Best hard drive for a media center

A good question in today's Hardware 2.0 mailbag:

You talk a lot about "best kit" but I don't think I've seen you answer the following question - What's the best hard drive for a "build-your-own" media center? Thanks!

There are a lot of great drives out there, but if I was building a media center today I know exactly what drives I'd use - Western Digital's Caviar Green 1TB (WD10EADS) or, if I wanted even greater capacity, the 1.5TB model (WD15EADS). The 1TB flavor retails for around $1.5 while the 1.5TB drives is around $160. If you're really mad and want to put 2TB on a single driven then there is an even bigger drive (WD20EADS) but that'll set you back a lot of notes ($300).

Why pick the WD Green drives for a media center? Well, they're very quiet, even during start up or under quite heavy load, and they use less power than a regular drive (about 4 to 5W less) so they're also cooler. These are two features that you are looking for in a good media center drive.

While I like these drives and think that they are great for media centers, they're niche drives. I'd be reluctant to fit them into a desktop PC because performance isn't brilliant (so if you've loading large game files or huge Photoshop images, you'll be waiting longer with these drives). WD doesn't give a spindle speed for these drives (because they're each individually tuned at the factor to something between 5,400RPM and 7,200RPM) so performance is not only lower than a regular hard drive, but it's also hit-and-miss. I'm also not all that convinced that saving 4 - 5W of power per drive amounts to much.

Note: Here's what WD have to say about the eco-friendliness of these drives:

WD Caviar Green drives yield an average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over standard desktop drives making it possible for our energy-conscious customers to build systems with higher capacities and the right balance of system performance, ensured reliability, and energy conservation. This power savings equates to reducing CO₂ emission by up to 13.8 kilograms per drive per year - the equivalent of taking a car off the road for 3 days each year*. By using environmentally-conscious PCs with our WD Caviar Green drives on board, large organizations with many desktop computers can minimize their carbon footprint and save real money on electricity costs.

*Assumes that a car produces 1.60 CO₂ pounds per Kwatt/hours/year. Calculation of automobile emissions depends on the car's g/km emission levels and km/year of driving.

But for a media center, these drives are brilliant!

Keep the questions and comments rolling in - while I don't have time to respond to everything, I do read all m email!