HGST HDS721050CLA362 (0F10381) 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Pros: It is averagely fast for a sata II HDD. Nice for temporary storage of large data files, music, and videos. Seemed to have no trouble being a hot swap device. Lasted fairly longer than other well known name brands. Transfers files faster than some other HDDs with 16 MB caches. Will make a nice paper weight here when it dies pretty soon.

Cons: Well this one is a factory replacement for the first drive I bought here on newegg. The first one lasted about four months, then started hanging during burns. Sent that back to WD, who now owns this company and renamed it HGST in the first place. Got this refurbished replacement, and it lasted longer than the first one. Until today...I started hearing the click of death during a large file transfer earlier today. Speed dropped down on the transfer rate from normal (108-97 MBps) to a whopping 27-14 MBps.

Other Thoughts: Well it's nothing I would use to convert or encode video with. Not uber-fast, but decent speeds for an old as the dinosaurs drive. After it started making the nice click click burr burrrrrrr..... sound that we all do enjoy so much (is my sarcasm coming through clear enough?) I decided to run WD data lifeguard to see if it could find any errors. I ran a full surface scan with data lifeguard, and after that 2 hour long super happy fun time, there were no errors present. So why the sudden slow down and weird sound? It's going to die, that's why. I speak from experience. I always love how these mechanical HDDs start to act up so you know to get everything off of them because they are on their way out. It's like they're saying "Hello, I'm gonna go ahead and die in about 2 days. Back your data up now!". Well after getting everything off of it, and reformatting it, it's still making the noise and going slow as molasses. It didn't even make it to half the warranty period. Why is it that no HDD manufacturers out there are willing to stand behind their products anymore. I've went through all the brands, and had problems with all of them. Can't anyone make a quality HDD anymore. Back in the day of Maxtor they would last years past their warranties. Now you're lucky if it lasts 2 months without problems. I guess I can't wait until there are huge SSDs that are as cheap as mechanical HDDs. That way at least I won't have to replace them all the time, or even less often. At least this time the replacement drive let me know it was dying before it went kaput. The first one took 380 GB of non-replaceable data with it. I lost all of my PC shop's customer records and tons of videos, pictures, phone numbers, etc. Now days I live by this one very good and simple rule. If it's important, back it up. And once you've backed it up and think everything is safe, back it up at least 2-4 more times on other types of backup media. You can never be too safe IMO. Anyway, I guess I'll RMA this one again and try all over. I'm getting really tired of printing RMA labels and boxing things up this week. It's like I'm getting RMAitis.

Pros: Haven't had any problems so far, had it a few months.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: may save money by getting a second one of these instead of getting a terrabyte

Pros: - I ordered four of these for a server with a failed RAID 10 array, and all four worked from the start!
- Very fast. Write speeds of around 80 MBps, and read speeds of around 500 MBps (as a RAID 10).

Cons: None that I can think of...

Other Thoughts: The packaging was great! I don't know if Newegg is fixing their HDD packaging methods, or if it was because I ordered these from my company's NeweggBusiness account, but these HDDs came individually packaged in these special boxes that "float" the drive in the middle of the box, and doesn't allow it to come into contact with anything.

Those individual boxes were then placed in a larger box and wrapped in copious amounts of brown paper.

All in all, that box could have been dropped off the empire state building and the drives would have survived!

Pros: was DOA.

Cons: packaging WAS POOR. Had TO RMA IT.

Other Thoughts: item PACKAGING MIGHT OF CAUSED DOA.

Pros: Awesome and easy to use .

Cons: None

Pros: Works great no computer needed ... So it makes an exact copy With the operating system intact. .... Very pleased with this unit...

Cons: None

Pros: None

Cons: DOA

Other Thoughts: I have bad luck with hard drives from Newegg.
2 in last 2 years failed in less than 6 months and now this one DOA.

Pros: It works.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Put this in my parent's computer. After grandchildren and a trip to a known bad repair guy, I put this in and works great. Put Ubuntu on it and now mom and dad swear not to go back to Windows.

Pros: On sale low cost per gig

Cons: started installing Windows XP on this harddrive and was only able to format to 20% then the drive hung up and finally went to unable to format harddrive message. Then tried installing Windows 7 and it could not install either. RMAed and cost me the $12.00 savings to ship dead harddrive back for a refund and ordered a Western Digital for more money. Luck of the Draw drive made in China on label

Pros: * Pretty good performance
* Reasonable price
* Quiet
* Brand-Name product

Cons: None so far (I only got it earlier today...). All SMART data / tests pass with flying colors; zero of those nasty reallocated sectors.

Other Thoughts: For those that are curious, I popped this into a USB 3.0 external enclosure, connected it to my desktop (via USB 3.0 port) and ran a speed test with CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64. Results (in Mb/s), first value is read, second is write:

Test 1: 2000 Mb, 3 passes:

Sequential: 141, 133.5

512k: 49.1, 45.2

4k: 0.588, 1.089

4k QD32: 0.657, 1.102

Test 2: 4000 Mb, 3 passes:

Sequential: 141.2, 133.2

512k: 47, 44.1

4k: 0.562, 1.026

4k QD32: 0.650, 1.007