WD Blue 1TB Mobile Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb s 9 5 MM 2

This drive- (-once I finally got it installed and aligned properly, -and my drivers updated) -greatly sped up my laptop. I was frankly amazed at how much faster my programs started up and executed, -in many cases what seems at least 2-5 times as fast as with the original hard drive. (Update 12/14/2013: Now that I have had the drives installed for 3 months, I think that estimate is conservative: many things truly seem 10X as fast.) During the installation process, I was swapping the old drive back in: Even though I didn't have everything completely up and running yet on the new drive, it was easy to see how much faster it was than the original drive. I have a 5-year-old HP pavilion 17" DV9933cl laptop which has been really reliable and dependable (and so I am reluctant to part with it) but it was running out of space on the original (320GB) Western Digital 3200BEVT drive, (which, incidentally, was still going strong). Hence, having had good results with the original WD drive, I bought 2 of these WD 2.5" 9.5 mm height 1TB drives, intending to install them both in the laptop - which had an additional, empty drive bay. (I did have to purchase an additional drive caddy to install the second drive.) Although these are high density 1TB drives, they also are only 9.5 mm tall and will fit my laptop bays. When I received the drives one of the first things I realized was that these were of the new generation of "Advanced Format" (AF) drives, -which arrange files in 4096 byte sectors, rather than the 512 byte sectors of the older drives (- such as the one that originally shipped with my laptop). What this meant, for me, was that installing these new drives took longer than I expected, and there were some initial frustrations when I couldn't figure out why some programs (like Windows Update and Windows Indexing) were no longer working. But ultimately (after going back and forth to various support websites), I was finally able to get everything up and running, - and despite the additional work required, I am still very glad that I made this upgrade, because everything runs so much faster now, and my computer now truly performs "even better than new". There is a note, on the drive label, warning you that this is an AF (Advanced Format) drive, and that with certain operating systems (like Windows) you need to use a special utility (-WD Align, by Acronis -available for free download at WD's website) -in order to align the partitions of the new AF drives properly to take advantage of the new 4096-byte sector formatting. This is important - with many systems optimum performance and speed will not be realized unless this critical step is performed, and the drive may actually not even perform as well as the old one if this is not done. (This additional step is apparently not necessary for some operating systems (like Mac OS-X versions that can format GUID/GPT), nor perhaps for some newer Windows laptops that already have AF drives installed; but it seems that for many or most installs on older Windows laptops, where you are migrating or cloning an original drive that was not AF, the partition alignment utility is mandatory. If you have a newer Windows system/computer that automatically accommodates the new AF drives, you may not have to deal with this, and may actually just be able to install the new drive and be on your way. But since these drives are new technology, be prepared to have to search for, and install, some updated drivers if you have an older computer like mine. It's not initially clear whether the WD Align program is to be used prior to cloning the new drive, or afterward. After some initial problems, WD tech support suggested I run the alignment program before cloning the drive, (which is, naturally, faster than doing it afterward, and which is what I did, the second time. The instructions page at WD for the WD/Acronis True Image cloning program also seemed to suggest that the cloning program itself will perform the alignment, but after running the cloning program the first time, the WD Align software said the drives still weren't aligned.) In any case, you can easily check whether the drives are aligned or not: if you open up the WD Align program and check the status of the drive, it will tell you. (If so, the drive will say "Aligned" and a message appears at the bottom of the window - "All partitions are already properly aligned. No further actions required.") (-If not, just run the WD Align program again.) Also, one important piece of advice: the first time I tried to clone the drive I tried to do it over the USB 2.0 port with a USB2 to SATA adapter. Besides taking forever, this may have contributed to some initial problems I had. I found it was far faster and more reliable cloning the drive with both source and destination drives installed in the computer drive bays (that is, if you have 2 bays) and connected to SATA (-Like 2 hours to clone the drive over SATA vs. 20+ hrs. over USB 2). The WD/Acronis True Image Manual recommends cloning the new disc in the drive bay where you will be using it. (They say this is especially important for laptops, and so this is what I ultimately ended up doing.) The drive ships in a user- and environment-friendly plain brown cardboard box with a couple of quite adequate packing spacers for padding. There are no printed installation guides, instructions, install software or anything else (other than the drive itself) in the box, so this might be a bit unsettling for those who (like me) are accustomed to all the things that used to come in the box when you bought a new hard drive. No problem: Even though the usual install software discs no longer are included, everything you need to install the drive can still be downloaded from Western Digital's website. Besides the WD Align software (to align the partitions), you will probably want or need a cloning program, which WD also has available for download at their site as well, in the form of Acronis True Image, WD Edition. (It's really a great program). Again, it is free from WD to use on your computer- as long as you have a Western Digital drive you are installing that it can detect. In addition, WD has a lot of helpful support literature at their site, and I found their tech support quite helpful. I had some problems initially (just like a lot of other people apparently did, -when I checked online), -because in order to use these new AF drives on significantly older computers (like my 5-year-old HP laptop) there are apparently some additional things you need to do besides aligning the drive and cloning it. One of these was to download and install a special Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) driver from HP, which they have available for download at their (HP's) site as SP47845 (Intel IRST driver version 9.5.6.1001). (In this case I had to figure out, the hard way, that I had to get this service pack/driver update from HP - and not from Intel, -nor from Microsoft.) The pertinent page at the HP website, "Error Messages Appear During Windows Update," explained that "Notebooks with the Western Digital high density hard drive, such as 1 TB or 750 GB, may display abnormal error messages if the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver (IRST) is not updated." "Windows Update and other services may get error messages ("Windows update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running") Depending on your make and model of computer, you may have to contact the manufacturer of your computer (HP in my case) -rather than Intel, for the correct IRST driver update. (I noticed during my web searches that other laptop manufacturers, as well, are recommending this same driver upgrade.) (Observation: When installing a new hard drive, it is often difficult, initially, to figure out where the best place is to go for support or drivers: The drive maker, the computer manufacturer, Microsoft, Intel? (-I think you get the idea). When problems arose, Western Digital Tech support was actually very helpful, and got right back with me in every case; but apparently -since mine was an HP laptop-, they could only help me so far - they didn't have the updated IRST driver I needed, -which had to come from HP. Some things aren't always obvious.) There was still one additional thing I had to take care of after installing the updated IRST driver, because somehow, even after the aligning, and cloning operations, and driver update, Windows Update still was unable to run or find the files it needed. After some more searching, I was able to download a simple batch file program off the web, from the Windows Vista IT Pro Forum (just do a search on Windows Update Failed Error Code 0xc8000247). This batch file basically renames the Windows\SoftwareDistribution subfolders (WuRedir, DataStor, Download,and SelfUpdate) where Windows Update looks for files, forcing it to create new ones, so it can find them again, and also stops and restarts wuauserv (the Windows Update Auto Server). Once I had done this, (and rebooted the computer yet one more time!) lo and behold, everything now worked, -and as I said, all of a sudden everything was now so fast. (Hope this info helps someone else, -who also runs into these same problems.) To be perfectly honest, the new drive, although so much faster overall than the original, does take a bit more time for a few things where, apparently, it is having to do some translation/conversion from 512 to 4096 bit: Closing programs and windows seems to take a little longer, and on some activities it does seem to hesitate, -but just a bit. On the other hand, I am amazed at how quickly programs now open, and execute. -YMMV, but you will mostly notice, I think, that the response of the new drive is simply a little different than what you are used to. But once I had experienced the speed of the new drive, I had no desire to continue using the old drive. (I had originally considered keeping it and using it as backup, but when I went back to the old drive for a few days while troubleshooting the new one, I became painfully aware of how slow the old drive was in comparison. And I do keep it defragmented, -and with adequate free space.). These drives are one of the best ways I have found to get a major performance upgrade on an older laptop. I am very pleased with them. They may require a little more work to install on older computers, but they are certainly worth the effort. Read more

