Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s with NCQ 16MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3500413AS

I have to say I was very nervous about buying this. So many buyers reporting so many problems with hard disk drives from practically all manufacturers. Some of the manufacturer explanations about rough transport seemed plausible, but too often used as the go to reason. They cannot all have been handled by the Samsonite Gorilla. Mine came in the Seagate cardboard box with the anti impact plastic caps at each end. The Seagate box was inside another larger cardboard box containing other items I ordered. I intentionally did not order the drives one by themselves in order to force there to be another box and packaging around the Seagate box. The drives were in anti-static bags. So my out of box experience was excellent. I ground strapped my right wrist and my right ankle to true electrical ground and also electrically grounded my system box. Three of these are in my pc. I also have a fourth in a Thermaltake Max 5 eSATA external drive enclosure hooked to my SetTop cable box DVR for overflow of TV programs. The pc based drives get moderate use. The DVR setup is used a little more than the PC, but only a few hours a day. Honestly, there's not that much on TV worth watching. :-) All of the drives so far have been reliable, quiet, no complaints whatsoever. On the PC they are very fast. If you can get one on sale, they are relatively obsolete now, it is worth the try if it has not been abused. Handle with care and use ground straps and true grounds. Recommended even though it is older. I would buy again if needed. If no longer available I would try the Constellation 3 3.5 series because they have a bigger cache. 5 Star for me. Hope they work for you too.

This was an exact model replacement to an identical model drive that failed to initialize and S.M.A.R.T. This replacement drive has had no issues and is running fine in a Synology DS1511+ NAS with four other identical model drives. They are fast and quiet.Amazon's RMA process is the best. I simply chose to return a drive as part of the options on my order. I was able to print a pre-paid UPS return label and Amazon simultaneously shipped this replacement drive. I got the replacement drive two days before UPS tracking showed Amazon received the faulty one.I suppose this is as much a review of Amazon's RMA process as it is the product itself. I am happy with both. From what I can tell in these reviews, many people will have to RMA the hard drives. Seagate has an above average policy for warranty, but if the problem happens within Amazon's return policy it is that much easier to take care of.You should definitely get the product out of the box and burning-in on a system ASAP to expose any problems.

Before buying this drive, you should know that it is TRULY a "bare" drive. There are no connecting cables, manual, or anything else other than the physical drive itself. To install the drive you will need the SATA data cable, an appropriate power connection inside the box (or a Y splitter), and a good working knowledge of the drive initialization process for your operating system.That being said, once installed and configured, the drive works flawlessly. It is quick, quiet and (so far) dependable. It is also a very good value for the price, especially with Amazon's prompt return policy if you happen to get the rare lemon.If you have the cables and know what you're doing, I would definitely recommend this product. I have always had good experiences with Seagate drives, and this one strikes a nice balance between speed, capacity and price.

Unfortunately, I got a bad drive and had to send it back. However, I replaced it with the exact same drive locally. The second drive works perfectly. Threw it into a new rig, partitioned it with GParted and dual-booted Windows 7 and Ubuntu. The unit is very quiet. Good amount of space for the money.

I got this Seagate internal hard drive with the Amazon gold box deal of a sweet $46.99 price. A price range of $47 - $60 is very good for a 1TB hard drive that also has 7200 rpm and 6gb/s.So far, after about a week's usage, I've experienced faster loading and data transfer. It has been only a week but I will update in couple months whether the drive performs well or fails (I'm hoping I won't need to update you all regarding failures).-Personally for me, I used this drive as a secondary drive for my PC. I installed Windows 7 on a Western Digital 500 GB Caviar Blue SATA 3 Gb/s 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD5000AAKS. I install programs, games, and add movies to this as a secondary hard drive so that I could load quickly for my PC. If you have any trouble installing this hard drive as a secondary drive, here are instructions on how I did it:1) Connect the Sata power and sata cable before turning on the PC2) Load up your BIOS to make sure your computer reads it3) If your computer loads up and it reads the drive, then you're fine. Horray 931GB of storage. If you don't see the seagate drive available yet, update the drive with Seagate's firmware for this product. Here's the link : [...]4) After finishing up the firmware update (perhaps will need to restart), Search for Disk management, or under Administrative Tools reading "Create or format hard disk partitions." From there you should see the Seagate 1TB hard drive. Now you should be able to format the hard drive and you're good to go.Overall, I'm fairly happy so far. It's very quiet for a hard drive that has 1Tb and is 7200rpm.

No issues with anything. Good product. Easy to install.good value for Money. The Barracuda has never let me down and I recommend this drive always.