To be fair, in my experience using this drive for nearly 1.5 years, it has performed quite well. I have used it as a Windows OS drive running software which is not incredibly write-intensive which is reportedly a weakness of an HDD like this. It has performed well for my purposes, so I have nothing to complain about usage-wise. This HDD uses SMR (shingled magnetic recording) technology to record data to its platters. This technology allows HDDs to be built at higher capacities with fewer platters making them cheaper. What makes write speeds in this drive slower is that it must rewrite multiple tracks just to update as little as a single sector on disk. Such write operations can get pretty lengthy and complicated when lots of random writes are being performed which ... MoreTo be fair, in my experience using this drive for nearly 1.5 years, it has performed quite well. I have used it as a Windows OS drive running software which is not incredibly write-intensive which is reportedly a weakness of an HDD like this. It has performed well for my purposes, so I have nothing to complain about usage-wise. This HDD uses SMR (shingled magnetic recording) technology to record data to its platters. This technology allows HDDs to be built at higher capacities with fewer platters making them cheaper. What makes write speeds in this drive slower is that it must rewrite multiple tracks just to update as little as a single sector on disk. Such write operations can get pretty lengthy and complicated when lots of random writes are being performed which is why the drive needs 256 MB of cache memory (plus other measures) to mitigate the performance impact. But even that is not enough in some applications, especially certain RAID configurations used in some NAS and enterprise systems which got Western Digital in trouble in 2019. While Seagate didn't at first disclose the use of SMR in some of its drives, at least it didn't promote any particular series of drives using SMR technology for use in such configurations. I suppose, given my experience running an SMR drive as a Windows OS drive, I might buy one again for the same purpose; but it does still irk me; like it has irked so many others as shown by ridiculously popular reviews dumping on, ripping, destroying SMR drives; that such a technology was not disclosed early on in better detail to help customers make an educated decision on what they needed to buy in order to avoid setbacks caused by crippling performance issues in certain applications. The Barracuda line of drives is intended for typical desktop applications and storage. It is not intended for extremely random-write-intensive applications like large databases and sophisticated RAID configurations. For such high-performance applications, look to the Barracuda Pros and the IronWolf lines which all use good, ol' conventional recording methods. Sure, they cost a bit more, but you get what you pay for.

I give it 3.5 stars. It's a fantastic when it works. Very fast. The 5 warranty is also one of the best. The problem is unfortunately it failed in way that I couldn't recover anything after about 2.5 years.They do have recovery services, both, software and a lab services. I opted for the software. I just wasn't too confident with sending it to a lab, because of how it's managed, although they do assure you of their high privacy standards.My recommendation is if you buy this drive, do regular daily backups or hourly if it's something available to you.

Ive built gaming PCs for self & 3 others as a hobby over past 13 yrs. Its actually fairly easy. In doing so, ive learned some of the best components builders use for: hard drives, graphic cards, memory sticks & central processing units (CPU) as well as power units & CPU coolers & fans. Aluminum cases as well. I feel very knowledgeable in recommending any part of a PC inc this hard drive. Frankly, Western Digital Blue or this one are both excellent. If money to burn, grab a WD Black. But theres just a bit more speed for the latter for an xtra $50-75, not worth it to me.