WD AV-25 1TB 5400 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive - WD10JUCT

Pros: Quiet, cool, plenty of storage. When I first got my PS3 systems I upgraded to the largest drives available at the time (Western Digital 740GB drives) but always wanted more space. After hooking up my PS4, installing and downloading some games, and capturing and uploading some video clips I noticed I'd used quite a bit of space...which was rather troubling since I'd only had it for a week or so. I knew I'd want to upgrade the hard drive but hadn't really looked into what was available...and then I received an invitation to review this hard drive. Excellent timing! The drive is the perfect height (9.5mm). It takes a little wiggling to get the side mount screws attached but once installed the drive is very quiet and cool. System seems to boot up faster and load games faster. It was a very simple installation (slide the top panel of the PS4 to the left, take out a top screw and then 4 side screws)

Cons: As with any hard drive you won't actually get 1TB of useable space. The manufacturer calculates a mb as 1,000kb and Operating Systems calculate a mb as 1,024kb. All hard drive sizes can be calculated with a fair amount of accuracy by simply multiplying the advertised size by 0.931. which should give you the approximate useable size.

Overall Review: Still, 931GB of space in your brand new PS4 (or even your somewhat older but still awesome PS3) is impressive and means your PS4 has plenty of storage for all of those games that are going to be released in coming years. I can't really judge the hard drive that comes standard in the PS4...but it seems pretty junky and is DEFINITELY loud. My wife commented on how noisy the PS4 was when we started Knack together. After replacing the hard drive she was quite pleased and again commented, this time on how quiet the system was. I'm sure this hard drive would work fine in other applications but it seems like other reviewers have those covered. I was quite excited to crack open a practically brand new piece of gaming hardware and go poking around inside of it with a screwdriver. Don't be afraid! Buy this drive and upgrade that Playstation 4!

Pros: Western Digital hit a home run with the WD AV-25 drive. Although this drive is designed for – and excels at - video streaming, it also works well for general usage. As Newegg classifies the AV-25 as an internal desktop/laptop drive, let’s first look at its performance as a general-purpose drive: Overall read and write performance is exceptionally good for a 5400 RPM drive. Running the Passmark hard drive benchmark showed overall throughput of the AV-25 outpacing many 7200 RPM 2.5” drives. Sequential read/write performance, as mentioned by a reviewer below, topped 100MB/s. That’s well into 7200 RPM drive territory. Random access times were not as impressive, looking more typical of mid to high end 5400 RPM drives. Given that Western Digital optimizes the AV-25 for streaming i/o and gives it a larger than normal cache, this is to be expected. If you are looking for a low-priced drive with a reasonable-length warranty for a laptop or small format PC, the AV-25 is a solid performer. I should also mention that it ran very quietly even under the worst HD-benchmark thrashing tests. It is when the AV-25 is put to use in a video system that it unveils its true performance. We are a photography outfit performing advertising work for several Fortune 500 companies. Most of our work is still photography, but an ever-growing portion is video. We use a range of video cameras, DVRs, and display systems that require supporting multiple, simultaneous video streams. Our big-box systems use the 3.5”, 7200 RPM versions of the AV-25. I inserted the AV-25 into one, and it was indeed capable of showing five simultaneous HD video streams without a single visual or audio hiccup. Plugging the AV-25 into a portable DVR/media station produced more pleasant surprises. Recording three HD streams at once worked flawlessly. The DVR I used is designed for quiet operation and the stock hard drive gets uncomfortably warm (probably explaining why we had to replace it twice). The AV-25 literature claims cool and quiet operation. Quiet it was, and the drive caddy was significantly cooler than with the OEM drive. The AV-25 has a new home.

Cons: The drive mounting holes in the AV-25 are ever so slightly shallower than on some other 2.5” brands and most SSDs. I discovered this when putting the AV-25 into a 3.5” caddy that came with a SSD. It turns out that the screws supplied by Intel and Samsung for their 2.5” SSD drives are half a mm or so longer than the mounting hole depth on the AV-25. I’m obviously stretching for cons here. One can always wish for faster performance, lower prices, and free beer. All things considered, the AV-25 does well on the first two. You’re on your own for the third.

