Review on 💾 HGST Travelstar Z7K500 500GB 7200RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook HDD (0J38075) - 2 Year Warranty by Thomas Chalecki

SECOND UPDATE. This is an additional update to my original review as there have been several complaints about receiving used/refurbished drives sold as new or in open packaging. These are good discs if you buy a new one as below. However, you have no idea what a used one has been through and I wouldn't buy one. The 5-star rating applies to new, unused, old-stock drives only. Hitachi/HGST no longer makes them and they were purchased by WDC, so you'll need to find a drive that has never been used. Be VERY careful with the so-called open box. I received a disc in an open box that has over 10,000 hours on it! Some vendors will open the drive's Mylar casing and inspect it. They should show 1 hour or less when on and ONE boot cycle when on. It's fine. I use Crystal Disk Info to check usage hours and cycles. This is a free program. It is fast, reliable and quiet. The Hitachi drives were manufactured at their global warehouses in Thailand, which are high quality facilities originally purchased from IBM. Make sure you buy a SATA 6Gb/s drive for maximum performance. This is an electronics upgrade from previous 3Gb/s drives. Hitachi/HGST drives are consistently recognized as the most reliable by major storage companies. They are in almost all my systems. TO UPDATE. The seller, who was very responsive and accommodating, investigated this and informed me that they mixed some 3.0Gb/s and 6.0Gb/s SATA drives. They found the 6.0GB, sent me a 3GB return label, and sent me new 6GB drives. Now they are made in China, but I agree. WD bought HGST a while ago and they haven't rebranded everything to WD, so just getting HGST drives takes some effort. HGST/Hitachi drives (from Thailand) have been GREAT in the past. They combine high capacity, 7200 rpm performance and superior reliability. The Z7K500 models also offer the highest SATA transfer rates of 6.0 Gb/s. I have used several of these and older 7K500 drives and they have been excellent. I expect the same from these new discs. I'm still looking for Hitachi/HGST drives that are 1TB or smaller to use in our ThinkPads. The original is no longer relevant: I will update if and when they send me the correct discs. The text and picture clearly say SATA 6.0Gb/s but both drives I received are 3.0Gb/s and they must be from Thailand but one of the drives I received was from China. Not good. I wrote to the seller, let's see what they say and do. I've always liked Hitachi drives (now part of WD) but would like to get what I ordered.