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Product Description

WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives combine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and up to 2 TB capacity for the ultimate in power computing. Backed by a 5-year limited warranty. High Performance Electronics Architecture: Dual processor – Twice the processing power to maximize performance. Colossal cache – Bigger, faster cache of up to 64 MB means faster performance. Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture: Dual actuator technology – A head positioning system with two actuators that improves positional accuracy over the data track(s). The primary actuator provides coarse displacement using conventional electromagnetic actuator principles. The secondary actuator uses piezoelectric motion to fine tune the head positioning to a higher degree of accuracy. StableTrac – The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. NoTouch ramp load technology – The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. Massive Capacity – WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 2 TB. Compatible – We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. 5 Year Limited Warranty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18762 in Consumer Electronics
• Size: 500 GB
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WD5001AALS
• Format: CD
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 4.00" w x 5.80" l, 1.61 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Features

• WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives co MBine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache
• High performance electronics architecture features dual processors and bigger, faster caches for maximum read and write speeds.
• StableTrac -- The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration
• WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives co MBine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache, and SATA 3 GB/s
• StableTrac -- The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking
• 500 GB capacity holds up to 100,000 digital photos, 125,000 MP3 files, and 60 hours of HD video; 5 year limited warranty
• Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging

From the Manufacturer
It's easy to choose the world-class quality of a Western Digital hard drive. We’ve not only designed a drive that's right for you, we've also made it simple to find. These drives are ideal for business, home use, or high performance desktops, and are available in capacities up to 2 TB. With our renowned leading-edge engineering, you'll always make the right choice with WD. And you'll never compromise on quality.

The power of choice. The quality of WD.
WD Caviar® Blue™ Performance and reliability for everyday computing. Select true blue for reliable quality in everyday use.	WD Caviar® Green™ Cool, quiet. Select green for doing more with less energy consumption.	WD Caviar® Black™ Maximum performance for power computing. Select black when you demand the highest performance.

WD Caviar Black drives combine a high performance electronics architecture with a rock solid mechanical architecture to deliver the perfect storage solution for your fully-loaded PC or maxed out gaming machine. Cool drive operation, no-touch head technology, and leading-edge vibration protection ensure enhanced reliability. And we back it all up with a 5-year limited warranty.

Power your PC with our top-of-the-line high-capacity drives.

High Performance Electronics Architecture

• Dual processor - Twice the processing power to maximize performance.


• 32 MB cache - Bigger, faster cache means faster performance.

Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture

• StableTrac - The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations.


• NoTouch ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit.

5 Year Limited Warranty

Massive Capacity - WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 1 TB.

View StableTrac demo here.

Compatible - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems.

How this WD hard drive protects your data

• Data Lifeguard is an exclusive set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair. WD's Data Lifeguard technology automatically finds, isolates, and repairs problems that may develop over the life of a hard drive.


• Data Lifeguard Tools are software utilities designed for WD hard drives that work with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation,diagnostics and repair both simple and worry-free.


• ShockGuard instantaneously protects the hard drive against damage from bumps and vibrations while it is running. This technology enables WD Caviar drives to achieve industry-leading shock specifications.

Ideal For
Power computing applications such as multimedia, video and photo editing, and maxed out gaming computers.

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
Great Drive, Terrible Packaging
By R. Robinson
This is a fast, quiet, and reliable drive--I love it.

However, the reseller (Amazon) failed to package the OEM drive in manufacturer approved packaging as described in Western Digital's Warranty Services section of their website. I was disappointed to find that the drive had shifted in the two Airspeed Inflatable Packaging pillows and the drive was in direct contact with the cardboard box. In this position, the force of any fall would have been absorbed by the drive its self instead of the packaging.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
WD 500GB Internal Drive - Good Price - Remember it's OEM
By Sea Star
I really did some research on drives and wanted something reliable after a bad experience with a Seagate drive. I decided on a 500GB as a second drive on my PC and the price and shipping situation with Amazon was primo. I ordered this hard drive with two-day delivery and received it packaged very well and in good working order. I've only had it a few days and it's working fine, so I don't have much to review about the performance at this time except to say it is quiet and has pretty fast access with the 32MB cache. I installed this as a second internal drive on an HP Pavillion a6257c desktop computer that's about two years old and is running Vista. It was recognized immediately by the Bios, Device Manager and by the Disk Management, but I had to use the Disk Management to actually install and format (two separate steps) the drive before it appeared in the My Computer listing for access. This only took a few minutes, and the steps are very easily followed and well written by a previous reviewer (Sandstone)so I won't repeat them here again.

