Features:

  • Desktop performance hard drive
  • Performance storage available in up to 6TB capacities
  • 2X DRAM cache up to 256 MB for faster read operations
  • Designed for creative professionals, gamers and system builders
  • 5-year manufacturer's limited warranty
Solid and working well, as expected for a WD 3.5" drive

I recently lost a PC, and am going through a technology upgrade cycle, and wanting to have data redundancy and convenient clones of hard drives to test under various scenarios (different PC's, docks, cloning hardware and software, OS's, etc.) So, I recently bought four of these (One from Amazon, and three from another PC vendor). All four worked as expected right out of the box, taking nearly a 1 TB of Windows 7 OS and user data from other PC's via various drive cloning processes, and then showing up as expected and letting me acess and update the data just fine. The drives seem to run reasonably cool, and are fairly quiet (considering I'm running them in external open SATA docks for now), and the speed is fine. Just what I'd expect from a modern WD drive. I don't take chances with my data, so am happy to pay the premium for the WD black technology and reputation vs., say the WD blue. I can't report on reliability/durability yet, since I've had these drives less than a week. If I have problems worth noting, I'll plan to post updates. In my experience (from memory), over the past 20+ years, I've had a LOT of experience with roughly 30 WD drives. All consumer drives, size ranging from about a GB to 4 TB. I've had only two problems. One was completely my fault. Back in the day when they sealed the drives with some kind of rubber gasket, I tore a small section of that removing a drive from a desktop case the first time. (Not a HW guy -- didn't know what I was doing). That drive crashed in a few days -- which again was COMPLETELY my fault as air (with hair, dust, etc) got in there for awhile. I had another drive start making noises and refusing to accept a full hard drive clone via Partition Magic version 8.X -- probably in the early 2000's. Again, not wanting to fool around with my data, I quit using that drive. The main reason I've stuck with WD is the drives seem to be very solid and perform consistently. I've use lots of both bare OEM and full retail kit WD drives, depending on prices/convenience.

Super fast HDD, easy to install in PS4. Night and day difference between stock hard drive.

I replaced this HDD to upgrade the stock HDD in my PS4. Easy to install. PS4 had no problem initializing and formatting the drive. PS4 was up and running within 10 mins. As a tip, make sure you download the large 900mb PS update file, if you miss that step the HDD will NOT initialize or format. Performance: The drive seems to be performing wonderfully. The PS4 is not over heating, more than normal. What I love I'd that games, installs, and loading times are shortened. This is due the enhanced performance of the drive over the stock PS4 drive. Recommend this high speed drive to anyone seeking to get more space for their PS4...or laptop, since it doesn't fit laptops as well.

So far, so good! Improved speed!

Being a Dell owner for more than 14 years, when that machine finally died, I bought a brand new Dell Inspiron 5758 in November 2015. The hard drive crashed in March 2016 under warranty, and then the Dell warranty replacement crashed in September 2016. At that point, I bought two stock Seagate basic drives at a local electronics store -- one to use and one to keep on hand -- and the first crashed in December 2016. The second of the two has been running for 7 months, but has gotten sluggish and we found drive errors (bad sectors) last week. At the time of the December 2016 crash, I purchased the WD Black as our backup replacement drive. I installed it yesterday, and the speed is noticeably better.than both the Dell drives (which I believe were Seagate) and the store-bought Seagate drives. Granted, the specs are better and it *should* be better than both of those drives, but some reviewers are saying it's not and/or not a noticeable difference. For those wondering "what the heck are they doing that their hard drives keep crashing?!" ... this laptop sits on a desk all day. It may be taken to a client's office once every few months. It runs Windows 7 and MS Office, Adobe, and Corel programs mostly. It runs maybe 12 hours most days, but it doesn't overheat. No harsh treatment and not even any gaming. We run "checkup" programs regularly. Dell claims it's fine and can't/won't tell us why it keeps crashing. We backup files (robocopy) to our own cloud (NAS) and a WD external drive daily and run a system image on the first of every month. FYI: If a system image won't finish, it could be a sign of bad sectors -- run chkdsk [at your own risk] to confirm your file and drive integrity is in good order. If your system is running slow, you should defrag and run chkdsk (which really should be run regularly), as well. It's only been 24 hours, but so far, we're pleased with the speed. We'll check back in and let you know how many months we get out of this one. :)

