Western Digital WD Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Pros: Works like a charm.

Cons: N/A

Pros: I got a bad one and gave it one egg. But WD made it up quick and no trouble about it. WD made it up with a new drive. so I giving them 5 eggs. for service.

Cons: as many drives as WD makes there is bond to be a bad egg sometime.

Other Thoughts: Just trouble with the first drive, it would stop my computer from loading and it was not my boot drive.

Pros: Awesome buy when it is on sale!

Cons: none

Pros: Faster than other drives I have had in the past. Quiet. Reliable- over a year with no issues.

Cons: not in raid setup.

Pros: It started up good, but then started losing data, then died all together.

Cons: would not recomend to anyone.

Other Thoughts: I bought it in July, but did't install for 3 or 4 months. I hope the warrenty is better than the Drive.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the WD Black Desktop drive, as this is not the typical or intended experience with the product.
It is unfortunate that you have experienced a drive failure in such a short time frame. WD hard drives are meant to have longevity and performance for many years. Let us assure you that we rigorously test our drives prior to shipping them from the factory to our retailers and they ship in new working condition. Western Digital stands behind its products for the duration of the device's warranty period and in the interest of customer service, we will gladly replace your device, no questions asked. We would appreciate the opportunity to further assist you directly, as well as look into why these failures occurred, and resolve any further concerns you may have with the device and/or your experience with our products. 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.

Pros: Another great HDD by WD. I have no formal complaints about this item. I have beat it up pretty badly and it works like it did on day 1.

Cons: None.

Pros: There are none

Cons: You can not use any black drives in raid. Some time ago western digital disabled this ability in the hard drives firmware. All drives have the ability to be put in raid. there really is no difference in the enterprise drives and black drives. they are both capable of raid. however western digital turned off and disabled tler in all their drives except for the enterprise drives. they are the same hard drives but one has tler disabled permantly and one doesnt. They did this so you would have to pay more money for the enterprise drives. I will never again buy another western digital hard drive

Other Thoughts: Please do not use these in raid or you will end up facing loss of your data. Newegg need to pay attention to this because nowhere in the description of any harddrives does it say whether or not hard drives are raid capable. if this underhanded tactic by western digital stays in place then all of the drives should have a disclaimer on them in the details tab that says not capable for raid.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the Western Digital 500 GB Desktop Black Drive, as this is not the intended experience with the product. We apologize for any miscommunication about the intended application and detailed descriptions of our products on separate e-commerce websites. Let us assure you that our goal is to manufacture drive families that have individual applications that we can recommend, as we rigorously test each drive in each family to ensure they are good working condition and meet the goals of individual purpose before leaving our warehouse. Black drives can be used in RAID 0 and 1 environments, however for small business and enterprise RAID environments, we have our Red and Raid Edition families of drives, manufactured specifically to meet the business needs of 24X7 operating RAID environments. With this structure, a customer who desires a simple hard drive can purchase a Blue or Green drive, so they do not pay for extra functionality that they do not desire. Specifications for our Black, Red, and Raid Edition drive families can be found at the following three links.
http://bit.ly/Olwilt
http://bit.ly/TeshMq
http://bit.ly/WN5L1w
Even when using a RAID, we still recommend having a working backup of your data, as even a redundant RAID can fail in the event of multiple hard drive failures. The following link provides assistance with backup solutions.
http://bit.ly/NN7YKa
We would appreciate the opportunity to further assist you directly, 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.

Pros: Ran as expected...until it failed!

Cons: Bought the "Black" series because of the reviews and the warranty. Installed it on a W7 64 bit Pro gaming rig and it failed in less than 10 months. Became increasingly unstable and before I could run some WD utilities, it failed completely. The boot partition just disappeared.

Other Thoughts: Beware of the WD warranty: They are sending me a re-certified replacement and although they certify it as "like new" it will only carry the warranty time remaining from the original purchase. Not a huge deal for me, I still have over 4 years left, but if you are near the end of the warranty period, WD will only grant you the time remaining on the original warranty. Seems a "like new" device should carry the full 5-year warranty that a new one carries.

They also wanted to charge me shipping for the return of their defective HDD. I complained and they comped the shipping charge.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the WD Blue Desktop drive, as this is not the typical or intended experience with the product.
It is unfortunate that you have experienced a drive failure in such a short time frame. WD hard drives are meant to have longevity and performance for many years. Let us assure you that we rigorously test our drives prior to shipping them from the factory to our retailers and they ship in new working condition. Western Digital stands behind its products for the duration of the device’s warranty period and in the interest of customer service, we will gladly replace your device, no questions asked. We would appreciate the opportunity to further assist you directly, as well as look into why these failures occurred, and resolve any further concerns you may have with the device and/or your experience with our products. 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.

Pros: Fast. FIVE year warranty. Not as noisy as the 1TB model.

Cons: None so far for me. You would want something bigger to hold a lot of media files, but for other data, this is quite large enough.

Other Thoughts: Using a pair of these in RAID1. These are ideal primary data drives; if you're not using a SSD, they make fast boot drives. With others chopping their warranties down to two years or even one year, buying these should be a no-brainer.

Pros: These are great hard drives if you are lucky enough to get one that is not defective.

Cons: Our IT Company purchased 6 of these drives for a client upgrade/deployment of their entire Network/Workstations. Of the 6 ordered, 3 were DOA. We think this is unacceptable. Western Digital quality control is not what it used to be, and evidently they just don't have the same standards for their products anymore, as perfectly illustrated by this years decrease in warranty coverage periods. What a shame. We think it's time to start buying from the Other Guys.

Manufacturer Response:

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with the WD Blue Desktop drive. It is unfortunate that you have experienced a drive failure in such a short timeframe, as this is neither the typical nor the intended experience. Let us assure you that we rigorously test our drives prior to shipping them from the factory to our retailers, and they ship in new working condition. WD sets its warranty policy to best serve customers, while remaining competitive and financially sound. WD has changed the standard limited warranty on its WD Green, WD Blue Desktop and WD Blue Mobile hard drive families to two years from three. WD Desktop and Mobile Black drive families will maintain five-year warranties.
Western Digital stands behind its products for the duration of the device’s warranty period and in the interest of customer service, we will gladly replace your device, no questions asked, while providing you with a replacement prior to receiving your current devices. We would appreciate the opportunity to further assist you directly, and resolve any further concerns you may have with the device and/or your experience with our products. 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.