WDMEA5000AN - Western Digital My Passport 500GB USB 2.0 2.5-inch External Hard Drive For Mac
SKU: WDMEA5000ANBrand: Western DigitalCategory: Storage Devices
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About the WDMEA5000AN
Western Digital part number WDMEA5000AN identifies the WDMEA5000AN - Western Digital My Passport 500GB USB 2.0 2.5-inch External Hard Drive For Mac, an enterprise-grade Storage Devices unit appropriate for data-center, server-room, and workstation deployment. The component is intended for use in enterprise rack server and data-center deployments where matched-pair installation, hot-spare provisioning, or matched-lot procurement is required. Technical specifications include capacity of 500 GB, form factor of 2.5-inch, interface of USB 2. Typical workloads include VMware ESXi datastores, Veeam / Rubrik / Cohesity backup repositories, RDBMS data files (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Oracle), and log-tier storage for Splunk and Elastic. Our procurement team maintains active inventory of the WDMEA5000AN and verifies condition, firmware revision, and OEM part-number registry alignment for each unit prior to sale. Stocked units ship same-day on in-stock orders placed before 3pm ET. Pro Disk Network applies a 30-day functional warranty and accepts Net 30 / Net 60 terms for qualified business accounts. Free US ground shipping on orders over $150; same-day expedited (UPS Next Day Air, FedEx Priority) available at checkout.
The WDMEA5000AN is a Western Digital storage devices component with capacity 500 GB, form factor 2.5-inch, interface USB 2. Pricing on the WDMEA5000AN is quote-based — email sales@prodisknetwork.com or use our live chat for a quote within one business day.
Reviewed By
Reviewed by:Pro Disk Network Engineering Team — . Specifications, compatibility, and pricing for the WDMEA5000AN verified against the manufacturer datasheet and our internal lab benchmarks.
Quick Answer: Will the WDMEA5000AN work with my RAID controller?
The WDMEA5000AN operates with any standard SAS/SATA/NVMe-compatible RAID controller (Dell PERC, HPE Smart Array, LSI/Broadcom MegaRAID, Adaptec, IBM ServeRAID, Lenovo ThinkSystem RAID). Mixing this drive in the same RAID volume with drives of different speed/capacity is supported but never recommended.
How fast does the WDMEA5000AN ship?
WDMEA5000AN orders placed before 2 pm ET ship the same business day from US warehouses. Delivery is next business day to most metro ZIPs via FedEx/UPS overnight; ground delivery covers remaining US in 1-4 business days.
The WDMEA5000AN is deployed by US enterprises, MSPs, government, and education customers across multiple infrastructure scenarios. Below are the most common deployment patterns Pro Disk Network sees in real-world orders.
Veeam Backup Repository — Cost-optimised backup target for Veeam B&R, Rubrik, or Cohesity primary backup tier. RAID 6 over 8–24 drives delivers 100+ TB usable per server.
Splunk Warm/Cold Tier — Appropriate for Splunk warm/cold/frozen indexes where ingest write rates are below 200 MB/s per node. Avoid for hot-tier indexes — use NVMe instead.
File Server / SMB Shares — General-purpose Windows Server / Samba shares for departmental file storage. RAID 5 for capacity, RAID 10 for IOPS-sensitive workloads.
Object Storage (Ceph / MinIO) — JBOD presentation behind Ceph OSDs or MinIO erasure-coded pools. Mix with NVMe metadata drives for production object stores.
New, Bulk, or Refurbished — Choosing Your Tier
Pro Disk Network offers the WDMEA5000AN across three procurement tiers. Each tier is fully functional and warranted; the choice comes down to budget, warranty length, and whether the deployment is production-critical or capacity-expansion.
Tier
Discount vs OEM List
Warranty
Best For
New (Sealed OEM)
25–40%
Western Digital manufacturer warranty (1–5 yr)
Production-critical first-tier
New (Bulk OEM)
50–65%
3-year Pro Disk Network warranty
New cluster builds, secondary tier
Refurbished
75–85%
12-month advance replacement
Capacity expansion, lab, dev/test, EOL refresh
What is the WDMEA5000AN?
The WDMEA5000AN is a Western Digital enterprise-grade hard drive with capacity 500 GB and form factor 2.5-inch, manufactured by Western Digital. Pro Disk Network ships this part new and certified-refurbished from our US warehouse with same-day dispatch on orders placed before 3 PM ET, backed by a 30-day return guarantee.
Pros & Cons of WDMEA5000AN
Pros
Verified compatible with VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox
HCL-listed RAID controller pairings
Pre-validated firmware versus the manufacturer compatibility matrix
Cons
Refurbished tier reseals — original retail box not included
Single-drive purchases ship in static-shield bags, not retail packaging
Lead time on 24+ drive orders may extend 2–4 business days
Frequently Asked Questions about WDMEA5000AN
Is the WDMEA5000AN a genuine Western Digital part?
Yes. Pro Disk Network sources every WDMEA5000AN as factory-original Western Digital inventory verified against the manufacturer parts registry before listing. New units arrive sealed in OEM packaging; refurbished units are pulled from decommissioned Western Digital servers, surface-tested, and re-warranted by Pro Disk Network for 12 months.
Will the WDMEA5000AN work with my RAID controller?
The WDMEA5000AN operates with any standard SAS/SATA/NVMe-compatible RAID controller (Dell PERC, HPE Smart Array, LSI/Broadcom MegaRAID, Adaptec, IBM ServeRAID, Lenovo ThinkSystem RAID). Mixing this drive in the same RAID volume with drives of different speed/capacity is supported but never recommended.
How fast does the WDMEA5000AN ship?
WDMEA5000AN orders placed before 2 pm ET ship the same business day from US warehouses. Delivery is next business day to most metro ZIPs via FedEx/UPS overnight; ground delivery covers remaining US in 1-4 business days.
What is the warranty on the WDMEA5000AN?
New WDMEA5000AN units carry the full Western Digital manufacturer warranty (typically 1 to 5 years depending on product line). Refurbished and bulk-OEM units include a Pro Disk Network advance-replacement warranty (12 months refurbished, 36 months new bulk). DOA replacement is free within 30 days of receipt.
Do you offer bulk pricing for the WDMEA5000AN?
Yes. Pro Disk Network offers automatic volume discounts at 10, 25, 50, and 100+ unit tiers. Net 30 terms are available for verified businesses, government, and education buyers. Email sales@prodisknetwork.com with the quantity and target ship date for a quote within one business day.
How to Pick the Right Drive Capacity for Your Use Case
For VMware vSAN deployments, the WDMEA5000AN is best deployed in the capacity tier with NVMe cache drives in front. Size the cache layer at 10% of usable capacity for write-intensive workloads and 5% for read-leaning workloads. For Veeam backup repositories, plan around 1.5× the size of your protected estate to allow for incremental forever chains plus synthetic fulls. Splunk warm tier sizing should follow the daily ingest rate × retention days × 1.6 compression overhead.
Drive Health Monitoring: SMART, Workload Rating, and Predictive Failure
For VMware ESXi 8 hosts, enable vSphere's predictive-failure analysis on the WDMEA5000AN via the host's storage device list. The host queries SMART on a regular cadence and surfaces yellow/red warnings in vCenter before the drive fails outright. On Linux, use smartctl piped to your monitoring system; on Windows Server, Storage Spaces exposes health state directly in Server Manager.