WD Black 320 GB Mobile Hard Drive 2 5 Inch 7200 RPM SATA II 16 MB Cache WD3200BEKT

I was on edge about buying this hard drive because all the negative reviews regarding noise, and vibration. Not to mention I own a mid-2009 White Macbook and noticed some people had trouble with the Sudden Motion Sensor. I was stuck between this hard drive and the Hitachi Travelstar. I ended up going with this because I have a WD my passport which works pretty swell after running steam games off it. AND I noticed many of the Hitachi drives were dying at an alarming rate in ONLY the macbook reviewer's reviews (everyone was reporting similar problems in an alarmingly similar time frame-- go check it out for yourself!) FOR MACBOOK USERS: So it was pretty to swap this hard drive in, and I restored from a Time Machine Full System Back up, and LION Recovery Assistant USB (which I made myself following Apple's instructions on their site! This is highly recommend for all Lion users who are switching to a new hard drive using LION/Time Machine seeing as how your Lion Recovery Partition will ONLY be on your old hard drive--- even after restoring from back up you lose the partition! LOL I checked and the only way to restore it is to reinstall lion which at this point I feel would be too much of a hassle and the recovery thumb drive works just fine.) NOW BACK TO DRIVE REVIEW: It took about 1 hour and 30 minutes to get back up and running. (I only transferred over 80 gb from a 160 gb stock Fujitsu 5400rpm hard drive. So let's address some concerns I had before purchasing (it took days of me going OCD on forums trying to figure out everything users had to say about this drive and it's performance.) - NOISE: Since this is a 7200rpm drive, many users noted that theirs makes loud whirring noises and chirps. I have yet to experience this (I've had the drive for about two weeks now.) I really believe these people got a fluke drive or weren't careful enough installing it correctly. My drive, while not as quiet as the stock drive, does give off a slight "air" sound which is lower than the macbook's "monster" fans. Overall the system is very quiet and you should NOT let negative reviews stop you! This is actually quieter than my "whipser"-quiet 160gb PS3 slim.... and that is saying a lot :) -ADVANCED FORMATTING troubles: Didn't have any. LION/Time Machine recognized the drive immediately! No crashes during set up. -VIBRATIONS- seeing as how this IS a 7200rpm drive, there is a slight vibration. Like another reviewer stated, it is no more than a WD MyPassport portable hard drive! Actually a bit less vibration. To help Macbook users get an idea, it feels a little less like what it feels like to have a DVD in the Superdrive. - TEMPERATURE: Using iSTAT, my old hard drive was 37 degrees all the time. This one is 40 degrees when it's really working. -SPEED BOOST: Though not exactly noticeable coming from a 5400 rpm drive, start up is about ten seconds faster. Programs start 3 seconds sooner. What is better is that capturing footage or audio recording straight from the macbook is much faster. I use my macbook to record videos, music, and occasional design files. Everything seems to feel a bit snappier and smooth. No hiccups or stutter with media. -BATTERY LIFE: My battery health is about 79% but I do notice this drive sucks more power than the stock drive. I get about 20 minutes less than before with each charge depending on what I am doing. Not bad. -SUDDEN MOTION SENSOR: The Macbook settings are the same and moving it around while recording videos has no effect on it. (Just don't go crazy shaking it like you want to kill it. No conflict. CONCLUSION: Though I have not had this drive for long, I would highly recommend it for those of you who are on edge. I will definitely be updating this review if it happens to die, or some funky things start happening to it. So, if you need the space, don't care for an SSD, and want a slight speed increase, I HIGHLY recommend this! Not to mention the price on Amazon is swell! Read more

A quick and easy upgrade. Western Digital provides another quality product. I wanted to upgrade the 5400 RPM Seagate 500 GB drive in my Gateway laptop. I work overseas, so my laptop is my primary entertainment center, communications center, and work hub. I wanted a drive that was larger, faster, and NOT A SEAGATE (bad luck with this brand although to be fair, this one has been fine). I was originally looking at a 1TB from WD,, but it was no faster (5200 or 5400 rpm) than the original drive. I sacrificed some capacity for speed. After a quick swap and fresh install of windows and my drivers, my machine's performance has dramatically improved. The system restore/install, which takes 3 DVDs normally takes about 1.5-2 hours. This was done in about 45 minutes on the new drive. Boot up was faster. The installation of programs and updates that were downloaded has felt nearly twice as fast. Hard drives are the weakest links in computer speed. Getting the fastest one you can afford will make your computer far more responsive. If you own a PS3 and use it as a media center, I would highly suggest upgrading to this hard drive (for those who don't know, the PS3 uses a standard laptop hard drive and is very easy to swap out). It is faster and will have plenty of room for your game files, music, and a number of TV shows or Movies. Take it from a "retired" PC gamer who used to build his own desktop rigs - You will pay more for a Western Digital (WD) drive up front, but you will be saved from headaches and hard drive crashes later. This drive is big and fast. If you want any faster, go with an SSD, but when you're paying that much, you may as well just get a new computer. Read more

I installed this drive in my 2010 13" MacBook Pro. It has worked flawlessly. It used to take 3-4 min to boot with my old Hitachi 500gb 5400rpm drive. Now I can boot in 35 seconds! Applications that took 25-45 seconds to load now load quickly. I am very happy with my purchase. Since I haven't seen any Parallels user comments I'll walk through the process that I used to transfer my OS and data to the new drive. I started by partitioning the new drive with the Mac Disk Utility creating a new Mac partition and a new FAT partition. Then with SuperDuper moving the OS and data over to the new drive. I have a lot of data so that took about 3 hours. My Windows VM is on a BootCamp partition so I had to use Winclone (19.99) to transfer the Windows partition to the new drive about another 2 hours. Once I was done, a few of my programs needed to be re-registered, like MS Office 2011 and Parallels. But once everything was registered everything worked great. Also for those wondering my OS is Mountain Lion. Also swapping out the drive is a breeze. I bought the recommended tool kit and it was great, had the right screwdrivers, and the star tool needed to change the screws that attach to the drive to secure it in the bay. To swap the drive remove the 10 screws on the bottom of the chassis, then remove the two screws securing the drive in the bay. Carefully lift out the drive and disconnect the SATA cable. Remove the mounting screws, two on each side, put them on the new drive; reverse your steps. Done! It took me less then 10 min to replace the drive. Now my drive doesn't sit there indexing for hours, the drive is quiet, fast, and doesn't seem to have affected my battery life. I am really pleased. Great Product. If you are hesitating, don't! Get this drive, you'll be glad you did! I am...... Read more