Western Digital 750GB WD Black Performance Mobile Hard Drive - 7200 RPM Class, SATA 6 Gb/s, , 16 MB Cache, 2.5"

When any of my friends or family need a laptop, they usually ask me to find something for them. This is the hard drive I almost invariably pick. The computer I'm writing this review on is sporting a WD7500BPKX. I give this hard drive 5 stars, but in reality, I would like to give it 4.9. While close to perfection, the drive does fall short in one area: noise. More on that later.I hadn't been with WD since the ATA Scorpio days, but a few years ago, I found this drive on Passmark's charts as the fastest mechanical 2.5" drive that runs reasonably cool. Thicker enterprise 2.5" drives can be quite quick, but aren't always appropriate for laptops because they run hot and obstruct airflow.Pros:Speed: This drive is quite fast. Most 2.5" drives are painfully slow. While this drive is still a mechanical drive, you'll get a noticeable performance boost.Reliability: I've installed about a dozen of these, to the point where I know the model number off the top of my head. No failures or SMART flags set to-date. I don't turn some computers off, I've had these drives stand up to years of use.Durability: I try really hard not to drop laptops, but it does happen. I haven't broken one, none of my customers have yet either. Not a scientific test, but no glaring issues observed thus far.Temperature:After hours of use in an HP Probook 6735b, the drive remains at 38*c.The same drive in a Lenovo T500 rarely passes 34*c.This is the ideal operating temperature for a laptop hard drive. Over 40*c is getting warm, while over 50*c can be a concern. Interestingly, if you’re up on hard drive technology, temperatures under 30*c are also associated with issues. This drive keeps it right between the buoys at 34-38*c in most system.Cons:Noise: Bearing noise is quiet and consistent, but you'll hear a 'white noise' or ‘shudder’ sound when the drive is seeking heavily. Not disruptive at all in a productivity setting, but with two computers running these in front of me now, I can most definitely hear them both. You will also occasionally hear the head load/unload noise as a subtle click. Again, nothing disruptive, most will not even notice. This drive is likely a little louder than your laptop’s fan.Overall:This is a very well-engineered drive. Noise is the only place where these drives fall short. You will know you have them whenever you're working in a quiet space. However, they seem to be reliable, and they're definitely fast. I’ve attached a screenshot of the Crystal Disk Mark results of this hard drive versus a standard OEM drive (probably like the one your computer came with). The results speak for themselves: the WD7500BPKX is significantly faster in many respects.UPDATE: Nov 2016 -I've put many, many of these into service now. This is still my favorite hard drive. Many of the units have years of service on them now. Still ZERO failures. Woo hoo!

The media could not be loaded. I installed this on my laptop and it works great. This works as a third hard drive, using another product I bought here on amazon. I'll post the link near the bottom. This way I don't have to take out my external hard drive while at the airport, long drives, client meetups, etc.Keep in mind:This drive runs at up to 6Gbps because of its SATA-III technology. If your laptop's SATA bus is SATA-I or SATA-II, this drive will not perform at its best. General rule of thumb: your linked devices work as fast as your slowest component. So if you buy this drive, make sure your computer can take advantage of the SATA-III bus.Because the drive is always spinning, it will drain your battery faster. This is specially true if this is your second or third drive connected to your laptop.It can be a little noisy when it's in use (small hiss from the spinning) but it's almost on par (maybe quieter) than the cooling fans. It's no big deal during the day, but at night when everything is quiet, is easy to hear it.The video I'm posting was edited from this new hard drive. As opposed to the previous hard drive I worked on, there is a significant improvement in performance while editing (1080p, 2.7k and 4k). Playback, rendering and publishing is definitely less stressful, without the long waits for it to finish (as compared to the 5400 RPM SATA-II drive I was using prior to this one).if your computer has SATA-I, the disk will run at up to 1.5Gbps <- hardly seen anymoreIf SATA-II, up to 3Gbps <- Common on budget laptops. SSD and SATA-III drives will hardly see any performance improvement.If SATA-III, it'll run up to 6Gbps <- what you want for this drive to perform at its best.Aside from speed, the 5 year warranty was definitely one of the major selling points when I bought this drive. Make sure you register it as soon as you get it. The warranty runs from the moment you bought it (not the moment you received it). I am definitely able to edit video and VR faster while using my laptop and this drive.Other Information:I like WD drives for ages. I only buy other brands if I have no other choice, but for the most part, I trust the brand better than the rest.SATA-III 7200RPM at 6Gbps definitely make a difference with video and VR editing; but I might just buy the blue 7200 RPM SATA-III drive variant for regular storage, imaging and web work.A second or third black drive may kill my battery way too quickly.And for the main drive, I'll definitely replace it for an SSD of at least 512GB.While this drive is definitely great for being a primary hard drive, I suggest you get an SSD for your OS and Software, and use this one for storage and projects, specially if you deal with video and very large files, ASSUMING you are able to install more than one drive in your computer...I bought this through Amazon Prime, so I knew it would arrive quickly and on the expected date. I was extremely pleased when it arrived on Sunday morning. The packaging it came in, was a big brown box that contained a smaller OEM box. Here, the drive was safely padded against external vibrations. I had it up and running by noon that same day.This is the caddy I used for turning my Blue-ray tray into a third hard drive bay:SATA Hard Drive Tray,Universal 12.7mm SATA to SATA 2nd SSD HDD Hard Drive Caddy Adapter Tray Enclosures for DELL HP LENOVO ThinkPad ACER Gateway ASUS SONY SAMSUNG MSI Laptop By Best shop 2016

Easy to install. runs great. fast too for a HD. For desk top only