Western Digital WD AV-GP WD20EURS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM Western Digital WD AV-GP WD20EURS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

Pros: I've always had faith in WD green drives. My 1.5 lasted me 4-5 years of constant use (It was my TV show drive) it finally failed. This is intended to become a RAID drive

Cons: Not a con on a WD directly. But people, if you have sensitive data, or years of storage. RAID those drives. 1.2tb of data is a lot to try to rip and save again. I learned my lesson.

Pros: Super quiet. Stays pretty cool.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: I was using this drive as a backup drive to a 6 year old 500GB WD drive and a 2 year old 1TB Samsung drive until about a month ago when the 500GB drive died. Since then, it has been backing up the 1TB and replacing the functionality of the 500GB. I'm reviewing it because I am back here ready to buy a second one to replace the 500GB drive so I can get back to regular back ups.

Pros: Quiet, low power, no need to WDIDLE3 these drives. Perfect for DVR, HTPC, Home Media servers, and quiet PC's.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Please disregard other reviewer(s) who "claim" these drives have no error correction. They are seriously mistaken.
AV optimized drives have support for ATA commands to bypass retries only when invoked (such as video streams read/write). During normal OS or file commands, these ATA commands are NOT used, and normal error correction is utilized (which is essential for a file system database to remain un-corrupted and work correctly).

Please do your research before relying upon the advice of amateurs. I trust their intent is to be helpful, but spreading mis-information helps no-one.

Pros: I trust WD over Seagate since the rate of failure Im experiencing is higher on Seagate.

Cons: I believe some of the failure people are getting is the poor packaging Newegg's shipping dept is doing, especially if you order 3-5 drives, the drives tend to be bubble wrapped poorly. Better off ordering one at a time since each will come boxed nicely.

Pros: None since DOA.

Cons: WD Data LIfeguard Diagnostic Tools quick test failed on SMART data and extended tests failed with too many bad sectors.
Ubuntu GSmartControl quick test failed.

Problems copying data to drive: read-only errors and subsequent unmount then mount error.
Problems deleting data: read-only error.

Other Thoughts: WD needs quality control. Should not be DOA and counting the 1 stars, it appears they have roughly a 20% failure rate. That is unacceptable.

Requested RMA from WD as I've had this drive only 28 days and couldn't get it to work.

Pros: None yet, until testing can verify that it works ok...

Cons: Ran Linux disk tests which seemed to indicate drive was good even though the tests never finish after running for several days. After formatting and testing as a data drive, it initially locked up during a copy of about 15 GB of photos. This drive seems to work at first, but has problems after my PC wakes up from hibernation, causing my Ubuntu system to lock up and I have had to do a hard reboot a couple of times now.

Other Thoughts: This drive was intended for an HTPC, but since I can't even get it to work as a 2nd data drive in my main PC, does not bode well for my HTPC.

Initial WD Data Lifeguard Tools tests failed on this drive, but Linux drive tools indicate it is good.

If I can ever get it to work consistently in Linux, I hope to boot to Windows 7 drive on my PC and run some tests there next.

Pros: I got a killer deal on the price, I have two of these drives and I have to say they are great for what I do with them. I use these drives as data storage on my little home movie server. They are running like little champs. I do like the power saving sleep mode that they go into really works.

Cons: The only con is that the green label is a bit slow to wake up but if you read the manufacturers data on the drive before you buy them you will know that this is normal.

Other Thoughts: I have to say I am very pleased with these drives. You don’t want to buy one of these drives and put an OS on it. It will lag out and you will see huge performance issue. Please read the data on these drives before you buy one they are not a standard hard drive as far as they will always spin at the same speed.

Pros: Solid price-per-GB. No apparent issues, yet.

Cons: Concerned about the reportedly high failure rate.

Other Thoughts: It's possible that many people have no issues and so write no reviews, exhibiting a negative bias. I hope.

Pros: None yet, since it is DOA according to WD disk tests.

Cons: Extensive test with WD Data Lifeguard for Windows fails after only 6% of sectors: "Too many bad sectors". Quick test fails with "Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failed Checkpoint = 97 (Unknown Test) SMART-Test did not complete!"

Other Thoughts: Packaged in a box inside a box with paper filling, and drive was sealed in static bag wrapped with a roll of bubble wrap - seemed sufficient.

WD Data Lifeguard Tools downloads do not come with program for creating boot discs. I tried to create an MS-DOS bootable CD with the WD Tools for DOS, but that didn't work since it didn't support non-IDE CD drives. I was also unable to create a bootable USB with the Tools. This drive was for a Linux DVR - I had to pull out of that box and install into my Windows 7 PC to test.

I've never had a WD drive fail, not even a bunch of old 40 GB drives. I've had Seagate drives fail from way back in the 80s (external 10 MB!) and don't trust Seagate. I've only bought one Hitachi drive (1 GB), which I currently use as my primary (Linux) drive in my primary PC. It was originally supposed to be the DVR drive, but had a loud thumping seek sound every minute or so.

Pros: Decent space to price ratio, Bought 2 and they both work in my FreeBSD box

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Only had them for a week or so. Waiting on the reliability factor.