Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Pros: While it worked it was fast-ish.

Cons: I've owned it for just over a year (bought 4-8-2011) and as of yesterday (5-21-2011) it has stopped working.

Other Thoughts: This is my third HDD in 3 years that has died, the other two were not the same brand. Bottom line? I'm so sick of HDDs. I'll be buying a SSD this time around.

Pros: -Works perfectly, year 2

Cons: -none

Other Thoughts: Reliable, has run my O/S with constant CCleaner maintenance for 2 years.

Pros: bought almost 2 years ago, awsome HDD, no issues at all, cool and quiet, huge differance moving from a 5200 WD black

Cons: none at all

Pros: I have had this drive since 11/30/2010 and I have never had a single problem with it. Its quiet, cool, and runs like a champ not matter what kind of load I put on it. The only thing I wish it had as some more space on it, I am getting close to my storage limit and will definitely be picking this or a solid state drive to add to my system.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Aside from a smaller storage space you can not go wrong with this drive.

Pros: Drive is a plus against anything that isn't an SSD or SAS drive. Boots Win7 x64 in 20 seconds or less. Loads bigger type games like Skyrim, BF3, and LA Noire with pretty much no wait time. BF3 maps load before most of the remaining party's is fully loaded(great for grabbing jets before other people do :P). Win7 Apps and Index search show significant speeds compared to a 7,200RPM HDD. Read speeds bench around 160-170MB/s.

Cons: Not an SSD which will always be faster. Thats just technology. But if your running a SATA II mobo, its not worth running an SSD(and a SATA II SSD is just pointless when your money can be put towards a SATA III SSD)(SATA II ~270MB/s, SATA III ~550MB/s) An obvious difference there.

Other Thoughts: I see a lot of comments targeting Windows not seeing the drive or unable to install the OS. I ran into the same situation but before you think the drive is shot, 1) These kinds of drives need to be formatted clean of a filesystem. 2) Make sure BIOS is set for AHCI mode and that BIOS is updated to latest version. Once you do these you should see the drive during install as I did.

Pros: Fast and Cheap
Impressive speeds
Amazing when in Raid

Cons: Not as amazing when not in Raid config

Other Thoughts: For the money, this is the fastest drive you'll ever need.

Pros: Fast drive. Cheaper than SSD. Using as primary drive on a gaming rig.

Cons: Runs a little warm but expected.

Other Thoughts: HDD companies have poor quality control lately on 500 GB+ 7200 rpm drives. Does not seem to matter which brand. Hoping this drive outlasts the recently deceased drives.

Pros: Very fast and work great in a RAID 10 and a RAID 1 setup. Love it!

Cons: Out of 7 of these drives we have ordered one was defective but the RMA process was simple.

Pros: Almost 2 years old and no problems so far.
Quieter than the fans in my case.
Happy with the I/O performance, aka my games boot faster than with my 7200 RPM drive.

Cons: It seems to run warmer than my older drives, but it's not too hot, and expected for a 10k RPM drive.
Wish the price was lower, but still worth the money if you don't want to have to empty your pockets for a SSD.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend this drive to anyone looking for something faster than a 7200 RPM but cheaper than a SSD.

Pros: Fast and faster in raid 0 when paired with it's own kind. Reliable.

Cons: The adapter card isn't reliable. If you think your drive failed take the hard drive out of the adapter case and test it with the adapter card (that is what failed on both mine). Easy fix cut the adapter shorter so you don't need the adapter card.

Other Thoughts: Western Digital should use better adapter cards or get rid of them all together, because when that goes bad it makes it act like the hard drive is bad which isn't the case. 4 stars only because of the adapter cards going bad.