Western Digital 3TB Caviar Green Drive

Did anyone miss the memo about 2.5TB hard drives? Oh well, I suppose more is better. It’s funny how long we’ve been stuck at 2TB drives. If you’re in the market for one of these awesome new 3 terabyte drives, keep in mind they’ll require an add-on card it comes with to support booting off it (thanks legacy BIOS). Still awesome though.

Just like the 2TB version before it, this drive has some limitations that you need to be aware of. The first is that the drive uses what is called Advanced Format to store data on the platters (any drive over 2.2TB in size uses Advanced Format). This makes it incompatible with some older motherboards. Because motherboard manufacturers aren’t going to go back and release a BIOS update for all of their older boards, Western Digital includes PCI-E HBA (Host Bus Adapter) card that will work with the drive. The bundled card is a HighPoint Rocket 620 SATA III card that has a low-profile bracket. This can be a pain if you don’t have a low profile case. What I did to get around it was to remove the screws that hold on the mounting bracket. You can then fit it behind an existing PCI slot cover.

TechWare Labs