[Brian]

Western Digital has both announced and started shipping their 5th generation Caviar Green hard drive. Of course the major highlight this time around is the monster 3TB capacity, a first for internal 3.5" hard drives. WD accomplishes this feat by leveraging Advanced Format and four 750GB platters. In addition to the 3TB model (WD30EZRSDTL) there's also a 2.5TB (WD25EZRSDTL) capacity available. Other drive highlights include a 64MB buffer, 3Gb/s SATA interface and quoted standby power consumption of only 1W. While the high capacity is surely a blessing to many users, there are certain risks WD is taking by going to market right now. We'll dive into these potential compatibility issues and take a look a performance numbers in this review.

Full Review

[Frith]

I use XP 32bit and currently backup my data to 2TB drives using a Sharkoon eSATA docking station. From the review it sounds like I wouldn't be able to use these new 3TB drives in the same way. However, Sharkoon also do a USB3 docking station (seen here) and the table indicates that external USB is supported. Before I run out and buy a load of 3TB drives I was just hoping somebody could confirm I've interpreted this correctly and that 3TB drives will work with the Sharkoon USB3 docking station XP 32bit?

Also, it sounds like they're working on XP support. Do you think there will be a way to get the 3TB drives working internally with XP in the future?

This post has been edited by Frith: 19 October 2010 - 09:34 AM

[Brian]

I think XP support will come, in our briefing they at least made it sound like that.

As to the external dock, I think it's 50/50 at best. I just don't know how it's going to be interpreted by that device and Windows.

[steve8]

why is there no noise data in this review?

[Frith]

Brian, on 19 October 2010 - 10:44 AM, said:

I think XP support will come, in our briefing they at least made it sound like that.

As to the external dock, I think it's 50/50 at best. I just don't know how it's going to be interpreted by that device and Windows.

Thanks for the information. I'll just buy one initially and see if it works. If it doesn't work I'll just create a 2TB and 1TB partition and use it as an internal drive.

[Ace]

For those of us who use a modern operating system like Windows 7, is there a way to turn off the 512-byte sector emulation completely and use 4k sectors natively with this drive?

[Brian]

Not that I'm aware of but I will double-check.

[Brian]

Double-checked - and no.

[Atamido]

Brian, on 19 October 2010 - 08:49 PM, said:

Double-checked - and no.

Wow, that's terrible. Even the 2TB version has a jumper to turn the 512 byte emulation on and off.

[player-x]

The review was as always good

But what for me at least was, was it possible to connect it strait to on-board SATA connector on different platforms and/ore do you need a BIOS update?

And how ware different RAID controllers doing, like i have a Promise SuperTrak EX16300, can those still be used ore are they limmited to 2TB only