Word from Western Digital today has it they've started shipping their latest Caviar GP (GreenPower) series of desktop HDDs to aussie distributors, these saving up to a staggering 40% in power consumption over regular drives.

The GP series also brings WD's first One Terabyte HDD into the market downunder as well, this monster coming in at an RRP of $559AUD.

A short video presentation on the new series can be viewed here. Also available is a PDF formatted sales sheet and the official PR.

SYDNEY - AUSTRALIA , July 30, 2007 -Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced a new environmentally friendly GreenPower™ family of WD® desktop, enterprise, CE and external hard drive products. The new GreenPower (GP) family will ship in capacities from 320 gigabytes (GB) to one terabyte (TB), and will save up to 40% in hard drive power consumption, or as much as AU$11.75 (US$10) per drive per year.

Based on extensive customer input toward supporting ENERGY STAR 4.0 compliance and incorporating the latest in engineering technology, WD has delivered the first 3.5-inch hard drive platform designed with power savings as the primary attribute. The GreenPower family gives customers more choices when it comes to purchasing hard drives. The initial drive that will take advantage of WD's new GreenPower technology is the WD Caviar GP. The WD Caviar GP 1 TB hard drive will first ship in July in the My Book™ range of storage appliances, with 1 TB desktop channel shipments following in August 2007. GreenPower versions of WD RE enterprise drives and WD AV consumer electronics drives will ship in volume within calendar Q3.