HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 500GB 7200RPM SATA III 32MB Cache SATA 6Gbps Internal Bare or OEM Drives (HTS725050B7E630)

This is a 7.0mm high drive compared to the standard, and much more common, 9.5 mm high drives (some very large capacity laptop drives are even taller than that). That means this will fit in the ultra-thin, current-design Acer ao725 and Acer ao756, in the Asus x101ch, and in the modern crop of "Ultrabooks". This will also fit in recent MacBook Pro's which generally use a "side pin" system to "suspend" the harddrive in the airspace, eliminating the need for any spacer. If in doubt, MacBooks and their requirements are well covered at the iFixit website and you can determine your Mac's i.d. by clicking on "About" in the leftmost drop down menu.The main claim to fame of this drive (besides fitting in the newer thin laptop bays) is that it supports SATA III; almost all other laptop drives are limited to SATA II.This is only a benefit if your laptop has a SATA III controller; I believe most MacBooks since 2010 have this feature (but track down the specs of YOUR MacBook!); of the Windows computers listed above, only the Acer ao756 has SATA III capability. On my ao756, I saw about a 12% speed improvement compared to the stock, single platter, 320 gb SATA II Seagate. This was NOT, however, reflected in the WEI or Windows Experience Index test that Microsoft offers in the Windows 7 Control Panel. In contrast, when I dropped an SSD into the ao756 the WEI shot up from 5.9 to 7.4, and I saw the same increase in the measly Atom powered netbook (N2600) that I dropped an SSD into. So there is performance and there is performance. SSD's still rule speed, conventional HD's still trump on price per gb which translates into 3 to 4 times the capacity at a much lower price.I would use this in a MacBook Pro with a 250gb or 320gb drive just to improve storage capacity. As a much appreciated bonus, this drive is ultra quiet and vibration free, rated for 400 gees of operating shock resistance, which is absurdly sturdy. Plus, since it has only a single platter (and a power efficient controller) it is energy saving.For other laptops, with SATA II interfaces, the upgrade isn't as compelling and the low height could be problem in 9.0mm high bays. You will need to decide if you can get or jury rig a spacer, if one is needed based on the way your HD bay works.Based on the price I paid and the price for other, older tech drives, there is no "premium" for this high-tech HD. On the other hand don't expect to come anywhere close to SSD speeds (even for an SSD held back by a SATA II interface) from this SATA III drive (even when this drive is running under a SATA III interface).

HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 500GB 7200RPM SATA III 32MB Cache SATA 6Gbps Internal BareMost HDDs today are used or repurposed. New drives are either not available or very expensive.This drive works well.In most cases, you have to re-initialize the drive to make them work.Most computers are capable of doing this easily.Once I initialized this drive it worked as required with no problems.the HDD is the archive drive of choice as it has no power drain concern wherethe memory can be erased as with the SSDRECOMMENDEDI do not know the seller nor did I receive any money or product for my random review241010 0329

This is a preliminary review as the drive was just put into use. I bought it as a play forward piece of hardware. It is being used in ancient Dell D-ought20 series laptops - either a 620 or an 820 with the idea it will eventually be yanked and put in a newer machine at some point. It works fine with these older laptops with preliminary testing. The only unusual thing I ran into is i couldn't get windows (both an old XP pro, and a win7 home premium 64bit) to see the drive. So I put a live linux cd into the optical drive of one of my desktops and hooked up the drive via and external usb drive connection and formatted with Gparted - setting up both NTFS and EXT4 for dual booting.My initial impression is that it is just a decent drive at a decent price and handy for many purposes. It appears to run pretty cool compared to a couple of old 2.5 7200rpm 1.5 gig throughput drives I have.Will try to check back in latter after it has been in use for a while.Update - 10-31-2015: Had too add to this review as this drive is now fully in use and it is exceptional! It is no SSD - but it is the fastest disk drive I have ever had in a laptop. Even though it is in an old Dell D620 - so I can't realize all it's speed - it made a huge difference over the old 1.5gb 7200rpm drive. So if you have an old computer and want to add some pep to it - but don't want to go SSD (which would make getting at least Win7 a good idea - if using Windows) then this is a great buy!

I bought this hard drive to replace a malfunctioning HD in my 2010 Macbook Pro. I have been using this HD for two months, and so far it has worked as expected without any problems. When running, the HD is not noticeably loud, although I do tend to have noise in the background that may be covering it up. If I experience any problems at a later date, I will update this review accordingly.Side note: If anyone is curious about my system specs, my model is a 17" 2010 Macbook Pro. This HD is a little thinner than the default drive, but it does fit. A couple times I have heard the HD move around a bit (once when I accidentally bumped it from underneath and once when I flipped my laptop over). As long as you're careful, this should not cause any problems, but I would not recommend this HD if you are rough with your laptop and your default drive is thicker.