Western Digital WD VelociRaptor WD5000HHTZ 500GB 10000 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM Western Digital WD VelociRaptor WD5000HHTZ 500GB 10000 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

Pros: i own the 300 gig version of this drive
fast
western digital

Cons: died

Other Thoughts: i have used WD exclusivley for many years, when 150 mb was a huge drive, this is my first 10,000 rpm. it failed with to many bad sectors. took me a while to figure out a hard drive failure never entered my mind. WD will honor its warenty and i will try again. hate to think i will have to go back to 7200 rpm for reliability.

Pros: only thing faster is a SSD.
Great for muti-media files like CS5
Great for Games

Cons: nothing at this moment.

Other Thoughts: I have to say this is one of the fastest HDD i have ever owned. i used to store all my Video renderings and games on a 500gb sea gate and it would take about 45 secs to boot a game and about a minute or two to launch my CS5 programs. with the VelociRaptor it is almost instant. with games lauching in less then 30 secs and CS5 and other muti media files less then 45 sec.

Pros: Ultra fast compared to a 7200 regular drive. Win Experience went from 5.4 to 5.9.
A hard drive test I used rated the WD Green 7200 drive at 800 points, and the Raptor scored over 3000.

Cons: It's a bit noisy on hard access, but as long as it holds up, I can handle that.

Other Thoughts: A little pricey for only 500 gigs, but makes a great system drive and it's got a longer warranty.
At this point (a week) I'm glad I purchased it.

Pros: Fast, reliable, as are the more than 10 Raptors I've bought over the years.
5 year warranty.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Pet peeve: people who believe that a hard drive is about to fail because it makes "thinking" sounds. I have a couple 36GB Raptors that have been running for 9 years. They still make that same sound they did the day I bought them, as do most Raptors and many other reliable drives.

Pros: Perfect HD for those wanting SSD speed but finding them too pricey. I read about the noise but think it's actually quieter than the 7600rpm Seagate HD it replaced. I reinstalled everything fresh (no copying over) and my Win7 64bit system has never run better!

Cons: None so far.

Pros: Super Fast, its not an SSD but it smokes

Cons: non so far

Pros: Nice HDD no problem

Cons: none

Pros: Large capacity and very competitive performance for the price. Windows for some reason still rates this a 5.9, but it beats out my fiend's Crucial M4-CT128M4SSD2 handily. And for some reason burst speeds on even old raptors have been intense, but this raptor seriously kills the 4th gen (2008 versions) by LEAPS AND BOUNDS.

-Using HD Tune I got these specs-
I owned a 75GB Velociraptor (4th gen) my transfer speeds went from 119MB/s to 183MB/s. Burst speeds went from 172MB/s to 273MB/s. Seek time also dropped from 7.3ms to 6.6ms. Sequential read/writes went from 76MB/57MB to 159/156

Cons: Loud, but all 1000 RPM drives are. Seek times still destroyed by any SSD and not as fast as top of the line SSDs but still very very strong drive.

Other Thoughts: If price is no option, then yea large capacity top of the line SSD, but if you're looking at a "cheap" SSD vs this Raptor get this, you'll be much happier.

Pros: This is a fast drive by itself, but in a raid 5 configuration coupled to a 3ware card, these are lighting fast. I have these drives in all of my servers but two, and in a few workstations around the office.

Cons: They are kind of loud.

Other Thoughts: You can break them just like any other drive. I just broke one about 2 weeks ago.

Pros: Good reputation, and ease of installation.

Cons: I have used Western Digital products in the past with success. In my latest acquisition, I purchase three Velociraptor WD5000HHTZ drives for use in a RAID5 array. The devices installed easily and configured easily. However, within a few days one of them failed with a message from Intel Storage Matrix Manager. This is probably an isolated occurrence. I have since ordered a replacement unit, and the RAID5 array is rebuilding itself. All I can say is thank goodness for RAID5. It buys me a welcome level of fault tolerance. I can't explain why a brand-new WD device failed, but I am told that if they're going to fail at all they'll do so right away. That has been borne out in my case.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the WD VelociRaptor, as this is not the typical experience with the product. We are very sorry to hear that your drive did not function so soon after it was delivered. Western Digital does rigorously test and verify all of our drives, prior to shipping, with burn-in and diagnostic tests. We stand behind our warranty for the duration of the products provided warranty period, and as such, we are here to support our products regardless of the circumstances. We would like to assure you that what you have experienced is extremely abnormal. We would appreciate the opportunity to further assist you, and resolve any further concerns you may have with the device and/or your experience. You may contact us at 1 (800) 275-4932, or via our support website at: http://support.wdc.com/rs/. Please indicate within the online case creation or with the first support agent you speak with, that you are responding to a Newegg review, so we route you and your information to the correct team members.