Overall Review: Western Digital supports the ATA-7 streaming command extensions to the standard ATA command set on the AV-25. These allow reading and writing data without performing error correction. Why would you want that? Well, consider streaming a video. If an error is detected, normal SATA drives run error correction routines to try to recover the bad bits. This can freeze the video for several seconds. That’s annoying, particularly if several streams at once are affected. ATA streaming commands can simply skip reading (or writing) the bad bits. A pixel or two in a single frame is corrupted – not something likely to even be noticed. Several “expert” sites on the web warn of dire consequences when using AV-optimized drives in desktop or laptop systems. The thinking goes that you want data integrity for your computer rather than just the fastest streaming performance. Ignore that advice. We asked Western Digital whether there would be potential problems. Short answer: No. Unless your system specifically requests the ATA-7 extended “read/write without retries” commands, the standard ATA command set is used. Only dedicated hardware such as DVR/PVR systems, video controllers, set-top boxes, and some high-end audio systems implement the ATA streaming extensions. Standard computer systems don’t know the difference between using a normal drive and an AV-optimized one.

Pros: Large Capacity, 2.5" Form Factor, Quiet, Low Power, Low Heat

Cons: Pricey compared to a 3.5" drive with the same or better performance

Overall Review: I have never been particularly loyal to a certain brand of disk drives. For a while I was buying nothing but IBM Deskstars until they started suffering from the famous “click of death” (Google it). I moved on to Seagate, Hitachi, Seagate, and eventually Western Digital. At this moment (subject to change) I have five 1TB WD-10xxx drives running in various PCs around the house. None of them have given me any trouble. One of them is in the PC that I use exclusively as an HTPC running Windows 8.1 with Windows Media Center. My HTPC consists of an Intel DH67GD, i5-2400 processor, 16 GB of memory, and Nvidia GT640 video card. OTA tuning is handled by two SiliconDust HDHR3-US tuners over a gigabit network. Storage is handled by an Intel 120GB 330 Series SSD functioning as the system drive and a Western Digital WD10EURX for storing the video and audio files. Given that the Western Digital WD10EURX is also designed for video storage, I thought it would be interesting to see how the WD10JUCT compares in performance to its bigger brother, the WD10EURX. First thing I did was run some quick benchmarks on the WD10EURX using Parkdale. With nothing running in the background it scored a sequential write speed of 113 Mbytes/sec and a sequential read speed of 115 Mbytes/sec. I then started an HD video in Windows Media Center while playing a HD video in MPC at the same time. The scores dropped to sequential write speed of 104 Mbytes/sec and a sequential read speed of 111 Mbytes/sec. After copying around 500 GB of video files from the WD10EURX to the WD10JUCT, I removed the WD-10EURX and replaced it with the WD10JUCT. With nothing running in the background it scored a sequential write speed of 90 Mbytes/sec and a sequential read speed of 92 Mbytes/sec. I then started the same HD video in Windows Media Center while playing the same HD video in MPC at the same time. The scores dropped to sequential write speed of 83 Mbytes/sec and a sequential read speed of 89 Mbytes/sec. I won’t bore you with specs, but while it is no big surprise that the WD10EURX outperforms the WD10JUCT, more importantly, the quality of the video playback was identical between the two drives. I used the WD10JUCT for several days and did not perceive any difference in performance or quality. I also noticed that the WD10JUCT is very quiet, and doesn’t throw off a lot of heat. I can’t speak to the reliability of the drive, but as I mentioned before Western Digital drives have been very reliable for me, and I expect this drive to be no different. To summarize, the WD10JUCT seems to be an excellent choice if you are building an HTPC and need a 2.5” internal hard drive. Otherwise, if you have space for a 3.5” drive, save some money and buy something like a WD10EURX, or use spend the same amount of money and buy a larger capacity 3.5” drive like the 2TB WD20EURX.

