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    Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 2.5? HDD ? Review and Benchmarks

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by John Ratsey, Oct 7, 2008.

  1. zfactor

    zfactor Mastershake

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    so you went through newegg or wd?? thanks
     
  2. NiteWalker

    NiteWalker Notebook Evangelist

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    Sorry, through newegg.

    When I called WD they said the clicking noise wasn't normal.
     
  3. hydra

    hydra Breaks Laptops

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    I'm replacing my bay 2; 250G WD drive which is a year old Passport drive. Shopping yesterday at local BB I saw $98 500G WD drives in black box and same drive in green box for $109. I bought the cheaper B8B unit, brought home and uhh-ohh!

    Search is your friend as I found your post. I repacked the drive and returned. The Green package had the R/N : B7B. Inside is the WD5000BEVT Blue Scorpio drive..thanks.

    I guess WD got tired of the Passport cannibalizing the bare drive sales at over priced BB stores? Today, one online store sells for $90 with free shipping.


     
  4. wyemarn

    wyemarn Notebook Consultant

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    Just got WD5000BEVT. Upgraded from Samsung M7 HM400JI. Although the Scorpio is faster, I noticed it is 1 to 2 degrees warmer and noisier. During idle, I can hear scratching sound from the hard disk. Is this normal? Checked the SMART values and the drive is allright.
     
  5. moelda

    moelda Notebook Geek

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    Glad this is the one I chose...
     
  6. trueman_uk

    trueman_uk Notebook Enthusiast

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    My laptop has a raid, so I have to buy two hard drives, considering the temperature, I choose to buy two WD 500 instead of Seagate.
     
  7. trueman_uk

    trueman_uk Notebook Enthusiast

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    ordered on dabs.com yesterday, got them today, much quieter and cooler than my old toshiba 320G disk, no noise at all actually
     
  8. wyemarn

    wyemarn Notebook Consultant

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    WD Scorpio Blue 500GB is the noisiest component in my notebook. The vibration and random seek noise is louder than my notebook's fan. It's idling at 35degrees though.
     
  9. tjphillips

    tjphillips Notebook Consultant

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    I'm running Live 8 and NI maschine on a dell inspiron 1525 and need to upgrade the hd. Will this drive be fast enough or should i get a 7200? Thanks.
     
  10. deeastman

    deeastman Notebook Deity

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    My WD 500GB is so quiet that I can't even tell it is running unless I put my ear down on the palmrest.
     
  11. Barma

    Barma Newbie

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    the same as mine, i have 2 wd5000bevt and they do the same FAN noise, and it's noisy. and sometimes it does strange ,, click" sound. very rare soud wich drives me crazy, im a bit dissapointed WD , not the first time.
     
  12. NiteWalker

    NiteWalker Notebook Evangelist

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    ^ My experience with 3 WD5000BEVT drives.
    Very quiet and even after transferring 200 GB of videos to an external it was only moderately warm, not even approaching hot. You'd swear the one in my PS3 is an SSD it's so quiet.
     
  13. deeastman

    deeastman Notebook Deity

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    I have two of the WD5000BEVT drives and my experience is the same as yours. The only way I can tell they are on is to look at the HD activity light.
     
  14. ofelas

    ofelas Notebook Evangelist

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    Same here when I had spinners back in the day.
    Nothing but good things to say about the WD5000BEVT drives.
     
  15. Barma

    Barma Newbie

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    it seems that you have older version of zat0 which is 250 platter, new ones with 320 are louder
     
  16. Barma

    Barma Newbie

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    if i would have known that before buyin' :(
     
  17. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Is WD selling WD5000BEVTs with 320GB on one platter?
     
  18. Barma

    Barma Newbie

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    yap,models with code 00a0xxx are 2 platters of 320gb on each
     
  19. timesquaredesi

    timesquaredesi MagicPeople VooDooPeople

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    cosign. i have been running two of these 500gb drives in my laptop now for over a month. previously i was running dual 320gb drive and i honestly feel that these 500s are quieter than the 320s. you literally cannot feel or hear these drives.

    icing on the cake - i paid $69.99 a piece for them on amazon during cyber monday --

    total was $148 w/shipping :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
     
  20. NiteWalker

    NiteWalker Notebook Evangelist

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    I missed that deal or I would have grabbed another couple for my impending PS3 slim and another backup.
     
  21. maks

    maks Notebook Enthusiast

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    The one in my laptop just gave up after a little over a year of use. I'm not sure if these drives are more faulty than others, but I think I will go with a SSD for work that I don't want loose.
     
  22. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    maks, you made me lol...

    Hope you have a real backup strategy for 'work you don't want to lose'.

    An SSD is nowhere near bullet-proof (yet). ;)
     
  23. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Somebody posted failure rates of hdd vs. ssd in laptops. SSDs came out a lot better but it was rather a short term study. I'm not sure about the exact numbers.
     
  24. Dillio187

    Dillio187 Notebook Evangelist

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    I used these drives (moved onto the 750's now) for external esata drives for my company. We've only had 1 bite it, and the user admitted they dropped it while it was running, so not the drives fault.
     
  25. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Manufacturers typically quote 100,000 hours as the mean time to failure. That sounds a lot but means that if there are 50 HDDs running 2,000 hours per year (that's 5.5 hour per day - many users can double that) then you can expect one of those HDDs to die in a year. The manufacturers usually offer a 3 or 5 year warranty so you get a replacement if the HDD dies, but that doesn't get your data back. If you value your data then keep a backup HDD.

    John
     
  26. tingc222

    tingc222 Notebook Guru

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    Hmm just had one of these die in my M860TU after about a year of use. I blame the heat (probably averaged 55C-60C), but it shouldn't have been that quick. Sent it in for an RMA.

    The thing acted up a few days ago. I was working on my laptop and it suddenly became extremely sluggish (mouse movements took 10 seconds to register, some commands were quick to process but others refused to execute altogether), and after a minute the screen went black. I forced a shut down and the bugger wouldn't detect during POST. 5 restarts later, it recognized again and worked fine for 2 more days.

    I quickly backed up my schoolwork. To some extent, I'm glad that it worked again for the time being, because the data on it was very very valuable.

    I got up yesterday morning and tried to turn on the computer to print some notes for school. Again, it wouldn't post (was working fine the night before). Restarting didn't do its trick, and testing in an enclosure via USB also failed.

    Anyway, now I have an OCZ Vertex 2 128gb SSD for the sake of not having to worry about losing my precious data...
     
  27. Judicator

    Judicator Judged and found wanting.

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    Given some of the problems some people have been having with Vertex 2s not being detected anymore, I'd keep making those backups "just in case."
     
  28. tingc222

    tingc222 Notebook Guru

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    Yea I just did a bit of research and it seems that's indeed the case :( ...Hopefully with the new 1.22 stock firmware that won't be an issue anymore.
     
  29. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    I have seen two cases here on NBR. Have there been many more?

    I haven't seen any here in The Netherlands.
     
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