Hitachi GST Travelstar 5K500.B HTS545050B9A300 (0A57915) 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Lots of space, reviews claim best power/performance. Runs quiet. So far much faster than my old 160gb. Hdtune 2.53 Max 79.4 MB/s Avg 61.8 MB/s Access Time 18.6ms Burst Rate: 122.6MB/s Has 3 year warranty (verified with serial number)

Cons: Kind of warm, but is probably from my laptop.

Overall Review: Came quickly and was packed nicely, which was reassuring because the UPS guy threw the box at my door. Don't know why Hitachi makes it so hard to find warranty information! (Needed serial to verify on site) Newegg does not seem to like Firefox =\

Pros: It's quiet, it's inexpensive, does not seem to be a power hog (can run it off of USB power, and it's roomy. (I used it to replace/upgrade the 160GB Hitachi originally installed in my MacBook).

Cons: Probably not the fastest drive out there. But before you jump to 7200RPM think again whether you really are doing something which would actually benefit from slightly faster disk access. (I wasn't and still don't think I am). (I only went with 4 instead of 5 eggs because I'm one of those people who holds a "5" rating in reserve for something that truly knocks my socks off. I really like this drive, but it is still just a good drive to me. OK, maybe a 4 1/2 ... but newegg won't let me rate it that way. ;-)

Overall Review: Replaced the OEM Hitachi 160GB which came with my early 2008 white MacBook. FWIW, that 160GB Hitachi was a 1.5Gbit/sec SATA while this larger replacement is 3.0Gbit/sec. Not that I think it makes a diff in terms of performance during actual real life use. (I keep intending to run HD Tune on both drives on my desktop, but never seem to get around to it. So who knows ... ) I got this drive about a year ago (end of April 2009) and have been running it in the MacBook since then. Haven't had any problems with it. My personal experience makes me wonder just how much weight to give those "It's junk!" reviews. It would be nice if newegg could post some approximate total unit sales numbers for these drives so you had some larger context for the negative reviews.

Pros: LightWeight and quiet. Build in encryption that makes the drive unreadible to other systems. Price was right.

Cons: I purchased two of these drives. One had bad blocks in the first 5% of the drive. The other is still functioning perfectly. From reading other reviews it does appear that these drives have a high failure rate. I would not buy this drive again only because to me the encryption is a nagative. When I replace a drive i want to be able to take the old drive an attach it to any system I would like. When I tried to do this with this drive it crashed the other systems.

Overall Review: Overall a good drive. The drive that worked good was replacing a smaller hitachi drive in a toshiba. Because I neded an immediate replacement for the defective drive i purchased the WD drive. I do think it has a better reputation. I do wish newegg sold the "G" drive models that include a sensor that senses a free fall and retracts the heads of the drive.

Pros: Larger capacity, lower power reqs than some other 2.5" drives. High bit density platters so probably also performs better than earlier tech.

Cons: Has a faster SATA interface (300 Gbps) than my MacBook (150 Gbps). Oh, well. Doesn't matter that much since the drive's cache isn't all that big. :-) Maybe a bit slower because of 5400 RPM. But nothing I really notice usually since I've got 4GiB or RAM.

Overall Review: Not sure how to take the "Don't buy it!!" hysterical anecdotal reviews. All I know is it has worked fine so far for me. Can't figure out why people insist on paying extra to buy a drive that is supposedly "for" a MacBook. Hard drive tech is very much an interchangeable commodity these days. (FWIW, I have a white early 2008 Intel MacBook).

Pros: Fast and quiet. Fits easily and runs cool.

Cons: None

Overall Review: It works. I'd buy Hitachi again.

Pros: BIG STORAGE! I love the 500GB. And for the price it ain't bad either. It's quiet, heats up very slowly (and not very hot at all either!) and there is almost no vibrations either! My laptops fan is so much louder then the hard drive that even if there was no fan, I doubt it would be noticeable. Packaging was good too. Came in a box with a lot of cushion, followed by bubble wrapping. Then a sealed bag to protect from moisture.

Cons: Can't think of much. But I have noticed that my battery life goes down a bit faster. It used to start off at 3 hours from a straight charge... not it's around 2 hours and 33 minutes... and it ticks down faster too... I had my laptop on for around 1 hour and the timer went down to 55 minutes already.

Overall Review: Great storage capacity. Takes up more battery then my previous hard drive but I still think it's worth it since I have a spare battery and the places I go to usually have a wall jack.

Pros: 500Gig Baby!!!! Actually seems to have enhanced the performance of my MBP. (I admit, it's RAID 0 configured with a 24G SSD to run Leopard) HUGE. FAST. Real performer! GREAT price on the egg!

Cons: OEM, so no mounting screws. NBD, just swiped 'em from the old drive.

Pros: Incredible amount of space, quiet, and it had a mail-in rebate when I bought it.

Cons: None, so far.