Bipra 1TB 2.5 inch 5400RPM SATA II Hard Disk Drive

I purchased this item for two reasons: firstly I wanted to expand the internal storage space without causing the console to overheat (thus the identical 5400rpm speed, compared to the stock drive); secondly, I wanted a hard disk that would avoid the visual & audio skipping/ streaming issues seen with many high capacity HDDs on the PS3. Gladly, this drive satisfied on all fronts. If you want to expand/ replace your PS3 hard disk, this is a perfect choice and highly recommended!Also, if you're interested in why many drives from many brands (including Western Digital, Toshiba and HGST) cause these skipping issues whilst inside the PS3, please read below...Contrary to popular belief, almost all of the hard disks causing issues with stuttering visuals and audio on the PS3 have one thing in common - very poor write speeds. Many people seem to believe the audio/ visual stuttering is due to "advanced format" drives not complying with the (now dated) PS3 interface standards but the reality is much simpler. In the case of all games where stuttering or skipping is prevalent, a background process called "caching" is being employed by the game engine. When working as intended, this process involves writing data to the hard disk in advance (in the background), allowing rapid texture and audio streaming when such elements are desired on-screen (and thus caching is typically used to circumvent the incredibly slow reads from the PS3 blu ray drive). However, if the hard disk write speed is poor, the visuals and audio will stutter and skip as the game engine struggles to render with an incomplete cache of data (which the HDD cannot write into fast enough). It is for this reason that 90% of the games presenting stutter issues with caching are amongst the most technically demanding on the console. Examples of games that typically exemplify this issue are: Uncharted 2, LA Noire, God Of War III, Red Dead Redemption and Batman: Arkham City. Due to their high quality textures and audio, these games require a fast read AND write speed from the installed hard disk, irrelevant of whether they are being played from a blu ray disc or entirely from the HDD. In conclusion: on the PS3, hard disk write speeds are often just as important as read speeds - if you're updating your internal storage, pay close attention to the HDD specs (and don't go for 7200rpm drives, they'll generate too much heat [especially inside a PS3 phat]).

I got myself a new laptop a couple of years ago. The same one I'm typing on now. I spent a lot of money on it. Regardless it arrived with a broken hard-drive.Unfortunately the problem was intermittent. Enough for me to refuse to return it and instead I just bared it. In the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk of losing 1 years worth of computer data for the sake of a hard drive.So I backed everything up. Downloaded a Windows 7 .iso image from the internet, burned it as an executable disk, and copied my computers Windows Product Code onto the front of the disk. So now I can fresh install any time I want.I changed out the hard drive and all was well. Until this Sunday that was, when my computer mysteriously refused to boot up. Reinstalled Windows, still crashed. Tried a different hard drive, that worked. So here I am, now the new hard drive has been delivered and installed.As it stands right now, this hard drive works nicely. If there was any downside it is probably just a tad louder than my last one. But hey with how mechanical hard drives go this one will likely die in the next year or so as well.When that happens I'll probably bite the bullet and shell out for and try an SSD instead. I've been so-so about them for a long time especially given the cost per GB still. This one is half the price of a reasonable SSD and four times the size. So I'll let you work that one out for yourselves.If anyone wants a dependable hard drive, that is cost effective and has superior service. Don't go mad just buy this. You won't get better service just because something is more expensive.

I bought this mainly as another convenient portable backup for video when my Humax DVR filled up. It lives in a cheap USB2.0 caddy which is not the fastest of interfaces, but can cope well enough with streaming off the video, and only takes a few minutes to load a typical one hour SDTV program. It seems to be economical on power as it only becomes slightly warm even when in continuous use backing-up from DVR or streaming into the TV, and I generally only use a single USB-A to USB-A lead and not the supplied Y lead.My sample measures 9.5mm thick by 70mm wide by 100mm long. The length measurement includes the bit of connector sticking out. All the electronics are fully enclosed, and there is nothing to short out on a metal housing.I initialised it as a 'basic drive', and it was then formatted correctly at different times by both an XP and a W7 PC for different requirements either as NTFS or exFAT or old-fashioned but compatible FAT32. The formatted capacity is 931GB for all of them. I first 'quick-formatted' it as NTFS when it was temporarily used for more PC data than would fit on a couple of USB sticks, but later reformatted it as FAT32 for the TV programs. In each case the time taken for a 'quick format' was less than a minute.On my DVR a typical 50minute SD TV program takes approximately 1GB, so if you expected to fill the drive at one session, be prepared for a long wait! As a 5400rpm drive it is not the fastest, but then I did not expect absolute speed if it was fitted in a USB2.0 caddy. It does need to use a higher power USB socket, for example while the TV has a 1Amp USB socket dedicated for a hard drive not all USB sockets can supply the full half an Amp.Both the TV and DVR can read and write FAT32, and each only uses one USB-A to USB-A lead to connect to it (meaning that it does not take too much power), and so it has fulfilled the objective of being a Video archive for when the DVR gets too full; it is doing the job it was purchased for, and doing it well.