I bought this product to replace it with Hitachi 640GB, 5400 RPM, SATA3.0G/b or SATA II. It became to make clicking sounds then it went dead. It came with Toshiba Satellite that I bought for 2 years now. So, I went to search for a replacement and read the good reviews about it. I installed it two days ago, then installed Windows 8.1 pro. and I discovered that: this product is awesome, it's all what they described it with the reviews. It's not just quiet, but also very fast and battery life saver. When I finished installing the OS and all the apps; I noticed immediately the speed with no sacrifice for battery life or noise. If you don't look at the HDD light on your laptop to see it's flickering, you wouldn't even know that the hard disk is in action doing something. All in all, Amazon delivered exactly on time, as they promised. I got it exactly the same status and description as it was described in amazon website. If you need a firm, fast, reliable, long HDD life and battery life saving with a very reasonable price, I would advice to go with this product. Note: The laptop itself has SATA II (3.0 G/b) capability, but it accepts this hard nicely and natively, which means you don't need to do anything further to make this HDD work as SATA II although it's SATA III (6.0 G/b). Windows 8.1 pro will format it with native 4k sector this is why it's fast in my system. I put this note for anybody's having an answer whether this will work on his laptop that has SATA II not SATA III. I was skeptic at the beginning, but after tying it, I certainly advise to go with it. Read more

According to MS Windows assessments, this is not the fastest hard drive. But so far it's what I would expect -- it just works. It makes a bit of noise, but seems normal for a hard drive. I guess the real test for this unit will be how long it lasts. I expect years, but we'll see. Read more

This is the second of these WD Blue 1TB Mobile Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 9.5 MM 2.5 Inch - WD10JPVX drives I've used in my Apple MacBook Pro 15.4-Inch Laptops . And they absolutely rock. Here's the deal: Why pay premium $$$ for your MacBook Pro (or any machine that supports this size drive), when you can buy the stripper version, and pay a fraction of the cost to add a larger drive and more RAM? It doesn't make sense, unless you are truly scared of the little screwdriver and the 15-20 minutes it takes to replace both components. Here's an idea: Before you grab the screwdriver, take a HyperFocus DRIVE for FOCUS and MOTIVATION and wait 45 minutes for it to take full effect. Then grab your screwdriver and go to town. You'll be done before you know it. And have enough surplus focus and motivation to write that novel you've been talking about at most of these Holiday parties. I've had zero issues with these drives. And they run cool and fast. I also push them hard with tons of media files. My current drive is loaded with over 900 gigs of apps and docs. And it still sails like new (I do use Apple's Disk Repair on my drives at least monthly, which helps with Disk Permissions and regular digital maintenance). ADDENDUM: Still running strong, quiet and fast 6 months later! Read more

Worked wonderfully as a replacement drive for my Xbox oneX! Read more