Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital Scorpio Blue 400 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 8 MB Cache, 5400 RPM SATA II WD4000BEVT

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.

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.

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!

As many have stated, this is a great upgrade for your PS3. What on earth could you do with 500gb is beyond me and that is part of the charm of this product. You'll never have to worry about space again.

It should be easy to do right? Simply take out the old one and put this baby in and your good for a re-format session right? Not quite. First you're going to need to download the latest firmware updated unto a CD or DVD through your computer(At the time of this review its update 2.6) Then after you replace your HDD the systam will give you a notice about incompatability upon boot-up. Insert the media with the update into the slot and press select+start. This will allow it to reformat to your new 500GB PS3.
This is a great idea if you're planning on installing another OS.

This is a review of the 500GB model. I'm not sure why Amazon has lumped all the different sizes into the same review pool since performance and longevity will potentially vary by size.

Anyway, regarding the 500GB model, I'll keep this short:

Pros: Whisper quiet (actually not even a whisper); fast; low energy consumption; cost effective.

Cons: None.