Pros: had this drive hooked up for little over 2 weeks running all the time. It isn't running any operating system as of yet, using this as a Slave drive to run movies, doing back ups, file transfers and so far its been doing great, The drive runs Very quite and runs nice and cool, so far hasn't gotten very hot.

Cons: So far i haven't run into any, Will post again if i do

Overall Review: here are some specks that i got so far testing this drive. Sequential Read : 35. MB/s Sequential Write : 32. MB/s running a benchmark test. there are other tests it runs, but most like to just see how fast the drive is. so i listed that, other tests i done: Full Format: little over 5hrs Transerfing 539 gb to drive took about 4hrs . Transfering 530gb back to other drive took around 3hrs On file transfers to drive i was getting around 22 to 23mbs average, while i was transfering files to other drives i was getting around 33 to 34mbs average speeds. Watching movies from drive it performed very good without any problems. If you are going to be using this drive as an HTPC drive, a back up drive to store movies files etc. or using this in a DVR I would recommend this drive, Its not the fastest, but it stays cool, runs very quite, and does a good job so far, Not sure on long term as i only tested this for only a few weeks. But it has been running all the time with out any problems, I will post again in another couple weeks after running more tests, but as of now. it has been a good reliable drive... and using a drive in those areas i just mentioned, you need something that runs cool and quite and that is reliable,

Pros: Quiet, small 2.5" form factor, low power, and more than adequate speed for an always on HTPC or NAS. 24/7 reliability.

Cons: None

Overall Review: As soon as I got this drive, I installed it in an always on HTPC I have in my home. The HTPC previously had a 3.5" SATA drive, but I replaced it with this and mounted it to the 2.5" mounting bracket that the case came with and the drive worked as expected. As an Operating System drive, I noticed no decrease in performance from the 3.5" 7200 RPM drive it replaced. Im not saying that under intensive data transfer tests, this drive would equal a 7200 RPM drive, but being part of WD's A/V line of drives, thats not what this drive is intended for. I wanted to wait at least a month before posting my review of this drive, because I wanted to be able to see how it held up to 24/7 usage and for that, its been great. Theres really not much more to say about this drive, other than it works, its quiet, low power, and its as fast as any other drive would be when used in its intended role, which is that of an A/V drive. Highly recommended!

Pros: - Quiet for HTPC - Small enough for mini-ITX - Large capacity for many hours of HD recording - Runs cool - Suited for DVR applications, which is what I am using it for.

Cons: - None so far

Overall Review: I am using this a my bedroom HTPC which is a mini-ITX HTPC that uses Windows Media Center and a networked SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime to DVR TV. For the longest time I was using a 128GB SSD for both the OS and recordings but research made me paranoid enough to realize I was better off off-loading the recordings and live TV buffer to a regular drive and saving the write-cycles on my SSD. My mini-ITX case, a Realan E-K3 can fit 2 x 2.5" HDDs so I moved my OS to a 64GB SSD and my recordings/buffer to this 1TB drive. My biggest worry with adding a regular drive to a mini-ITX HTPC were heat and noise. This drive has neither. You cannot hear it at all and temperatures in this small case have remained the same. Despite being 1TB, this HDD is the standard height for 2.5" devices so it fit perfect. This then should have no problem fitting in a notebook. This in combination with an mSATA SSD in a notebook would be an excellent combination -- have the OS on the SSD and media on the 1TB drive. As for performance, I am not doing much to tax the drive but I don't notice (and don't expect to notice) a difference with the live TV buffer on the hard drive now. I do have what seems like some crazy number of hours of recording space now which is great in case I am not able to sweep the programs to my home server before space runs out. I can also keep copy-once recordings on this drive instead of moving them to the server which means they now won't show up on my other HTPCs that cannot see them. Overall, this is a great drive. I make a HTPCs for other people and if they want space for media or live TV buffer/recordings, this is definitely the drive I will use.

