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Thread ID: 107161	2010-02-06 22:26:00	FYI: Resolving speed issues with Western Digital Caviar Green HDs on XP OS	braindead (1685)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
855862	2010-02-06 22:26:00	I'll pass this on...might help someone else. Problem: XP SP3 system runs more slowly than expected after replacing Seagate 500Gb primary drive with Western Digital Caviar Green 1Tb drive. Solution: Western Digital Caviar Green 1Tb (or larger) (support.wdc.com) use Advanced Format Technology, designed primarily for newer Vista and Windows 7 OS. If you plan to use one of these WD drives and you want the full read/write speeds these drives are capable of, you will need to download and use WD's Advanced Format Hard Drive Utility (www.wdc.com). The preferred method is to use this utility to re-align your WD HD for XP before you install your data etc to it. This way is much much faster. I've just been through the re-align process with data on all 5 partitions of my HD and although it took overnight to complete, it went without a hitch. The speed difference before and after is stunningly worthwhile. The process is fully automated. Cheers	braindead (1685)
855863	2010-02-06 22:49:00	Great but the WD green drives are meant to run slow to save power, reduce noise etc. They speed up and slow automatically depending on the use. Might as well have got a WD Blue HDD if you were going to disable the Green features.	CYaBro (73)
855864	2010-02-07 04:12:00	OP is correct, and the mentioned utility is not about disabling the 'green' features. Bottom line, if using a WD green with Advanced Formatting, as noted by the OP, with windows XP, you should definately use the utility, any other OS, do not use the utility.	jackM (14814)
855865	2010-02-07 18:16:00	Thanks for this! It explains a lot! A long process of verifying and comparing files should now become awhole lot shorter, hopefully. I was puzzled why the process was so painfully slow, and was blaming the software for the inefficiencies.	Paul.Cov (425)
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