Western Digital Green (2.5in) review

Although 2.5in disk drives are commonly used for laptops, they’re not the intended destination for Western Digital’s Green 2.5in hard disk drive. This is because, with a height of 15mm, it simply won’t fit in laptop bays that typically accept 5mm, 7mm or 9.5mm drives.

Instead, despite its name, the Western Digital Green 2.5in is designed to be used in desktop PCs or custom enclosures. Its smaller 2.5in form factor is more often seen in All-In-One (AIO) desktops, so if you’re looking to upgrade your AIO’s internal storage, it’s worth checking whether yours takes 2.5in or 3.5in drives. Most regular PC cases will also happily accept the 2.5in drive in any slots designed for SSDs. The Green Mobile is available in either 2TB or 1.5TB capacities, which work out as 5p per GB and 6p per GB respectively.

These thicker 2.5in hard disks have come to market as typically they generate less heat and are more power-efficient than typical 3.5in hard disks. Like Western Digital’s 3.5in Green hard disk range, the 2.5in Green disks use Western Digital’s “IntelliPower” and “IntelliSeek” technologies, which help reduce the disk’s power consumption the amount of vibration as the disk spins up and down.

The Green 2.5in uses a conventional SATA3 connector and has 8MB of cache. Usefully, if you’re looking to migrate data from an existing drive, Acronis True Image WD Edition is available as a free download from Western Digital’s website and will work with any of Western Digital’s drives.

We tested both the 1.5TB and 2TB versions and performance was similar for both disks. In our large-file speed test, the 1.5TB disk managed a read speed of 135.6MB/s while the 2TB drive managed 144.2MB/s. Write speeds were 103.6MB/s and 113.3MB/s, meaning the 2TB drive was fractionally faster overall. In our small files test the 1TB drive had a read speed of 65MB/s, which was matched by the 2TB drive. Write speeds were 79.9MB/s and 83.7MB/s, which are above average for a 2.5in hard disk.

Overall performance from the Western Digital Green Mobile was very respectable, and the price per GB is competitive. If you don’t have a specific need for this form factor, however, Western Digital’s 3.5in version of the Green is obviously better value and offers higher capacities and performance, making it a better choice.