Product Description

WD Scorpio Blue 5400 RPM 2.5-inch SATA hard drives from Western Digital deliver lightning-fast and ultra-quiet performance hand-in-hand with low power consumption. In addition, they are designed with ruggedness, reliability, and data-protection features that actively watch over valuable data. Available in capacities from 160 to 640 GB, these drives feature a 3 Gb/s SATA interface and 8 MB cache. WD Scorpio Blue hard drives are designed for portable digital devices of all kinds, including notebook computers, external storage, and digital media players.

Product Details

• Size: 500 GB
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WD5000BEVT
• Platform: Windows
• Format: CD
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .37" h x 2.75" w x 3.94" l, .26 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Features

• WDs exclusive WhisperDrive yields one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market.
• WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks
• With 5400 RPM spin speed and 12 ms access time and up to 3 Gb/s SATA interface speed

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 Scorpio® Blue™ Performance and reliability for everyday computing. Select true blue for reliable quality in everyday use.	WD Scorpio® Black™ Maximum performance for power computing. Select black when you demand the highest performance.

WD Scorpio Blue – Big capacity for portable computing.

With available SATA or EIDE interfaces, WD Scorpio Blue drives offer high-performance, low power consumption, and cool operation, perfect for notebooks and other portable devices. Pick the drive that suits your needs with the confidence in knowing that all WD Scorpio Blue drives are built to the highest standards of quality and reliability.

Features at a glance Massive capacity Low power consumption Ultra-cool and quiet 3-year limited warranty

WD Scorpio Blue 2.5-inch drives offer high-performance, low power consumption and cool operation, making them ideal for notebooks and other portable devices.

Massive capacity - Whether they are in an external drive or a notebook computer, WD Scorpio Blue SATA drives continue to offer the highest capacity for space-hungry operating systems with plenty of room left over for photos, music, and video. A slight increase in overall drive height (750 GB and 1 TB only) has driven storage capacity for 2.5-inch form factor drives upwards to a realm once thought to be impossible.*

*750 GB and 1 TB models are 12.5 mm high and may not be compatible with all notebook systems. Consult system specifications for maximum allowable drive height before attempting to install.

Quiet - In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive™ combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market. These algorithms also optimize the way a drive seeks for data, which significantly improves power consumption. So now silence (and longer battery life) is golden.

Reliable and rugged - WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks. WD's SecurePark™ parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down, and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non-operational shock tolerance.

View SecurePark demo here.

Fast and efficient - Ultra-fast 3 Gb/s SATA interface speed yields performance fit for demanding mobile applications.

Tested for compatibility - 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.

Ideal For
Portable digital devices of all kinds, including notebook computers, external storage, and digital media players.

Customer Reviews

Great upgrade for the MacBook Aluminum...
I bought the new MacBook Aluminum (13" - Late 2008), with the 160GB hard drive, which quickly fell short to my storage demands. While on the market for an upgrade hard drive, I came across the WD 500GB Scorpio Blue and hesitant at first (I could not find anywhere a post which would guarantee that it would work with my MB), I decided to go for it. Upon receiving my hard drive, I ran the Time Machine on my MB, switched the OEM hard drive for this beauty (it took about 15 mins.), installed Leopard from the DVD that came with my MB, and then restored from the most recent TM backup (installing the OS took about 10 mins, and restoring the backup took about 2 hrs - it was a 140GB backup!). So far, I've had no problems whatsoever using the drive. It is very quiet, does not heat up excesively (comparable actually to the original hard drive), and now I have a MB with a 500GB drive!!!

I am extremely satisfied with this drive, and would definitely recomend it to any MB/MBPro owner who wants to upgrade the hard drive.

Joining the Choir - It's the Goodest
PLUSES: It's large, quiet, fast. It easily and perfectly fits where a 20-40-60-80 GB, 2.5" SATA drive would, including in a PS3.

MINUSES: You may be able to find larger drives but not everyone may need more.

Of course, it's no longer 'the biggest' but I knew that a couple of months ago, when I upgraded my PS3. I also figured that, since I have no plans of storing a movie library, 320 GB would carry me for the next couple of years. After that, it's likely that I'd be buying the next generation game/multimedia machine.

Advice to the PS3 upgraders from someone who, after some hesitation, actually did it:
- Go for the highest capacity. If it's a 2.5" SATA and you can afford it you should probably go with it. I already replaced my original PS3 drive with a 320GB but my formerly 60GB laptop has a 500GB 2.5" WD SATA now.
- If you need to format this drive or any drive to Fat32, the best utility I found was FAT32FORMAT.EXE - Google and you shall find it out there. I'm not reviewing the formatter utility but I can tell you that it does a drive in less than 10 seconds AND it works on Vista.
- It helps to have a 60-80 USB-connected drive handy to backup your PS3 content before upgrading. With one of these as the backup device, the PS3 fully restore EVERYTHING, including whatever copywrited or protected objects, such as, in my case the PS2 memory cards emulations.
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Note (March 12, 2009)
The Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 8 MB Cache, 5400 RPM SATA II WD5000BEVT seems to be the way to go these days. I like WD and the 500GB is selling now for less than I paid for the 320GB. I actually helped a couple of friends upgrade with this drive and it was quick and easy.

Note 2: (April 8, 2009)
The review above was for the 320GB, which I used to upgrade my PS3. I just ordered the 500GB because life became almost unbearable with a 60GB on my laptop. I am planning to swap the drives without actually reinstalling the OS and the apps with help from Acronis True Image Home 2009 PC Backup & Recovery.

Note 3: (April 12, 2009) - Laptop Upgrade
My 2 year old Thinkpad T60 came with a wimpy 60GB SATA drive. I needed the ability to upgrade to the much larger 500GB and do it without having to reinstall the OS, apply the service packs and then reinstall and configure 100 different little apps.

Acronis True Image Home 2009 PC Backup & Recovery allowed me to do all of the above in about one hour. Its Utilities section has a 'clone' option that would copy EVERYTHING, including the Master Boot Record/Sector (MBR) from the puny 60GB drive unto the 500GB while allowing me to control the size of the active partition - this while the 500GB was connected through a USB wire and the laptop booted off the program's CD.

Once the operation completed (50 minutes) I simply removed the old 60GB drive off my laptop and replaced it with the 500GB drive. Once the laptop was turned back on it booted up happily, with a 200GB master partition and a 300GB second partition. There are 3 words that I have to use to describe the process: PERFECTION and COMPLETE SATISFACTION. This capability alone is worth the price of this product.

To my surprise, with the new drive, the Primary Hard Disk score as computed by Microsoft (right click on 'My computer' then select 'Properties') jumped from a decent 4.8 to an unexpected 5.7.

Great drive for the MacBook Pro
Got this drive as the capacity of the OEM drive provided by Apple for my MacBook Pro 17" was nearing it's capacity. I order a Deckcell USB 2.0 to SATA + IDE (2.5", 3.5", 5.25") Cable with Power Adapter from Amazon at the same time, so moving the data from the internal drive to the new drive was a breeze and painless. After loading the OS, and having the OSX installation process move the data, installation of the drive itself was done (a little cumbersome, but not too bad) and this new drive is performing well and is MUCH quieter than the original OEM drive.

If you are considering a replacement drive for your Mac Book Pro, I strongly recommend a look at this drive!