Western Digital Caviar Green (640GB) review

Western Digital's 640GB Caviar Green is the most environmentally-friendly drive in this month's Labs. The 500GB and 1TB Caviar Green drives consume a meagre 4W, but the 640GB model uses only 3W of electricity.

Performance was less impressive, though. The Caviar Green's benchmark results of 68.8MB/sec for file reading and 64.6MB/sec for writing were only quicker than two other drives on test: the disappointing Samsung SpinPoint 500GB and the 500GB Caviar Green.

Other results were similarly modest. The drive's burst speed of 215MB/sec is on the slow side, and the average sequential read speed of 75.3MB/sec is beaten by most of the other drives in the Labs.

Good value is on offer alongside the excellent environmental performance, though, and at 7.8p/GB it's in the top half of our value leader board. However, the lack of performance makes this drive a less enticing prospect than either of its Caviar Green counterparts.

Author: Mike Jennings