Nearly As Fast as Desktop Drive, Faster Than Older Model

This is a very good hard drive, for this size and form factor. I was curious what speeds it got in read/write and could not find any benchmarks out there, so decided to run my own. First though, there are a few things about hard drive speeds: in general, 7200 rpm is faster than 5400 rpm drives, and larger drives tend to be faster than smaller drives (1tb faster than 500gb, all else equal) and desktop drives (3.5") tend to be faster than notebook drives (2.5"). However, as I'll show, this is very fast for a notebook drive. It is nearly as fast as my 1TB 7200 RPM 3.5" Seagate Barracuda. This drive is interesting because it appears to be an updated version of the WD5000BPKX (http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Black-Notebook-WD5000BPKX/dp/B00DSUTWMQ/) which only released in January, 2015. It is $6 more at time of review, but has double the cache (32mb vs 16mb). I ran benchmarks on all my drives here http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/171711 Here are the results (given as averages): Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM 2.5" Read 164 MB/s Write 142 MB/s Mixed 141 MB/s Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 3.5" Read 171 Write 153 Mixed 151 So it's nearly as fast as the Seagate, but what about compared to the older molder, the WD5000BPKX? That drive is benchmarked here: http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/3355/WDC-WD5000BPKX-75HPJT0 Though results vary, probably depending on the age of the drive, it seems pretty clear this version is much faster. The reports there seem to show the older model is closer to 110 MB/s. I'd recommend this as a new drive, if you can't afford a SSD (which, of course, would be faster). And I think the extra cost over the older model seems worth it, too, since it seems to be faster. This may be due to the increased cache size.

WD > Seagate

Once upon a time I made the mistake of trying out the cheaper seagate sshd desktop models because it promised faster speeds and more storage for the price of wd black. Currently going through the tedious rma process of that drive which was used in a machine extremely infrequently until anything I tried to save on it kept giving me a disk read error. Switched back to wd black which Ive used for years in other desktops to replace that. Id rather stick to the 7200rpm black model and used a ssd for a boot drive than touch another seagate again. I didnt want to believe all the issues people said about seagate but wow they were not kidding.

READ: 1 TB and 750GB are different reviews. 750 Great drive in both servers and laptops!! I own 17 of them.

WARNING: Reviews for both the 750GB WD Black and the WD Black 1TB Performance Mobile are apparently going to the same review text. So beware what you read might not be what you are getting unless the reviewer was more specific. They are NOT the same drive and have different characteristics! I'll list both here. RE: The WD Black 750 GB Drive - 5 stars: I've purchased about 20 or so of these - some from Amazon and some from a local computer store. They work well and have not seen one failure in 3 years. One server has 10 of these as a Raid array. Plus they won't cause problems with fake thermal runaway if you install them in an HP Proliant DL380 G6 / G7 server like many drives will. I'd give you a pointer to an article I wrote on that except Amazon doesn't like external URLs in the reviews. All this and the WD Blacks are 5 year warranty, this is a 7200 RPM drive, and ... well, you just can't go wrong with this drive in your laptop or server! RE: The WD Black 1TB Performance Mobile Hard Disk - 3 stars This is far from a 1 TB version of the 750 GB. It is a different design, consumes WAY more power, and is NOT compatible with the various HP servers without causing thermal run-away. It also runs much warmer (which is not why the thermal run-away, it is because of the temperature value(s) reported by the drive)

these are fast and hold a lot

i have ordered two of these and use both for external backup. the first one worked so well i ordered another. both are housed in the RSHTECH Hard Drive Enclosure. yes, they come unformatted. install the drive in an enclosure of choice and connect to computer then in windows 10 pro, right click on start menu and click 'disk management'; look for the drive that is indicated as unallocated and not formated. right click in that stippled space and follow instructions to format. honestly, i already forgot how to do it beyond this point but instructions to use disk management to format a new drive abound on the net. the trick to remember: above 2tb a different formatting system has to be used. not a big deal but this product 100% has to be formatted. regarding the discussion of wd or another brand - at the end of the day i went with wd for their reputation and because i have not had problems with them previously. regarding the 'black' level of the product - it has the specs i want for my application at this memory size which is speed and cache. i am reluctant to go with a larger size hd preferring 2 smaller sizes such that in case of failure not all my eggs are in one basket. i also use the cloud for storage and have other items dispersed in dual backup amongst various ssd's and memory sticks - my conclusion being one can never be too cautious about having multiple copies of saved files in the digital paperless world. i always plug in thru a surge protector and manually turn off when not in use. so far so good with wd and i will continue to buy again from them; fyi, they now own sansdisk which is another product line that has performed well for me over the years.

I only purchase WD Black Hard Drives (for 12+ years) and have never had a problem or failure yet.

I oversee technology for an entire school and have done so for over a decade. For my professional and personal usage I only purchase the WD Black Hard Drives and I have literally never had a problem or failure with any of them during that entire 12 year period. So, that's all I continue to buy. I used to purchase another brand name drive but we had problems with them. There's nothing worse than having a hard drive crap out taking all the data with it. Granted we usually have back ups but there's always the gnawing feeling that something gets lost when restoring from backup no matter how frequent the backups. Plus there's the stress, frustration, and lost productivity while the unit is offline. Yes, these drives are more expensive than many other hard drives. However, when you factor in the dramatically improved reliability and longevity, it has been my experience that they are more than worth the extra money. To be sure, there's no doubt that there may be an occasional bad unit or one that just fails, but, so far, in my experience we have never encountered one. Plus, they have a 5 year warranty and a high MTBF rating both of which, of course, are very reassuring. Side note: if you're not backing up your data to some sort of disconnected storage device and you lose data that's not the fault of the drive or the malware that took out your data. In my experience, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who have lost data and those who will lose data.

Fast, Reliable, Cool

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!

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