WD Blue 500GB Mobile Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb s 7 0 MM 2

I bought this in January 2014 to replace the puny 40GB drive that came pre-installed with my PS3 (white fatty). I don't know how I got by with so little for so long. Most disc-based games these days require some kind of install, and more and more games are going the digital download route (I'm part of PlayStation Plus), so I needed more room badly. I considered going up to 750GB or even 1TB, but 500 GB seemed to be sweet spot between performance and cost. I didn't want to spend too much, especially since I'd likely be purchasing a PS4 in a year. I spent several hours reading reviews and comparing prices, deciding between traditional hard drives and SSD. In the end, I chose this one, based on my positive experience with the WD brand and based on the price. For $45, this is a good price for a roomy drive and gives new life to my PS3 for all my downloads. Quiet and no problems at all. Read more

After three years of use, the hard drive on my PS3 slim 160GB started to go south. The drive was nearly full, would corrupt save files from time to time, and the system fan ran 24/7. Fortunately, replacing a PS3 hard drive is a piece of cake and this WD 500GB hard drive fits all the requirements: 2.5" (laptop sized) drive, 5400 RPM (recommended NOT to spring for the 7200 RPM - it may cause your PS3 to run hot), SATA III. It took me longer to back up my data than it did to replace the hard drive itself. PS3 runs like new now - quiet and cool with the added benefit of 300+GB of free space. Word to the wise: there are dozens of online tutorials/youtube videos that walk you through the replacement step by step. Make sure to watch a few of them (and read the comments) before you proceed - most of them seem to leave out at least one crucial step. Read more

I haven't had any problems with this drive, and my laptop is over 7 years old. For me really no use putting in a WD Black HD. Had for about 6 months now and absolutely no hiccups whatsoever. It's a good hard drive, so far. Will update if it's 6 feet under. Decent price, and I need reliability with my work as a field engineer. A lot of my industrial software needs to run on a 32bit system, as I have 16 bit software from the "Old Days" that hasn't been updated, nor has the equipment. Now, if you wonder about the speed difference between this and the WD Black series with more cache, this one is noticeably slower. But not like the difference between a normal HD and SSD. I bought this as a "good enough" drive for my computer, and at a cost savings which is nice. I recommend this one if you need a reliable and decent Hard Drive, and spend the difference on some software if so inclined. You won't get more than maybe 7% better out of a WD Black over this. Maybe less realistically! Read more

Got this for my 80gb backward compatible Playsation 3. It works absolutely great! At first when I swapped it, it seemed slightly slower than usual, but after a few hours it went to top speed, now faster than my original 80gb drive. So don't be alarmed if this happens. Also, make sure you have your game saves on a usb drive. Some saves may not be copy-able so you might have to have Playsation Plus to upload the saves. You don't necessarily need a backup device and spend extra money. Make sure to sync all your trophies to your account before you swap hard-drives. The only issue was unrelated to the product itself, as it was just my PS3 mount/screws. For those of you buying it for a fat PS3, don't worry about getting a new mount since this will fit in the original. The issue I had was that the PS3 screws were easily stripped. If it comes to that case, go to a hardware store and have them pliers the screws if it gets stripped. They won't charge you. Or if you have pliers yourself you can do it yourself, but if you neve rused them have a professional do it. Read more

My wife has an Inspiron 1520 (Win XP) since 2008 or so. It had an 80 GB drive which got pretty full. Thus, I decided to buy a cheap larger HD and found this one. I cloned the drive taking precautions not to copy the MediaDirect partition, the recovery partition and the Master Boot Record. Somebody interested may find on Internet that this is quite important when cloning a Dell laptop which has hidden HD partitions. Have used free Acronis software. Everything went smoothly in the first attempt. The laptop works better than before. The new HD appears to have no problems, is fast and does not produce noticeable noise. This is a slim drive (7 mm)and the package contained no spacer(s). I concluded that this should not matter. Overall, a very good purchase. Read more

I bought this to replace the hard drive in my Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop. The product description says it is compatible with this laptop model. When I put it in the laptop I noticed that it didn't seem to seat as positively as the original drive did. When I booted up the laptop, I got an error message saying that a hard drive couldn't be found and to try to re-seat the drive. After a another try at removing and replacing the drive with no success, I decided to do some googling. It turns out that this drive in about 2.5 mm (0.1 inch) thinner than the original drive and as a result when installed there is a gap that prevents the drive from properly plugging into the motherboard connection. The problem was overcome (still to be seen if it is "solved") and the disk was found when I created a spacer out of a few layers of writing-pad cardboard backing. Three layers epoxied together and mounted to the the upper (label side) surface of the disk provide a filler sufficient to support the disk enough for it to "click" onto the motherboard. To try to avoid a problem when the disk heats up, I cut away much of the cardboard layers to allow air flow over most of the disk surface and to avoid covering any drive holes. Once it was successfully connected to the motherboard, the drive worked perfectly; but not everyone may want to go through the hassle of creating this after-market spacer. Would be nice if the manufacturer would include a spacer for use in this kind of laptop bay if they are going to market for these models. Read more