Western DigitalVelociraptor 600 GB SATA III 10000 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 3.5 Inch Desktop Hard Drive - WD6000HLHX

I replaced the 1TB boot-drive in my Windows 7 computer with this 600GB gem. My browser was very slow to display pages due to all the plug-ins and extensions I use. Now they literally pop up. I am also very pleased with the increase in speed with which my applications start up. It now takes 18 seconds from "Starting Windows" to the password page. It used to take around 30. Timing after the password page is rather imprecise but I get a completed desk top in about a minute from "Starting Windows" and I have years of junk on the computer.This hard drive replacement has had a greater effect on speed than any other modifications I have made, including stepping up to a new motherboard with an i7- 2600k chip.(It should go without saying that these results may only be obtained with a SATA III capable system board.)The installation is a breeze if your new drive is as big or bigger than your old drive. I had to learn (the hard way) that Windows will not recover a saved drive-image from the backup drive if the new boot-drive is smaller than the old boot-drive. It doesn't matter if the used space on the old drive is smaller than the capacity of the new drive. It is a matter of the drive volume.In order to make it work, these are the steps to take.1. Shrink the volume of your old boot-drive (see below).2. Now save a new image of the drive to your backup drive.3. Create a system recovery disc. Don't skip this. The recovery disc seems to know things your system disc does not.4. Remove the old boot drive and install the new one.5. Boot to the recovery disc and recover the image.6. Enjoy the results.Shrinking the volume of a disk is one of the easiest and more user-friendly things Windows does.1. Right click on MY COMPUTER2. Click on MANAGE3. Click on DISK MANAGEMENT4. Right click on the right portion of the C drive5. Click on SHRINK VOLUME6. There is a slick little sliding-scale dialog box that will let you experiment with sizes before making a selection. Shoot for a volume slightly smaller than your new drive. I went for about 575GB. Everything on my boot-drive comes to less than 200GB.7. You will finish with a block of volume at the far right showing unallocated space.8. After your new drive is all set up, you can expand the volume to fit the new drive if you like. I left it alone.

I have a 300 GB Velociraptor in the PC I'm using to type this review and it's still working great after 3+ years, which is why I bought a pair of new 600 GB Velociraptors. No doubt, these 10K RPM units are quick and there is a definite snap to their performance compared to ordinary 7200 RPM disks.But reliability seems to be a problem.WD advertises these as "enterprise class" disks, but reliability shows me otherwise. I bought this pair only 15 months ago, and already one has completely failed. Not bad sectors, total failure, and it died suddenly without leaving any hint of impending failure in the event logs.They are installed in a PC used only for monitoring (so disk usage is very light), and the machine lives in a rack at a datacenter (a real datacenter, not just a rigged up server room) with clean filtered power and proper cooling. In other words, they live in a nearly perfect environment.I'll RMA the bad one with WD under warranty, but unfortunately I'll just get a refurbished one in return. (Translation: a repaired one that previously failed for someone eise.)UPDATE: Since laying hands on the PC (it lives in a datacenter 35 miles away) it appears the problem could have been a bad SATA cable or a failing disk controller on the motherboard. After rebooting the machine to re-detect attached devices, the Velociraptor is back in service. I can't say for sure whether the reboot brought a sketchy disk back to life, or if it was the PC at fault, so I'm replacing the PC out of caution. If this disk disappears again in the new PC, then I'll know it's a bad disk and will update this review again.In the meantime, I'm going to raise my 2-star rating to 4 stars based on the assumption this problem was the result of a defective cable or motherboard.

For office computing where the main activity is file retrieval and application opening, the WD Velociraptor represents a great intermediate point between the speed of a SSD and a regular HDD. As a baseline, we run everything at work in RAID 1 for reliability. The cost of down time / replacement time is far greater than the cost of an extra drive. Yes, this policy has saved us lots of grief on many occasions, even in regular desktops. Back to the product review. We've used standard HDDs, Intel SSDs, WD Caviar Black HDDs, and more. When you go from standard 7200 rpm HDDs to a pair of Intel 120GB SSDs, you notice a gigantic difference. The Velociraptors seem to fit nicely in between, providing two advantages. 1) Enough additional space for primary drives that we didn't begin to feel crowded even after lots of applications, and all of our regular data storage, plus the legacy stuff that users tend to drag along with them. 2) Database friendly! No worries about accelerated wear when running database intensive applications, not even a fleeting thought.The drives are a little bit noisier than a regular HDD, but not much. Videos have been published on Youtube of these drives clicking away. The sounds are accurate but the microphone must have been placed right next to the drive to pick up the sound so clearly. Once closed up in a quality case the clicks disappear into the usual office white noise of ventilation systems, typing, and conversation. We mounted them inside a smaller Dell Precision workstation.Admittedly, they are not as fast as SSDs, but they are noticeably faster than regular 7200rpm drives. (Remember, this review is written from an 'office workstation use' perspective, not gaming.) The Velociraptor fills a specific category of use, somewhat balanced between price and performance (response speed in this case). Chances are, you'll find yourself at one end of the spectrum or the other, instead of right in the middle. Home / hobbyist users (if they care) likely will want a small inexpensive SSD for speed as the system drive, and a large data storage drive to hold media collections. Corporate IT budgets will generally rule it out for workstations because it is relatively pricey. It is probably well received in some grade of servers for data-basing applications. We think that the velociraptor represents a good drive for performance workstations.

I have used at least two Solid State Storage (SSD) disks as operating systems drive over the recent years. Now I've come to a conclusion that SSDs are a bit over-hyped, and also their 'premium' storage space (due to very high cost per GB) dictates that close attention such as regular tidying up is almost a must, which is in sharp contrast to HDD.This Velociraptor is faster than the normal HDD and close to SDD on the speed scale, but without the idiosyncrasies of the SSD. Overall, keeps the right balance of faster drive access without demanding close attention.I have now used this Velociraptor over 3 months and pleased with its performance and won't go back to SSD (until improved SSD features AND reduced cost convince me otherwise).Highly Recommended.

I've always been told that these HDD's were too noisy and ran hot but I went against the advice after reading some reviews on them. Although on super saver delivery it was delivered within 3 days. Be aware, however, that these seem to be OEM, as they come in plain brown boxes with nothing in them except the drive itself.So far I'm very pleased with it, great with games not noisy at all, I can barely hear it above the background noise in the house. I suppose if you were in a quiet environment you would hear it, but that could be said of normal speed drives. Booting up is noticeably quicker and its temperature is averaging 25 degC when idling. If you want a fast drive but find the SSD's too expensive try a Velociraptor with a 5 year warranty, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I am struggling to find the difference between this hard drive (£100) and my old hard drive (£30)It makes the same noises - it isn't as quiet as other reviews have stated.It transfers data a little faster but not mind-blowing amounts, certainly not to qualify the spending!Yes, it loads my files up fast, and I am happy with my purchase, it is a lovely hard drive, but the price is expensive!I would buy this again if I had spare cash but I wouldn't blow my budget on it!98% happy with my purchase!

This is the second one of these drives that I have now. Ive configured them in a Raid 0 and they are very quick. I would recommend for anyone whom needs speed and space at a good price. SSDs can be quicker but they are still too expensive for the space you get. The 5 year WD warranty is a reassuring bonus.

Lookd nothing like photo i dont know why they show that. Picture instead a laptop hard drive in the case and thats what you get.stil good speeds but dont expect more than a 5.9 on windows score but thats just windows quiet passes all tests recommend just don't understand why they show that photo.