Review on 💾 WD Black Performance Mobile Hard Drive: 1TB, 7200RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 2.5" Form Factor by Jose Hughes

Whenever one of my friends or family members needs a laptop, they usually ask me to find something for them. This is the hard drive I almost always choose. The computer I am writing this review on is equipped with a WD7500BPKX. I give this hard drive 5 stars, but actually I would like to give it a 4.9. While the drive is near-perfect, it lacks one area: noise. More on that later. I haven't worked with WD since the ATA Scorpio days, but a few years ago I found this drive on the Passmark charts as the fastest 2.5" mechanical drive that runs cool enough. Thicker 2.5-inch enterprise drives can be quite fast, but aren't always suitable for laptops as they get hot and block airflow. Pros: Speed: This drive is pretty fast. Most 2.5" drives are painfully slow. Although this drive is still mechanical, you get a noticeable boost in performance. Reliability: I've installed about a dozen of these drives, so I know the model number in advance. To date, no crashes or SMART flags have been set. I don't turn off some computers, I have these drives that are used for years. Durability: I try very hard not to drop laptops, but it happens. I didn't break any, neither did any of my customers. No scientific test, but no serious problems have been observed so far. Temperature: After several hours of use, the drive in the HP Probook 6735b remains at 38 °C, the same drive in the Lenovo T500 rarely exceeds 34 °C. This is the ideal operating temperature for a laptop hard drive. Above 40°C it heats up and above 50°C it can be a problem. When it comes to hard disk technology, temperatures below 30°C are also associated with problems; this drive withstands temperatures of 34-38°C on most systems. s:Noise: Bearing noise is quiet and constant, but you will hear "white noise" or "jitter" when the drive seeks hard. Doesn't affect performance at all, but now that I have two computers running in front of me I can definitely hear them both. You will also occasionally hear a head loading/unloading sound in the form of a slight click. Again, most won't even notice anything destructive. This drive is probably a little louder than your laptop's fan. Overall: This is a very well designed drive. Noise is the only place these drives fall short. You'll know you've got them if you're working somewhere quiet. However, they appear to be reliable and certainly fast. I've attached a screenshot of the Crystal Disk Mark results for this hard drive compared to a standard OEM hard drive (likely the one your computer came with). The results speak for themselves: The WD7500BPKX is significantly faster in many respects. This is still my favorite hard drive. Many of them have years of service. Still ZERO failures. woo hoo!