VR-Zone

A new revision of the Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB (WD20EARS) has been spotted in some stores at Singapore's popular tech-haunt, Sim Lim Square.

It is easy to spot the revised WD20EARS (the drive pictured on the left). Traditionally, Western Digital's 2TB Caviar Green and Caviar Black sport a black metal insert on the top of the drive; not with the revised model.

The underside of the drives suggest that both units employ a four-platter design. However, the new revision WD20EARS has a shrunken PCB.

The older WD20EARS code is WD20EARS-00S8B1, while the code on the revised model is WD20EARS-00J2GB0.

Now, comparing to a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB WD10EARS, both drives look pretty similar, with identical stainless steel tops.

It is obvious that the WD10EARS (pictured on the right) uses lesser platters than the WD20EARS, but both drives use the smaller PCB.

We are thinking that this update by Western Digital might be related to manufacturing ease and costs, rather than performance improvements, but perhaps readers who have gotten hold of the -00J2GB0 revision could share a benchmark or two on our forums.