Western Digital WD Blue 500GB SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Disk Drive with 7200 RPM & 16MB Cache

My use for these drives is to replace a couple of aging five year old 80GB drives in Windows XP and XP Media Center machines. Those drives are still running fine, however, for the price, I had absolutely no reason not to upgrade them at this time.I came across this drive middle of last week and Amazon was selling it new for $29 - I was scratching my head thinking "what's the deal" and "what's wrong with these drives"? Sure, even though they were above $25, Amazon was still charging for the shipping - so I took two to bring the per drive shipping down slightly. The old 3Gb version of this drive was selling for over $40 - so again, scratching my head about this. Maybe it was a pricing mistake? Whatever - it was a great price.The drives arrived yesterday, same standard OEM packaging all of my six other WD drives have come in over the past 9 months. I used Clonezilla to clone the old drives on to the new, it went smoothly without any issues. I'm storing the old drives just in case these new ones have any issues I won't have to rebuild the system drives from scratch.I know that the motherboards in my machines cannot make use of the 6Gb throughput, however, these drives are definitely faster than what they're replacing - older WD drives which indicate they are 7200RPM and 3Gb. Specs on the older drives indicate performance shouldn't be all that different, but it is, and for the better. I won't question it.The drive indicates you can jumper pins 5 and 6 to limit it to 3Gb, but I didn't understand the benefit of doing it, so I left it unjumpered and it's working well.To summarize - these drives are fast, quiet, and so far are performing excellently. I'm very happy with them thus far.

I use these for my mass off-line storage. They work great. I have retrieved project data more than 10 years old.

I'm overall happy with this drive. Western Digital drives typically last a long time for me as long as they have decent cooling. I've only used this particular one for a week. As expected, no problems. Am reviewing it now because it'll probably be quiet a few years before it fails. I've a touch of buyers remorse in that the 1TB drives are starting to really drop in price now. I think they're the best bang for buck at the moment. Such is life. At least it's quiet. I'm typing this review on the very quiet office desktop this drive went into. I can hear crickets outside and a computer in a different room, but can't hear this little PC two feet away. Here's the build:Thermaltake Mini ITX CaseASRock E350M1 Mini-ITX MotherboardWestern Digital 500 GB DriveG.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 Memory F3-10600CL9D-8GBNTrandom DVD burner1080p TV with HDMI in and decent speakers

Thanks Amazon for my 20 dollar promo.This was based on a previous order,but the A to Z policy took care of the problem.I have been using Western Digital drives for years.I've had only (1) drive fail over the years.RMA was easy.Cost 6 dollars to send back drive.Replacement works fine.I just bought a Black and Blue.Using the Blue 500 GB for just a boot drive,and the(1) TB for gaming.The Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache are great for boot drives.I bought this here for 66 dollars with promo :)I dont need a large cache for a boot drive.This drive has SATA 6Gb/s support and my motherboard also supports this feature.I also picked up a WD BLK 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5 drive which compliments this drive perfectly,on the new 6Gb/s interfaceThis covers all my storage,warranty,and gaming needs until ssd prices stabilize.I was able to get both drives for 210 out the door with promo.Amazon rocks.New Egg and other popular venders should take note.Pricing and frustration free packaging makes Amazon my #1 choice.My specsAntec DF-85 Black Steel/ATX Full Tower Computer CaseASUS VH236HL-P Black 23" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen Full HD 1080P LCD Monitor w/height & swivelGIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 USB 3.0 ATX AMD MotherboardAMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz @ 3.8GHz w/1.35v on cpu-vcoreCooler Master Hyper 212 Plus w/2 fans Idle:24C-45CCorsair Vengeance Low Profile 8 GB PC3-12800 1600mhz 240-Pin DDR3 DualEVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB 1024 MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 2DVI/Mini-HDMILogitech X-540 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System with SubwooferCorsair Enthusiast Series 750-Watt 80 Plus Bronze(1)Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache BOOT(1)Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" GAMING(2)Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"STORAGE(2) LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support