Samsung EcoGreen (500GB) review

This 500GB disk boasts several features dedicated to conserving power. NoiseGuard and SilentSeek - which are both present on standard SpinPoint drives - reign in power usage, and Automatic Acoustic Management limits noise output, too.

Consequently, idle power draw was limited to 5W - that's 1W higher than the draw of Western Digital's Caviar Green drives, but a few watts lower than the majority of the standard desktop drives.

Performance suffers, though. A result of 83.2MB/sec in the read test is slower than most, while its write speed of 68.7MB/sec isn't much better. An access time of 1ms is more encouraging, however, bringing the EcoGreen into line with some of the faster SpinPoint products.

It's slower than a couple of the larger Caviar Green drives too, but the EcoGreen is faster and cheaper than its direct competition, the 500GB Caviar Green. In the face of this evidence, it's clear that if you're looking for an eco-friendly drive on the cheap, the EcoGreen is the one to buy.

Author: Mike Jennings