Western Digital Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: My two oldest WDCB 1TB drives are approaching their 5th year of service. As in 42,000 hours of 24/7 on demand read and write at any given time service. They are still working well. It is true they aren’t nearly as fast as they once were, nor as quick as their newer versions installed right alongside them. However, they are still as dependable as the day I first installed them.

I wasn’t going to bother with a review, as these drives are fairly old by technology standards, but as someone thought a 1 egg review was acceptable for a product that worked for five years and suddenly died just after warranty, I felt it necessary to counter with the quality of service I’ve had with the 2 WDC 1TB drives over the past 5 years. These are installed in a system designed and used 75% of the time running video games, 20% streaming music (from these very HDDs as well as online), and 5% ‘real’ work. 24/7. I shut it off every few weeks or so because it’s an electronic device, and its software is developed by humans. In other words, it’s not perfect, and at times requires power cycling.

I have 2 additional WDCB 1TB drives installed that have seen about half the service time these two FAEX ones have, and I have no doubt I’ll end up replacing them with multi-TB SSDs long before they cease functioning.

Western Digital are the only drives I buy for systems I build, and the only ones I recommend when choosing to install mechanical HDDs. Obviously, my experience with these drives is a drop in the bucket relative to the hundreds of millions of HDDs installed over the years, from multiple companies, across the entire world. It’s always possible one may have a radically different experience when using these drives. If so, by all means reflect that in a review or statement. 1 Egg for 5 years of operation, (we have zero knowledge of how the drive was installed and used by the user… I’ve seen computers buried under 50 pounds of books and paper, stuffed animals and and a few dozen layers of dust… this environment would be detrimental to electronic equipment), doesn’t exactly do wonders for credibility.

Cons: Well, 2 of these drives have not quit on me after nearly 5 years of 24/7 service, what am I suppose to put here?

Overall Review: None

Pros: 1TB. 7200rpm.

Cons: Died.

Overall Review: Windows installed and running for almost 4 years. Many many formats, installs, partitions created\deleted. Should last forever not just 3-4 years.