WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKB 500 GB

I really do love Western Digital hard drives as they deliver great performance and storage at very reasonable prices. This is no exception.

This is a very cool and compact metal-cased storage device that works as well as you would expect from Western Digital, which means phenomenal performance at a great price.

Design

Its presented in a big box, and I was very relieved (and also surprised) to see how small ...
...height and 13 cm in depth, it fails to take up much space in your pc tower. Its a miniscule 105 gs which means i can hold it in one palm quite easily. The stainless steel enclosure case is attractive and i hardly notice the sounds it makes when transferring files, thats how quiet this metal box is!

Instructions

Opening up and setting the hard drive in was the biggest time-consumer but it can be done within 20 minutes ... more

I really do love Western Digital hard drives as they deliver great performance and storage at very reasonable prices. This is no exception.

This is a very cool and compact metal-cased storage device that works as well as you would expect from Western Digital, which means phenomenal performance at a great price.

Design

Its presented in a big box, and I was very relieved (and also surprised) to see how small it actually is! At 8cm in width, by 1.5 in height and 13 cm in depth, it fails to take up much space in your pc tower. Its a miniscule 105 gs which means i can hold it in one palm quite easily. The stainless steel enclosure case is attractive and i hardly notice the sounds it makes when transferring files, thats how quiet this metal box is!

Instructions

Opening up and setting the hard drive in was the biggest time-consumer but it can be done within 20 minutes and then its a simple case of the software being recognised and it was well on its way to fulfilling its purpose.

Moments later the software was automatically installed, and it was ready for use. Its recommended for use on Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, Apple MacOS X 10.1.5 or later, Microsoft Windows Vista. I moved all of my games and some music files to the hard disk, along with backups of university work, and photos (the 3 rules of computing are back up, back up, back up!).
Performance

It transfers at a rate of 480 Mbps which in practise turned out to be surprisingly fast. Access time was very quick, 12ms per second seek time, so within the hour i had backed up and transferred my files!. I have had no trouble streaming games and movies from my hard disk, with access to files within the disk is as instant as a normal hard disk drive.

It makes a great addition to your pc if your tower has the requisite space and i could fit another two in, and at some point probably will giving me 1.5 terrabytes of space.

I would thoroughly recommend this product due to its great reliability and very good value for money. 

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