Western Digital Internal Hard Drive Firmware Update

Western Digital has blown past the 2-terabyte barrier with a new iii.5-inch difficult bulldoze that has a whopping 3 TB of storage capacity. Drives larger than 2 TB were until recently impossible to use, because older computers could not recognize drive sizes larger than 2.2 TB.

The new SATA drive is part of WD’southward Caviar Light-green line and can exist used equally an external storage device or as an internal disk on select systems. The drive has a suggested retail price of $239 and is available in the United States. Western Digital too announced a 2.5 TB drive for $189. Both drives come with a 3-year limited warranty, and are non sold with a hard drive enclosure.

Dining on Green Caviar

With three TB of storage capacity, Western Digital says you can store up to 600,000 digital photos or 750,000 MP3 song files or 360 hours of 720p or 1080i high-definition video. Western Digital’s pricing means you’re paying a picayune less than $0.08 per gigabyte on the 3 TB drive and $0.09 with the 2.five TB model.

The new Caviar Green models accept 750 GB on each drive platter (the 3 TB organisation has iv platters). The disks rotate at 5400 rpm, have a 64MB enshroud and a 3-gigabit per 2d transfer speed. Many difficult drives spin at 7200rpm or faster, but WD’s lower rpm speed allows the drive to be more than eco-friendly by consuming less power, hence the “Dark-green” in Caviar Green.

The 2 TB Barrier

Older computers, typically Windows XP-era computers and older, used a segmentation scheme chosen the master boot record (MBR) that made it impossible to recognize bulldoze sizes larger than 2.2 TB. Modern operating systems such as Windows Vista, 7 and Mac OS X Leopard and Snowfall Leopard apply the GUID partition table (GPT) and are able to recognize the larger drive sizes.

The GPT partitioning scheme is part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), an industry standard designed to modernize the kick process.

Who Can Utilise WD’south New 2.5 and 3 TB Drives

Nigh any Windows or Mac calculator tin can apply WD’southward new Green Caviar 3 TB drive as an external hard drive, with the exception of Windows XP systems. If you have an XP system you are out of luck, as WD’southward new drives do not support your system. The new Caviar Green drives tin can as well exist used equally an internal secondary drive for all 64-fleck systems, also every bit Windows Vista and Windows 7 32-bit systems.

If you desire to use the new two.5 or three TB bulldoze as your chief kicking disk, things get a little bit hairier. Only 64-bit systems tin employ the new large-size drives as their primary hard drive. That puts Mac Os 10 Leopard and Snowfall Leopard in the clear, co-ordinate to WD, only Windows Vista and 7 users will have to make sure they are non using the 32-bit versions of those systems. To check whether yous are running a 32-bit or 64-flake version of Windows click on Start>Figurer so right-click on Backdrop. And then expect for the line that says “Organisation type.”

Mac users should know that WD’due south new drives do not support
Boot Military camp, therefore they cannot exist used as a dual-kick hard drive.

Western Digital says some Linux systems volition also support the drives. Linux users should check with their Bone provider to come across if your system offers support.

More Caviar Complications

Even if you have the correct operating system, your computer hardware may non exist running the right firmware to hands use the new 2.5 TB and 3 TB drives. Some modern computers are hybrids that use the GPT partition system, but also use legacy BIOS firmware — the showtime software that loads at kicking fourth dimension — instead of the newer UEFI standards. For those systems, WD has bundled a special Advanced Host Controller Interface Host Bus Adapter with all ii.five TB and three TB drives. The HBA hooks into a PCI-Express card slot and includes driver support for the larger capacity drives.

Earlier attempting to install the new Caviar Dark-green drives, Western Digital advises y’all to check with your motherboard or hard drive enclosure manufacturer for any special requirements your arrangement may have for supporting larger chapters drives.

If using Western Digital’s new 3 TB drives sounds like too much work, some other alternative is to get with
Seagate’s FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external drive. Seagate’s drive comes with a difficult drive enclosure, and volition work with systems running Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Mac OS X x.4.ix or college.

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