WD Scorpio Blue 500GB Notebook Hard Drive

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The performance benchmarks on the WD5000BEVT blew me away as I never expected this 5400RPM drive to perform better than a 7200RPM notebook hard drive when it comes to read and write performance. The twin platter design that Western Digital is using on this drive is obviously very quick. The only performance hit that was observed when using the drive was the access times, which were lower as this is a 5400RPM drive.

It should be pointed out that the free capacity of the Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive is actually 465GB as shown above. This is a ton of storage space and can easily hold the majority of what an average consumer will place on a laptop!

When it comes to pricing, the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive had an MSRP of $189.99 when it came out in the Fall of 2008, but it can be found online for $99.99 today. That means you are paying just $0.20 per Gigabyte! That is a small price to pay for an efficient drive that offers a ton of storage space. With great performance numbers, low temperatures, hardly any drive noise (26dBA) and a solid price, what else is there to say about the drive? The fact that it was over 70% faster than the Seagate 7200.2 in some benchmarks and 12C cooler was impressive. Western Digital really did a great job on the Blue series and it really makes me wonder how the Black series performs. If only they made a 500GB Scorpio Black!

If you are looking to expand your notebook’s storage capacity and want to get the most storage space you can get, the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drive should be at the top of your list.

Legit Bottom Line: The WD Scorpio Blue 500GB notebook hard drive has smoking fast performance numbers that will make most 7200RPM hard drives run and hide!