing BS.

If you want to use less power, get solid state!

But where does it get to the point where we're not allowed to fart without planting a tree?

RTT · 24th Jul 2007, 10:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

Marketing BS.

If you want to use less power, get solid state!

Good luck getting big capacities then.. for the time being

C-Sniper · 24th Jul 2007, 10:18

sure we could go solid state. nothing like paying $8k for 512gigs of space

Jamie · 24th Jul 2007, 10:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by C-Sniper

sure we could go solid state. nothing like paying $8k for 512gigs of space

You know it will come down in price, look how cheap USB/stick memory is.

bilbothebaggins · 24th Jul 2007, 10:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Article

Home users could shave a couple of dollars a month off their home energy bills by migrating over to the less power hungry drives.

Of course, the PSU will have to actually translate that power saving over to the plug ...

TheVoice · 24th Jul 2007, 11:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

You know it will come down in price, look how cheap USB/stick memory is.

True, speeds need to increase too though. Bit-tech's own review of that SSD drive the other day didn't impress me much.

RTT · 24th Jul 2007, 11:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by bilbothebaggins

Of course, the PSU will have to actually translate that power saving over to the plug ...

Uh, well, unless i'm missing something, that's exactly what'll happen. Efficiency aside, it isn't like the PSU is constantly sucking 500W (or whatever) and burning off anything you aren't using in heat/noise etc.

More than happy to be corrected/proven wrong though

Glider · 24th Jul 2007, 11:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTT

Uh, well, unless i'm missing something, that's exactly what'll happen. Efficiency aside, it isn't like the PSU is constantly sucking 500W (or whatever) and burning off anything you aren't using in heat/noise etc.

More than happy to be corrected/proven wrong though

You are correct, but efficiency drops quite a lot when the PSU isn't under plenty of load.

Delphium · 24th Jul 2007, 11:42

I would have thought that the PSU would be more efficient under less load, as the unit runs cooler etc, so thus less heat given off and well more energy efficient

Nexxo · 24th Jul 2007, 12:33

^^^ Correctemundo.

Moreover, people are forgetting another benefit (besides laptop applications) of a 40% drop in power requirements: a 40% drop in heat generated. Think about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

You know it will come down in price, look how cheap USB/stick memory is.

Not quite as simple as that. We need more robust flash memory that can stand a lot more re-writes. We also need it to work faster. We need FRAM.

FRAM memory chips have memory cells that contain a specific ferroelectric material such as a crystal of zirconium or titanium, or oxygen and lead. FRAM is much faster than Flash, and has a near-unlimited number of write-erase cycles. Unfortunately chips produced are still at the Mbit, rather than Gbit stage...

DXR_13KE · 24th Jul 2007, 15:47

i like more efficient hard drives, i am thinking of buying one.

Amon · 24th Jul 2007, 15:56

Definitely useful for the datacenters while still moderately useful for home use. It would be great if entire neighbourhoods just used these drives for mass storage.

Bladestorm · 24th Jul 2007, 17:42

When I built my current rig I went with a WD hard drive for the main one and after a while discovered that some intermittent stability problems I was having likely came down to the hard drive overheating, I have since rearranged the components a bit to provide it with better airflow and switched the primary hdd over to a similar samsung spinpoint.

Now given my experience, where heat (and maybe a touch of noise) were the only complaints I had about the WD hdd, I'm not too surprised that they seem to have put some effort into getting the heat down

hitman012 · 24th Jul 2007, 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphium

I would have thought that the PSU would be more efficient under less load, as the unit runs cooler etc, so thus less heat given off and well more energy efficient

The unit running cooler has little to do with it, as efficiency is simply the ratio of input energy to useful output. It gives off less heat in absolute terms, but what you should be looking at is the heat output as a proportion of the input power.

Compared to linear regulators, the switch-mode power supplies in computers do not have a linear relationship between power and efficiency. It looks something like this (image stolen from Coding Horror):

You can see that at lower output levels the efficiency drops quite significantly, whereas the peak efficiency sits at around 50-60% of the rated output.

Da Dego · 24th Jul 2007, 20:08

Efficiency of pretty much any PSU not in the 80+ club is near abysmal at lower outputs. The closer you get to its theoretical max, the less energy is being wasted in the constant discharging. That's the beauty of 80+ PSUs, though....they have to be at least 80% efficiency across their load spectrum.

completemadness · 25th Jul 2007, 04:09

yeah as said above, 50-60% is about the sweet spot (people usually say about 2/3 - it depends on the PSU)

mattthegamer463 · 25th Jul 2007, 05:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexxo

We need FRAM.

