Western Digital WD AV-GP WD20EVDS 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal AV Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Pros: Can't think of any.

Cons: Four out of eight I ordered have failed. They have lived in a Promise array for a little over two years in a lightly used array. This is ridiculous.

Pros: This was what I found inside a Western Digital 2Tb Elements external drive. Cheap and have not failed on me after 4+ years.

Cons: Slow slow slow. I though the USB interface was crapping out. So I took out the drive and connected it to another interface. Originally it was getting 1.5-2MB/Sec, in the new enclosure it is now getting 8.77MB/sec. To give you a comparison, the WD20EZRX gives me 18MB/sec in this same enclosure.

Other Thoughts: Avoid this and get the newer WD20EXRX models as they seem to have improved the drives after a few years.

Pros: Worked while it lasted

Cons: Drive became slower and slower to a point where it rendered unusable. I was lucky to be able to backup all my data. I tossed the drive after the backup

Pros: Cheap and large, no heat to speak of

Cons: Slloooow

Other Thoughts: I have these in a HP Mediasmart that i forced WHS2011 on. The drives are slow, but they're working. I went from 4 GB to 7GB capacity (3 WD and the 1GB I had used for the OS drive ) and things are working fine. The throughput about halved tho from what it previously was.

Pros: Vast majority work no problem.
Easy to install, no cables i'm not going to use to get in my way (packageing)
OEM (drive itself only)
keeps Cool 95-100F in a room @ 75F (AC running)

Cons: costs a bit more than the cheapest priced WD 2TB drive
but thats to be expected.
one drive didn't like being in a RAID.

Other Thoughts: I bought 28 of these for my 24bay Raid 6 media file storage server. (bought a few extra so i would have 'on-hand' spares)
I SMART tested every one of these using WD's tools before putting in raid and all tested GOOD.
only had a problem with 1of25, would not detect drive after initial power on.
An error on someones part that the SN on the box of one of the drives did not match the HDD itself. MAKE SURE you check your SN's!
-running raid w/ High point rocket raid 3560
I will follow-up in the future for more updates.

Pros: Cheap, low-ish power, high MTBF.

Cons: Not the fastest. But there are not made to be. I usually have a playlist running for 12-14 hours a day, sometimes more. Every 45 minutes or so the playlist will stop as if the HD had to spin up. You can hear a noticeable "Click" as if it just turned on. I am not sure if the drive is trying to goto sleep, and has to get woken back up. Slighty annoying, hence the 3 eggs.

Other Thoughts: purchased 2 drives. 1 was DOA. This did not affect my rating since i know WD will RMA it whenever i get around to pulling the dead drive out.

Pros: Quiet, low heat, sleeps and wakes well - so far.

Cons: Discovered that the 'Made for AV streaming" means that it won't attempt to recover errors it encounters. Basically, a 'regular' green drive will try to recover an error for 7 seconds, with some enterprise models running a 30 se recovery attempt. This model won't - it'll just mark the sector as bad and move on - no recovery attempted. Fine for single bit errors in video streams, but it's just immediate corruption for regular data.

Other Thoughts: I've been pretty brand-loyal to WD for the last decade, but that's beginning to fade. WD seems to be doing their best to make QC a price premium point - not a default.

Already returned to local brick+mortar bog box store. Shopping here for replacement.

Summary: If this is going into a DVR, good. If this is going into a computer: BAD. DO NOT BUY.

Pros: Using these exclusively for our DVR pcs for IP cameras. the "AV" in WDs part numbers is for that reason. Its worth it the drive feels much heavier and more solid build over the home "green" drives.

Cons: None

Pros: Very Happy with these drives. Speed wise, can copy a 1gb file in about 30 seconds. whisper quiet.

Cons: a little pricey but IMO worth it

Other Thoughts: bought 2 both worked perfectly

Pros: I bought two of these for our HTPC... they ran quietly and quickly.

Cons: It's been less than a year and bad sectors are already present on both drives. I ran the diagnostic WDC provides and it fails to reallocate the bad sectors. Windows chkdsk also fails to repair the drive. The bad sectors cause daily random crashes.

Other Thoughts: Neither of the drives were treated roughly. I would have been happy with them had they lasted even a couple of years, but this is ridiculous!