Customer Reviews

Western Digital Caviar Green 500 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 5400 RPM SATA II WD5000AACS

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This drive uses reduced power at least partly by varying its rotational speed as needed. It is part of WD's new green power line. I purchased it to replace a failing Maxtor drive that came with the PC.

The WD drive is incredibly quiet. It is also considerably faster than the original drive in the machine. A very noticeable speed boost.

Installation is conventional. Straightforward although I would only recommend doing ANY hard disk upgrade for people with some experience working inside PCs. WD's Data Lifeguard software helps with formatting, partitioning, and copying files from your old drive (assuming it still works).

Obviously, if you want to copy from your old drive you must temporarily install it in your PC after installing the new one. WD's software will copy entire partitions quickly and easily. I used this to copy the system and other partitions to the new drive. It worked reasonably well. Win XP booted correctly. Primary problem was that this got Microsoft Office 2003 a bit confused. Somehow the office update settings got out of sort. Office worked without doing this although Office Update did not. Actually had to clean those registry settings and then uninstall and reinstall Office.

WD's user guide is good although a bit poorly worded in places - the guide for using the software to help set up the drive. E.g. The user guide talks about creating a bootable floppy diskette. I did although it was never needed. It may only be needed if setting up the drive from DOS and your PC cannot boot from CD.

Overall, I strongly recommend this drive. Over the years I have found WD drives to be quiet, fast, and reliable. This continues the record. Remember to erase your old drive!

This drive (and all other of the "green" line) has a nice premise - why spin the drive at full rotational speed when most of the time it is idle or underutilized? Unfortunately, the execution of this idea is flawed. This drive cannot continue reading and writing data while the speed changes from 5400 rpm to the 7200 rpm tier, instead it halts while the speed is changed. This means that any programs that are actively using the drive cannot write or read to/from it during this period, resulting in some programs breaking entirely and things like music players either pausing or repeating their buffers like a broken record until the drive can send data again.

I found it out when I was just streaming music off of the drive and then went to perform some more intense file copies - the music started repeating until the drive was at full speed and then it started normally. I've been able to repeat this several times so it is a flaw in the drive's design. Also my video editing software does NOT play nicely with the speed change, often crashing when it cannot read/write in a timely manner.

Finally, the spindle on mine whines when the drive is cold like drives I have heard before with problems in the drive motor, and it is only 2 months old.

Very disappointed, since the drive was cheap and flawed it's not really worth spending the money to ship it back to western digital under warranty, I have already replaced it with a Caviar Black that so far exceeds it in every way (yes, the blacks are a little louder, but still quiet compared to my Raptor boot/program drives and overall fan noise).

I bought this to install in my new AMD Phenom Quad Core 9500 system. It works great as does all of the other Western Digital Drives I have ever had. I have not had one of them fail yet! I have bought cheaper SATA drives that have failed on me in the past. Do yourself a favor and stick with the Western Digital brand.

Recieved both drives right away in excellent shape! Will buy more from this seller.

I'm no computer geek, but had NO TROUBLE installing bulk/OEM WD5000AACS hard drive from Amazon. Packaged real well, and was securely sealed, with quick shipping. Had to obtain a jumper to reduce SATA 300 to 150 speed, but that is simple enough. WD website is a lifesaver when buying the bulk/OEM version. The cost savings is great vs. the retail box version.

Bought this drive two months ago and it has worked flawlessly. I have it hooked up with an external dock.It seems quiet to me.

I bought this not for the "green," although that's nice, but because I read that it's quiet. And that it is. I do not notice that it's supposed to be slower than my other drives, but I do notice that it's much quieter. It was simple to install into my G5 Mac tower, and so far does exactly what it's supposed to.

Added this as a second drive, the "green" spin up feature saves energy which is fine since this is a second drive in the machine for backups, video, etc. The spin up is very fast and not noticeable when used as a second drive; not sure how this would behave as a primary drive.

I purchased this drive to go with my Intel D945GCLF2 ATOM m-itx low power board (total power consumption ~40w when busy). It is the smallest capacity "green" version drive that WD makes. It still uses less power that even smaller drives. Quiet, fast, excellent price, and free shipping. What more could you ask for? Oh yeah, cables. That generally doesn't happen with OEM drives.

Got this hard drive on sale. Great price, great deal. Good energy saving drive, saves power when not in use. Does what it says, haven't had any problem so far. For the price I got, it's the best deal around.