This is truly a fantastic drive! It transforms a SATA 2 equipped Lenovo X61 into a compact powerhouse. Finally we can get excellent read/write speeds and high capacity in a notebook drive without going broke on an SSD. The only reason for the 4/5 and not 5/5 is because this drive is noticeably noisier that the stock drive. This is only a minor inconvenience, and barely takes away from my overall satisfaction of the drive. Highly recommended, especially at this price!
I won this hard drive in a forum contest about 2.5 years ago and I immediately put it in my G50VT laptop. It has been running nearly 24/7 for that period of time (1.8 years of PowerOn Hours Count in S.M.A.R.T.) for storage and file hosting uses. In that period is has been 100% reliable. It does put out a bit more heat than a low powered 5400RPM drive but not a concern at all. My friend has it in her netbook and is doesn't run very hot in it so it might just be my laptop. It is decently fast. The STR is pretty good, and the random access speed and data rate therein is decent too. But, it's no speed demon. No mobile mechanical drive is. If you want good performance so that the drive isn't a bottleneck in a modern super computer laptop, get a hybrid drive or better yet an SSD. There are no other choices. Now to the downsides; The number of "load/unload Cycle Count" in the S.M.A.R.T., which is the number of times the read/write heads have unramped away from the platters to reduce drag so the platter motor doesn't have to work as hard to save power, is 170,983 times! If you look at the specs for the drive, it is rated for 600,000 cycles. That doesn't mean that at 600K it'll stop working or have any problems, it's just something to note. The main issue is that every time the heads park, it makes a rather loud clicking noise. Slightly annoying but totally ignorable. You can shut off head parking by shutting off APM power management via software utilities, but it is reset on every restart. The second issue, and far more important; Just a few days ago I took a look at the S.M.A.R.T. report and I saw 1 Reallocation Sector Count and 1 "Current Pending Sector Count". I ran a full read surface test with chkdsk and then the pending number rose to "2". So far it is working fine. But the reason for the 2 bad sectors is unknown. The laptop hasn't been subject to big shocks and the drive is rated for a huge 350g shock. So, it's either contaminants in the drive or platter material degradation I think. I will continue using it. It may continue to function fine for years to come. Overall it's a nice fast drive and at least fairly if not very reliable and it is fairly quiet (spindle speed is loudest, seeking is quiet) except for the head parking sound that occur every few minutes when idle. Now, 3 stars is "average". There is nothing that stands out with this drive versus the competition. It isn't that much faster or faster at all than other companies 750GB 7200RPM laptop drives, and I guess reliability isn't either. But it's a nice drive that I trust. But I'm keeping a data backup just in case.Read full review
SATA III (6 Gb/sec) is of no advantage to any drive that has moving parts, when the data rates internally are around the 220 MB/s range -- this one rotates at 7,200 rpm, which is a huge advantage over the typical 2.5" hdd, and still uses at most 1-3/4 watts (and as little as 1/5th ~;-) :: EDIT to clarify: Gb/s = gigabits per second, and MB/s = megabytes per second. And, there are eight bits in a byte, which might explain why your connection to the 'net appears to be 1/8th the speed you'd anticipated. Anyhow ... More importantly, WD's black denotes enterprise level .. much more rugged, and longer lasting, and capable of continuous operation 'round the clock. All that, and guaranteed for 5 years? Among the last of it's kind. You, as a WD drive owner, also have access to their downloads, including excellent tools like a version of Acronis True Image that only requires a WD drive be connected to your system; that, alone, is worth a few extra bucks. And, now that most folks think that SATA II is somehow slower, even when/where SSDs are not installed, these things are becoming dirt cheap. Love it.Read full review
This is a perfect upgrade for your new Quad-Core Macbook Pro. Although Apple offers a 750GB drive option, it's not 7200rpm and that's a shame-their drive options limit an otherwise excellent machine. The speed of this drive in a new quad-core i7 15" Macbook Pro is astounding, and places this machine squarely at the desktop replacement level. It's quiet (as quiet as the stock 5400 rpm drive) and I can feel zero vibration. Battery life seems excellent, topping 7 hours with web surfing, MS Word, and less intensive applications that are not disk-intensive or use the discrete graphics.
this notebook hard drive arrive quickly and in good condition. though i can't find any 7200 rpm. verification on the hard drive, it is as fast, if not faster than the original hard drive. thankyou
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in Internal Hard Disk Drives
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Save on Internal Hard Disk Drives