Reviews for WD Caviar SE16 SE16 500 GB Internal Hard Drive

great drive

Strengths: all out champ the drive is big,quick, and quiet

Weakness: there are none that i can see

I HAVE TWO,AND THEY ARE GREAT. THE DRIVE IS BIG,QUICK, AND QUIET. I CAN'T ASK FOR MORE. I HAVE THEM IN SMART DRIVE EXTERNAL ENCLOSURES WITH NO FAN THEY GET PRETTY WARM, BUT NOT HOT. THEY ARE USED A LOT, AND LEFT ON FREQUENTLY. SOMETIMES FOR DAYS AT A TIME, AND THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM. I WILL PURCHASE AT LEAST 2 OR 3 MORE SOON. CAN'T SAY ENOUGH ABOUT THEM!

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Great silent 500 GB drive

Strengths: fast and silent

Weakness: n/a

I did investigate a lot before deciding to buy it and I have to say I do not regret my decision. Great drive, fast and silent at the same time. The perfect backup medium. I think I will get a 2nd one.

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Time does tell...

Strengths: Size, obviously

Weakness: High failure rate, not so great speed in a RAID configuration.

I've had a high failure rate so far. I have 5 of these in an nVidia RAID5 using SATA II. I've had 2 drives fail within an 8-10 week period after first use. Thankfully, they come with a 3 year warranty, and my RAID 5 is holding up, but 2 out of 5 seems high to me. No, heat was not a factor. I have kept a thermometer between the drives for weeks. During heaviest use, temperature was 110F (43C), and nominal was about 95F (35C). I keep these 5 drives in 2 disk bays, each bay with a 120mm fan blowing front-to-back. I even modified the top of my computer case to punch 2 large holes and mount 2 more 120mm case fans to suck the hot air up and out from directly over the back half of both drive bays. After implementing this 4-fan configuration, temperature never reached higher than 95F at worst.

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As Advertised - Good Drive

Strengths: SATA, small, quiet, fast Works great for RAID

I decided to WD another chance after having some problems with their drives a few years back. After a few months, the drives seem to be holding up well. I use 2 of them for a small RAID JBOD.

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Quiet but HOT

Strengths: Quiet, Quick, Large

Weakness: Too Hot

I use a couple of these drives in a fanless enclosure (4 drives total), and have had 3 failures. I have two Samsung drives in the same enclosure (even with these hot bricks), and they have never given me a problem. As someone else mentioned, thank goodness for the 3 year warranty, but when you are constantly replacing drives in an enclosure that requires you to remove about 2 dozen screws, it's annoying. The replacement drives I just got are going on ebay, and my new 500GB Samsung drives should be arriving shortly.

I would not buy these drives again, at least, for this application. The drives (WD 500GB) I have in my regular computer, and in an external enclosure, work just fine though.

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Losing faith in Western Digital

Strengths: High Capacity, Good price

Weakness: Reliability

I have 8 of these drives. One failed just 2 weeks after installing it, and was returned for an RMA. Two more just failed (at the same time!) - now about 8 months old. I am in the process of RMA'ing them now.
I have pleanty of cooling and power. No problems withsoever with the Samsung drives in the same system.
I used to swear by Western Digital, but with these failures, I can't recommend these drives at all. (But YMMV...)

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Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA300 WD5000KS

Testseek.com has collected 5 expert reviews for Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA300 WD5000KS and the average expert rating is 85 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

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Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB: Big Low-Noise Champ?

For once, a hard drive has lived up to its marketing claims. The 500 GB Caviar SE16 is the quietest 3.5" desktop drive that we know of on the market today. <p> <p>The key to its excellent noise performance is seek noise. While the amount of noise it produces at idle is also low — about the same as the Samsung Spinpoint P80 — we have never before encountered a full sized drive with seeks that...

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