Product Description

WD Caviar Blue hard drives are available with either SATA or EIDE interface in a variety of cache sizes with a multitude of available features to deliver rock solid performance and ultra-cool and quiet operation. Pick the drive that suits your needs with the confidence in knowing that all WD Caviar Blue drives are built to the highest standards of quality and reliability. With capacities ranging from 40 GB to 640 GB, these drives are the perfect solution for family and business computing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #103 in Consumer Electronics
• Size: 500 GB
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WD5000AAKS
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 4.00" w x 5.80" l, 1.61 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Features

• Capacity - 500G
• SATA Connectivity
• Memory: 16M CACHE
• Speed: 7200 RPM
• Size: 3.5 Inch

From the Manufacturer
It's easy to choose the world-class quality of a Western Digital hard drive. We’ve not only designed a drive that's right for you, we've also made it simple to find. These drives are ideal for business, home use, or high performance desktops, and are available in capacities up to 2 TB. With our renowned leading-edge engineering, you'll always make the right choice with WD. And you'll never compromise on quality.

The power of choice. The quality of WD.
WD Caviar® Blue™ Performance and reliability for everyday computing. Select true blue for reliable quality in everyday use.	WD Caviar® Green™ Cool, quiet, eco-friendly. Select green for doing more with less energy consumption.	WD Caviar® Black™ Maximum performance for power computing. Select black when you demand the highest performance.

WD Caviar Blue – Performance and reliability for everyday computing

To make drive selection simple, we've gathered all our popular WD Caviar SE16, WD Caviar SE, and WD Caviar drives under one umbrella we call WD Caviar Blue. Built to Western Digital's awarding winning quality standards, these drives are available in a full range of performance features.

Features at a glance Solid performance Ultra-cool and quiet Capacities up to 750 GB 3-years limited warranty

Interface

PATA - Enhanced integrated drive electronics (PATA), also called Parallel ATA (PATA), hard drives have been the standard in the computer industry for more than 10 years.

SATA - Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives are quickly becoming the new standard. Motherboard manufacturers now include SATA inputs on their boards. Because of their considerably narrower cables, SATA hard drives provide increased airflow and less clutter and in the computer system compared to PATA drives.

The performance difference - PATA drives support data transfer rates up to 100MB/sec, and all WD Caviar Blue SATA drive support 3 Gb/s transfer rates.

Cache - WD Caviar Blue is available in 2 MB, 8 MB, and 16 MB cache sizes. Bigger cache memory yields faster performance.

Capacity- We offer drives ranging from 40 GB to 750 GB. Pick the biggest capacity your budget will allow. You can never have too much storage space.

Reliability - We understand the importance of your data, and we are committed to protecting that data with exceptionally reliable products, advanced data protection technology and superior customer support.

Cool - Keeping the drive cool enhances reliability. WD continues to develop new and innovative ways to keep drives cool while they are operating.

Quiet - The technology that Tom's Hardware Guide called "very fast and nearly silent" is used throughout this family of drives. Our WhisperDrive technology minimizes noise to levels near the threshold of human hearing. To cut seek noise, SoftSeek technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in more efficient operation.

View IntelliSeek demo here.

NoTouch™ ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. (Available on 120 GB capacities and above)

IntelliSeek™ - Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration. (Available on 120 GB capacities and above)

Compatible - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems.

How this WD hard drive protects your data

• Data Lifeguard is an exclusive set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair. WD's Data Lifeguard technology automatically finds, isolates, and repairs problems that may develop over the life of a hard drive.


• Data Lifeguard Tools are software utilities designed for WD hard drives that work with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation,diagnostics and repair both simple and worry-free.


• ShockGuard instantaneously protects the hard drive against damage from bumps and vibrations while it is running. This technology enables WD Caviar drives to achieve industry-leading shock specifications.

Ideal For
Family and business computing.

Customer Reviews

Just the drive, ma'am...
As M. Mola points out, this is an OEM package. It not only has no instructions or software, it also does not have a connector cable, an IDE four-pin to SATA power adapter, or mounting screws.

If you want to replace a failed drive and don't want the clutter that usually comes with a drive, this is for you.

If you want to add an additional drive to an existing system, you'll need to get the cabling and mounting hardware elsewhere.

Western Digital 640GB Caviar SATA Hard Drive
I build computers as a hobby. Why pay for someone else to build one (one size fits does not fit all) when building your own is not too difficult and you can build with quality parts tailored to your own specific needs. Case in point, the WD 640GB HDD. Large hard drive prices are economical right now. Generally speaking, the larger the drive, the less the cost per gigabyte (GB). At Amazon's prices the WD 640GB drive was about $10 bucks more than the WD Caviar 16 320 GB drive with the same cache. Western Digital has recently color coded their drives: Black (high performance), Blue (mainstream) and Green (no brainer: ecologically friendly-for a hard drive). Where does marketing get these ideas? The Caviar 16 640GB falls into the Blue category. It is amazingly fast and quiet, thanks to its 16 MB cache and 3 Gb/s transfer rate. The technology is interesting in that WD utilized two 320GB platters which gives this drive an edge as compared to say 750 GB drives with similar cache size. The drive itself is nearly silent and the quietest HDD I have used. Its rated over 90MB/sec read and write speeds, which is very fast. Yes there are faster hard drives, but for the money this drive is an excellent choice.

My only complaint: the drive is warranted for 3 years not 5.

Amazon had the lowest price I found, and shipped the drive quickly. Turn around time from placing the order to delivery at my door step was four days. Stable, reliable and excellent price to performance ratio, this drive is a great choice for everyday computing needs.

WD 500GB Caviar
I got this in desperation when I needed a disc drive for my G5.
It has been months.
Not a hiccup.
It is very fast. Noticeably faster than the stock 160.
And it is very quiet.
It has increased my system speed and gives lots of room for expansion.
I am impressed.
Update January 2009. This drive is still going strong and works great every day.