Pros: incredible performance consider its 5400rpm spec. this drive even edges out my hybrid drive (momentus XT) by a notch. see results below.

Cons: if i had to pick a con, i would say the access time is the weakest link of this drive. see more info below.

Overall Review: when off a fresh install, you can get speeds up to 108MB/s of sequential read/write off the bat. however, the realistic real world performance after you have installed a few programs is more like 95MB/s sequential read/write. this however is still a tad faster than my 750GB hybrid drive from Seagate MomentusXT (in a none cached situation). the seagate only tops out at about 85MB/s in sequential read/write. for small file transfers of 512K and 4K is really where this drive amazes me. compare to my desktop RAID 0 (two Samsung F3's), this drive actually edges out slightly in 4K and 512K. this drive achieved a 4K random read of 1.31MB/s, while my dual Samsung F3 in RAID 0 only does 0.92MB/s. although obviously the dual F3 has this drive beat in sequential speed, but realistically speaking, a faster 4K speed will have a more noticeable performance difference for everyday users in situations like bootup, and shutdown, or opening up programs. sequential speeds are mostly only good for large file transfers in cached situation. the random access time is the only weak link in this product. it only managed 17.9ms, while the 3.5 inch samsung counter part average around 13.2ms. however, a performance number of 17.9 is still on par with average 2.5inch laptop drives out there. my hybride drive 2.5 inch momentusXT manages about 17.5ms FYI. what amazes me the most about this drive is the fact that all that performance is achieved with operating at only 5400rpm. traditionally, to get anything in this range of performance, users generally have to opt for 7200rpm. at its current price vs performance ratio, i would highly recommend this drive for laptop, or even everyday desktop use. if you read all my EggXpert reviews you would see that i am normally very critical on the products that are sent to me. but this time WD has done a tremendous job that i for the first time, i am giving my first 5 egg EggXpert review.

Pros: Pros: This drive runs EXTREMELY cool and quiet. It's also quite fast. In HDTach on my AMD SB950 based chipset (SATA 6gbps) system, the drive managed to pull off a quite impressive 95mb/sec average read and a 15.6ms random access time. That's almost as fast as my 7200.12 rpm drive! You can't hear the drive spinning, but you can hear the occasional noise in a silent room with data being written to it. I temporarily had the drive hooked up via. eSATA, in a hard drive dock. Definitely not the best for heat dissapation or silencing the drive...so i'm extremely impressed. The drive is able to handle recording multiple video streams at once from a few network cameras (too bad my cameras aren't able to push my 802.11AC network), But with how speedy this drive is, I'm sure it could handle a bunch more. After benchmarking the drive against a Hybrid SSDHDD, the mechanical portion of this drive is a little faster at sequential reads and writes, and has a much quicker random access time. Again, I'm very impressed with this drive.

Cons: These drives are NOT to be used as storage or a boot drive! AV work only. It handles errors VERY differently than any other drive on the market. Instead of pausing and retrying like most drives, it accepts the error and continues. Would you rather have a corrupt frame of a video or a minute of missing time in your video? Although, it is kind of a pro...depending on what you use the drive for. If you get this drive, it should only be used for recording video of some sort! Surveillance video or maybe even some TV shows/movies. This drive is NOT a regular hard drive!

Overall Review: Some of the 3.5" GP-AV drives were just as fast as the Caviar Green drives, but ran a bit warmer to the touch. This is most definitely NOT the case with this drive.This seems to be exactly what anybody would want in a notebook sized drive, recording many streams of video. Whether it's surveillance or media related, it'll do the job. The only question is: how long will it last? With temperatures like this, I imagine a bit longer than most. Heat kills drives, and I haven't been able to make this drive warm to the touch. 30c MAXIMUM in an 85 degree Fahrenheit room?! I approve.