The important thing to remember here is that this is an OEM drive. It doesn't come with anything for the installation, just the drive itself although some people said they received screws. You'll need a SATA (Serial ATA) cable that is usually red but can be other colors and a power cable (in my case I needed a 4 to 15 pin power cable converter because my PC only had 4 pin power connectors and the WD drive requires 15). I had empty SATA slots on my board, so that was no problem. You may have to get split cables if you don't have sufficient connectors in your computer for the added drive. My hard drive cage also had a space for a second drive, but I still had to provide my own screws. Luckily I had some in my Belkin Computer Tool Kit that fit. So, if you're putting this internally as a second drive, make sure you have the proper available hookups in your computer, then buy the appropriate power and SATA signal data cables to hook the drive to your computer and make sure they are long enough to reach. Also purchase computer screws similar to whatever is holding in your main hard drive to secure the new drive in your hard drive slot. My hard drive case required screws with fairly flat heads as the cage sits right up against the side of the computer case. If you don't have a hard drive slot, you may have to get brackets to use in your other slots in your PC. If you're replacing your main drive, you should have all the accessories needed.

I have seen some minor feedback about this drive being loud, but I cannot hear mine at all. It's really quiet; but, of course, it's secured quite tightly into the drive case so that might be a factor.

Overall -- it's a great drive for the money and I'm quite happy with the quality and speed of the drive as well as the Amazon shopping and shipping experience. If I have any issues down the line, I'll update this feedback.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT RAID ARRAY COMPATABLE!
By TheBonedaddy
WARNING: THIS IS NOT RAID ARRAY COMPATABLE!

I researched this drive and it was portrayed as top of the line. I then ordered 2 of these Western Digital 500 GB Caviar Black SATA 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD5001AALS. Then by chance I saw a review stating that these drives were not Raid Array compatible. Upon digging deeper on the web I found that this was true. Nowhere on Amazon or Western Digital's web site was this information available. I then cancelled this order as I was very disappointed and had never heard of a hard drive not capable of raid array.

Western Digital changed the firmware in the last quarter of 2009 so that all versions of these drives now shipping have the Time-Limited Error Recovery (TLER) setting permanently LOCKED with TLER READ and TLER WRITE both set as DISABLED, so the WDTLER.EXE utility no longer works to toggle TLER to ENABLED. In order to use these drives in a RAID you want to set TLER to ENABLED, but you can no longer do that by any method.

Western Digital never warned anyone of that firmware change, and doesn't even mark the boxes or documentation with this fact...nice eh. These drives can no longer be used in RAID ARRAY.

Therefore Western Digital manufactures desktop edition hard drives and RAID Edition hard drives. Each type of hard drive is designed to work specifically in either a desktop computer environment or a demanding enterprise environment. If you install and use a desktop edition hard drive connected to a RAID controller, the drive may not work correctly.

This decision by Western Digital means that most or ALL of their desktop series drives CANNOT be used in a RAID setup, because the TLER setting will cause these drives to FAIL, there is nothing you will be able to do about it because TLER is now locked. Western Digital is trying to push those building RAID arrays into buying their much more EXPENSIVE WD "enterprise" series drives, which is certainly appropriate if the RAID will run in a 24x7 50% (or greater) heavy duty cycle enterprise (file server, or similar) environment. However, for light-duty use home RAID array the desktop drives have always worked fine, which is why WD's competitors have not locked in their desktop drive's firmware any RAID-incompatible settings.

After cancelling the order I received an insulting email from Amazon stating:

I've canceled this order completely--you haven't been charged for it. An authorization may be visible on your account, but (depending upon the policies of your bank) this should be removed shortly.

I understand that you were not able to find whether these drives are Raid Array compatible or not. The quickest way to get the information you need is to contact the manufacturer and get it directly from them.


Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. (India I think because of the signature).

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Amazon.com

We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

End email.

Errors flaws or assumptions in Amazon's short email:

1. My account should not be charged until shipment occurs.
2. I searched WD website prior to placing an order.
3. Email cannot be returned to customer service in India.
4. Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company. I think not!