I remember reading somewhere on the Internet that the Caviar Red, Green and Blue drives of the same capacity are all physically identical to each other, and that the only thing that separates them is the type of firmware they run. If that be the case, then there is physically no reason why Western Digital cannot release 2-3TB Caviar Blues, so I was wondering whether it would be possible to change the firmware of the 2-3TB Caviar Greens such that they operate like 2-3TB Caviar Blues.
I know this sounds drastic, and could even void my warranty, but that’s a small price to pay to get the hard drive of my dreams. The Blacks are much too noisy for everyday use, and the Reds and Greens spin at a ridiculously low 5400-5900rpm. The Blues are the sweet spot between both these extremes, but alas, they also come in ridiculously low capacities.
Since Western Digital seems determined to phase out the Caviar Blue drives altogether and force everyone who wants a quiet drive to put up with increasingly low spindle speeds or capacities, could you please tell me how to disable all the green, power saving features on the Caviar Green drives (such as Intellipower and Intellipark) and increase the spindle speed to a full 7200rpm?
It used to be easy to get a quiet 7200rpm hard drive, but now Western Digital’s trying to make it as difficult as possible. They certainly do have the technology to make quiet 7200rpm hard drives if they really want to, as evidenced by the 10EZEX, but I think I’ll be an old man by the time the 20EZEX and 30EZEX models are released. Could you please tell me how to turn the 20EZRX and 30ZERX models into 20EZEX and 30EZEX ones so I don’t have to keep on waiting for Western Digital to release them?
Hello,
I honestly doubt that, and in case that someone was able to do so, it will void the warranty of the unit since is not a supported configuration.
Please note that the PCB board of the drives are different from each other, so again it might not be possible.
1 Like
Thanks for your advice. I already came to a similar conclusion myself, but I wanted to leave the question open for several more days just in case my conclusion was wrong. My original reasoning was that a hard drive’s spindle speed could be overclocked, in much the same was as a processor or video card, but when I thought about it a bit more, I realised that unless the manufacturers have specifically tested the hard drives at the higher spindle speeds and guaranteed that they work properly, there is always the potential for loss of data due to the disks moving much faster than the rest of the components are able to keep up with.
I’ve been told that one of the reasons the Black drives are so noisy is because they need a dual-stage actuator in order to ensure that the data isn’t corrupted at the higher 7200rpm spindle speed, and if that be the case, then the concern with flashing a Green drive with Blue firmware is that it might not work properly without that dual-stage actuator. The other obvious problem, of course, is that the Blue firmware itself would probably have a specific capacity built into it, and if that be the case, then I would probably have to alter the firmware itself in order to make it recognise a larger capacity.
Combined with the knowledge that the PCB boards are different for both the Green and the Blue drives, I would have great difficulty trusting my data to a Green hard drive that had been flashed with Blue firmware, even if I was able to find a way to do it. Hence, I think I’ll just sit back and wait for you (Western Digital) to release higher-capacity Caviar Blues when you’re good and ready, because there are just too many risks involved in doing anything else. Reliability is always going to be a much more important issue to me than speed, capacity or acoustics, and that is the main reason I’ve decided against trying to flash a Green drive with Blue firmware. Anyway, thanks for providing confirmation that I’ve made the correct decision.
