WD Blue 500 vs WD Black 320

[BAP]

I am coming from a Windows XP and Vista backround using a Thinkpad T61. I am making the shift to the Mac.

Our local Apple store Genius Bar Technicians commented that they like the WD320 Black as their HD upgrade of choice. The WD500 Blue is a bit less expensive. Please comment if you have any personal experience.

I am upgrading a new MBP 13 2.26GHz. I will be upgrading to 4GB of Crucial Ram and a larger HD mainly for documents, general office files, some emulation with VM Fusion and Windows XP, some CS4. We may do a little bit with home video, but not a lot of editing.

I would love to go with an SSD, but prices are still too high for me to justify. I can see going with a 128 GB as far as price goes, but I feel like i need more space than that.

1. Any great or bad experiences with either of the WDs mentioned?

2. Battery life comments based on your personal experience?

3. Local Fry's electronics guy indicates that the 500GB drive is less reliable. Fact or Fiction?

4. Recommendations are welcome.

Thanks,

Bruce

 

[MacDawg]

Scorpio Blue and Black Review

WD Scorpio Blue vs. Seagate Momentus

I opted for the Scorpio Blue myself and have been very pleased
Mine runs cool, quiet, fast and with no vibration issues

Edit:

1. My experience has been excellent

2. I have seen no negative effects on battery performance

3. The Fry's guy is fried, I don't know of any data to support that

4. I recommend the Scorpio Blue

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[iBookG4user]

I also opted for the Scorpio Blue and it's been working great for me. The added space is much appreciated and it is still pretty fast

 

[klee1987]

500Gb blue. search for some benchmarks and you'll find that the blue outperforms many 7200 drives and the black is less than 10 percent faster than the blue on many benchmark tests.

 

[pdxflint]

Read this entire article, if you have time. The charts compare a number of drives in a whole series of performance parameters, but the main thing is you get a direct comparison between the two drives you are interested in.

For the record, I bought a Scorpio Blue 500g drive which has been an absolutely perfect match with my previous generation MBP. No issues whatsoever. No vibrations, no noticeable noise that has any relevance, and really good performance. The extra storage room is almost not enough - I've already got 312 gig of stuff on my drive - lots of photography and music files and just getting started with editing video. You can never have too much storage room, IMHO.