FRAM memory chips have memory cells that contain a specific ferroelectric material such as a crystal of zirconium or titanium, or oxygen and lead. FRAM is much faster than Flash, and has a near-unlimited number of write-erase cycles. Unfortunately chips produced are still at the Mbit, rather than Gbit stage...

Nerd.

I agree with Jamie, its BS. If we focused on developing renewable sources of energy quicker we wouldn't be making a carbon footprint. If we had 10 trillion wind turbines and had 1000 times more power than we could ever need, wouldn't we all be leaving our computers and lights on constantly?

Electricity is not bad, the way we make it is. People need to keep that in mind to avoid marketing gimmicks.

24th Jul 2007, 09:37	#1
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Western Digital introduces new GreenPower HDDs http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/07...enpower_hdds/1 Western Digital's new GreenPower family of hard drives will use up to 40 percent less energy. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

24th Jul 2007, 09:52	#2
Jamie bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 7,621	Marketing BS. If you want to use less power, get solid state! __________________ bit-tech hosted by tsohost.co.uk twitter \| flickr \| last.fm \| moot \| PSN Jayseeyou

24th Jul 2007, 09:56	#3
Glider /dev/null Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 4,102	..Or turn of your PC when you don't need it... __________________ There Are 10 Types Of People, Those Who Know Binary and Those Who Don't

24th Jul 2007, 11:42	#12
Delphium You there computer man fix my pants Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: on teh interwebz Posts: 1,256	I would have thought that the PSU would be more efficient under less load, as the unit runs cooler etc, so thus less heat given off and well more energy efficient __________________ \| Asus P5N32-E SLI \| Q6600 G0 @3.0ghz Watercooled \| 8GB Corsair Dominator PC8500 @1066mhz 5-5-5-15 2T \| XFX GTX285 \| BFG 8800GTS \| XFX 9600GT \| 1x 128GB Crucial M225 SSD \| 5x 500GB Seagate SATA-II \| BFG 800W SLI PSU \| Logitech Z-5500 5.1ch speakers \| 3x Dell S2209W 22"wide TFT's (5760x1080res) \| 1x Panasonic 42"Plasma \| All working on Win7 Ultimate x64 \|

24th Jul 2007, 15:47	#14
DXR_13KE Madeira's banana is the best!!! Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Madeira ; Portugal Posts: 6,485	i like more efficient hard drives, i am thinking of buying one. __________________ RENEGADE X CONTEST! <---- CLICK if you want to win a free Command & Conquer 4 beta key!

24th Jul 2007, 15:56	#15
Amon inch-perfect Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: cannoning into the reds, Toronto, Canada Posts: 2,456	Definitely useful for the datacenters while still moderately useful for home use. It would be great if entire neighbourhoods just used these drives for mass storage. __________________ Defunct Socket 939 San Diego 4000+::2GB PC3200::Radeon 9600 SE 128MB::200GB HDD::24" Dell 2407WFP-HC::WinXP x64/x86 dual boot Dell Vostro 1500 laptop::Socket P Merom T7100::2GB PC5400::Go 8600m GT 256MB::660GB HDD::15.4" WXGA+, 24" Dell 2407WFP-HC::WinXP::Fanatec 911 Wheel+Pedals

24th Jul 2007, 17:42	#16
Bladestorm Hypermodder Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 682	When I built my current rig I went with a WD hard drive for the main one and after a while discovered that some intermittent stability problems I was having likely came down to the hard drive overheating, I have since rearranged the components a bit to provide it with better airflow and switched the primary hdd over to a similar samsung spinpoint. Now given my experience, where heat (and maybe a touch of noise) were the only complaints I had about the WD hdd, I'm not too surprised that they seem to have put some effort into getting the heat down __________________ Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @ 250x10 (1.475v) \| EVGA GTX 260 55nm SSC \| A8N-SLI Premium \| 2x(4GB) Corsair Twinx2048-PC3200C2 \| Asus Xonar DX \| Antec truepower 550w \| Akasa Eclipse-62 DDC12VPlus1, DD TDX, 3/8 tygon r3603 tubing, PA120.2, DD double floppy bay res

24th Jul 2007, 20:08	#18
Da Dego Brett Thomas Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Cleveland, OH USA Posts: 3,906	Efficiency of pretty much any PSU not in the 80+ club is near abysmal at lower outputs. The closer you get to its theoretical max, the less energy is being wasted in the constant discharging. That's the beauty of 80+ PSUs, though....they have to be at least 80% efficiency across their load spectrum. __________________ "Frankly that seems overkill. iluvtrees2 arguing with spec is the intellectual equivalent of a bunny rabbit taking on a pissed-off lion." - Nexxo

25th Jul 2007, 04:09	#19
completemadness Hypermodder Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 887	yeah as said above, 50-60% is about the sweet spot (people usually say about 2/3 - it depends on the PSU)