Western Digital Designed New GreenPower Version of its AV hard drives

Drawing on its
expertise as a leading supplier to major consumer electronics and surveillance
manufacturers worldwide, Western Digital Corp. has designed its
new GreenPower version of its WD AV hard drives with technologies
that provide cooler and quieter operation and lower power consumption.

WD’s GreenPower family of hard drives for desktop, enterprise and audio
video applications reduces power consumption by as much as 40 percent over
standard drives in their respective classes. The new WD AV-GP family of drives
offers capacities of 500 GB, 750 GB and one terabyte, and is
perfect for audio video applications such as DVRs (digital video recorders),
as well as surveillance video recording.

Audio and video recording applications, including DVRs, IP gateways and
mainstream surveillance systems, often demand 24×7 operation from hard drives,
have different requirements than personal computers, such as higher
reliability, universal compatibility, low-power consumption and the ability to
simultaneously record multiple audio and/or high-definition video streams.
Consumer applications such as DVRs with stringent environment and usage
profiles require hard drives to consume less power, generate less heat, and
operate quietly.

The following
technologies enable the WD AV-GP platform:

* IntelliPower -- A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate,
and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power
savings and solid performance. Additionally, GreenPower drives consume
less current during start up allowing more drives to spin up
simultaneously resulting in faster system readiness.
* IntelliSeek -- Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power
consumption, noise and vibration.
* IntelliPark -- Delivers lower power consumption by automatically
unloading recording heads during idle to reduce aerodynamic drag and by
disabling read/write channel electronics.

In addition to the sound-reducing properties of IntelliPower, IntelliSeek
and IntelliPark, WD utilizes multi-stage formed stainless steel top covers and
precision-designed base castings that minimize sound levels for consumer
sound-sensitive applications. The result is WD AV-GP drives emit less than one
sone, which is virtually below the threshold of human hearing.

Western Digital Corp.