Western Digital Launches 2 TB Green Hard DriveWestern Digital Launches 2 TB Green Hard Drive

Western Digital on Tuesday introduced a 2-TB hard drive to its environmentally friendly Caviar Green product line.

WD believes many consumers are ready for such a large capacity drive to store video, pictures, audio, and other files in their expanding media libraries. Quoting market intelligence firm Trend Focus, the hard-drive maker claims about 10% of 3.5-inch drives sold today are at the 1-TB level or higher.

The Caviar Green product line is one of WD's most successful product lines. The line leverages WD's GreenPower, a collection of technologies designed to reduce power consumption. The drives are designed for use in USB, FireWire, and eSATA external hard drives, desktop computers, workstations, and desktop RAID environments.

"With the launch of the new WD Caviar Green 2-TB hard drive, customers receive the additional capacities needed to operate today's highly advanced programs and high-resolution digital files while using less power than typical drives with similar performance and capacities," Jim Morris, senior VP and general manager of client systems at WD, said in a statement.

The latest drive has a 32-MB cache and a SATA interface with a maximum data-transfer rate of 3 Gbps. The product consumes 7.4 watts in read/write mode and 4 watts at idle. In standby and sleep mode, the drive consumes less than a watt.

The 2-TB drive, available at WD resellers and distributors, has a manufacturer suggested retail price of $299. The model number is WD20EADS.

WD and main rival Seagate are the world's two largest hard-disk drive suppliers, accounting for about 60% of the market. Neither company, however, has been immune from the economic downturn.

WD in December announced plans to cut 5% of its workforce, or 2,500 employees, to cut costs. Seagate this month said it would cut around 10% of its U.S. workforce. The company employs about 54,000 people, with the majority working in the United States.