WD Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive

great drive

Posted Jan 15, 2007 - I HAVE TWO,AND THEY ARE GREAT. THE DRIVE IS BIG,QUICK, AND QUIET. I CAN'T ASK FOR MORE. I HAVE THEM IN SMART DRIVE EXTERNAL ENCLOSURES WITH NO FAN THEY GET PRETTY WARM, BUT NOT HOT. THEY ARE USED A LOT, AND LEFT ON FREQUENTLY. SOMETIMES FOR DAYS AT A TIME, AND THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM. I WILL PURCHASE AT LEAST 2 OR 3 MORE SOON. CAN'T SAY ENOUGH ABOUT THEM!

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Great silent 500 GB drive

Posted Oct 18, 2006 - I did investigate a lot before deciding to buy it and I have to say I do not regret my decision. Great drive, fast and silent at the same time. The perfect backup medium. I think I will get a 2nd one.

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Time does tell...

Posted Mar 8, 2007 - I've had a high failure rate so far. I have 5 of these in an nVidia RAID5 using SATA II. I've had 2 drives fail within an 8-10 week period after first use. Thankfully, they come with a 3 year warranty, and my RAID 5 is holding up, but 2 out of 5 seems high to me. No, heat was not a factor. I have kept a thermometer between the drives for weeks. During heaviest use, temperature was 110F (43C), and nominal was about 95F (35C). I keep these 5 drives in 2 disk bays, each bay with a 120mm fan blowing front-to-back. I even modified the top of my computer case to punch 2 large holes and mount 2 more 120mm case fans to suck the hot air up and out from directly over the back half of both drive bays. After implementing this 4-fan configuration, temperature never reached higher than 95F at worst.

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As Advertised - Good Drive

Posted Feb 2, 2007 - I decided to WD another chance after having some problems with their drives a few years back. After a few months, the drives seem to be holding up well. I use 2 of them for a small RAID JBOD.

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Quiet but HOT

Posted Sep 17, 2007 - I use a couple of these drives in a fanless enclosure (4 drives total), and have had 3 failures. I have two Samsung drives in the same enclosure (even with these hot bricks), and they have never given me a problem. As someone else mentioned, thank goodness for the 3 year warranty, but when you are constantly replacing drives in an enclosure that requires you to remove about 2 dozen screws, it's annoying. The replacement drives I just got are going on ebay, and my new 500GB Samsung drives should be arriving shortly. I would not buy these drives again, at least, for this application. The drives (WD 500GB) I have in my regular computer, and in an external enclosure, work just fine though.

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Losing faith in Western Digital

Posted 1 year ago - I have 8 of these drives. One failed just 2 weeks after installing it, and was returned for an RMA. Two more just failed (at the same time!) - now about 8 months old. I am in the process of RMA'ing them now. I have pleanty of cooling and power. No problems withsoever with the Samsung drives in the same system. I used to swear by Western Digital, but with these failures, I can't recommend these drives at all. (But YMMV...)

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