WD 6TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive – USB 3.
WD 6TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive – USB 3.
Formatted for Windows 10+
The WD Elements desktop hard disk drive is formatted NTFS and compatible with Windows 10+ and can be reformatted for Mac.
Comparison Metric
 WD Elements Desktop |  WD My Book Desktop |  WD My Book Duo Desktop |  WD Elements Portable | |
| Technology | HDD | HDD | HDD | HDD |
| Auto Backup Software | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ | ✘ |
| Great for | Plug-and-play storage | Backup and restore | RAID backup | Portable storage |
| Interface | SuperSpeed USB 3.0/2.0 | SuperSpeed USB 3.2/3.0/2.0 | SuperSpeed USB 3.2/3.0/2.0 | SuperSpeed USB 3.0/2.0 |
| Compatibility | Windows; Mac w/Reformat | Windows; Mac w/Reformat | Windows; Mac w/Reformat | Windows; Mac w/Reformat |
| Hardware Encryption | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ | ✘ |
| Password Protection | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ | ✘ |
Will this drive WD Elements Desktop work with my Xbox or PS4? What about my Mac or PC?
Yes, however, it’s best suited for PC or Mac. For the best gaming experience, we recommend the WD_BLACK D50, which is designed for optimal compatibility with Xbox/PS5/PS4.
I’m not computer savvy, is the set-up easy?
Setup is simple! Plug the drive into a USB Type-A 3.0 or 2.0 port using the included USB Type-A cable and open your device’s file manager, such as File Explorer or Finder.
Do you need a battery for the drive to work?
The Elements Desktop drive is powered with the included AC adapter. There is no battery or battery replacement to worry about.
What needs to be done to format this device for mac?
To easily reformat to Mac, plug in the drive, open your Mac’s Disk Utility application, and follow the steps from there. Please note, this will erase any data on the drive.
| Weight: | 360 g |
| Dimensions: | 13.5 x 4.8 x 16.9 cm; 360 Grams |
| Brand: | Western Digital |
| Model: | WDBWLG0060HBK-EESN |
| Colour: | Black |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Western Digital |
| Dimensions: | 13.5 x 4.8 x 16.9 cm; 360 Grams |
I now have 10 of these WD Elements desktop external drives the oldest of which are more than 10 years old and I’ve never had one fail yet. Plug and play simplicity. I won’t buy any other brand.
It is a good reliable product. The only problem is if you buy any WD products. Always allow for 2tb less, than what you are paying for. So I purchased a 14tb. But in reality it shows up as 12tb available space.
The read/write speeds are respectable and the unit is quiet which is unusual for a spinner HD.
Anyway, a highly recommended product.
Fast, quiet, large capacity… everything I need in an external drive for my backups.
Plenty of space to store all my media files. Also small and compact.
very pleased with this, while not the cheapest, I`ve had this a while now with no problems. a good reliable product.
I have a late 2014 iMac which I will upgrade later this year (2023). I needed a reliable, fast, good value external drive to use for back up and to make conversion to the new machine simple. This WD hard drive met the requirement well.
Great little gizmo, plays videos,music and anything else I store on it.
Bought this to backup my entire pc with Macrium Reflect,and for this it works fine.Storage size out of the box is 10.9TB.
Has been working reliably for 3 years now being used daily. All other external drives have failed after a very short time, so I highly recommend this product.
Its only a few weeks old so I can’t say too much but as a Ex.HDD it does the job I’ve had several Seagate HDD and too many of them have died that I have lost confidence inn that brand I know WD is a very good brand
Like other reviewers, I too have the irritating heartbeat access every few seconds. It is apparently “Preemptive wear leveling” (PWL) and perfectly normal. And perfectly irritating!
The only solution is to dismount the drive when you are not using it. Which is fine for someone like me who uses the drive for Near Line Storage (ie. backups) but obviously no good for someone who needs to keep it connected all the time.
Other than that the drive has been utterly reliable and good value for money.
I have been using the 20TB WD hard drive in my Unraid server for several months and it has been a reliable and efficient storage solution. The drive runs cool and quietly, which is a key factor for me.
One additional benefit of this drive is that it is easy to shuck, which allowed me to use it in my server without any issues. I have not experienced any heat issues with this drive, even during extended use. Additionally, the lack of noise is a significant benefit in my setup, as it allows for a quieter computing environment.
Overall, I would highly recommend the 20TB WD hard drive to anyone in need of a high-capacity storage solution. Its reliability, ease of shucking, cool operation, and low noise level make it an ideal choice for those seeking a dependable and efficient storage option.
It’s a 14TB hard drive, what more is there to say. Only annoying thing it insists on wanting you to install software to use. I just reformatted it and it works just fine.
Having had my regular cloud storage go bust and unable to find a cheaper option I come across this fab external harddrive.
I’m a crafter so I have thousands of craft files etc that I need to save. This has been just what I needed.
I was able to also use Amazon’s free pay monthly which made buying much easier.
Easy to use I would highly recommend to anyone.
WD drives have been monotonously reliable for me over the years. bought this t take a full back of a 16TB NAS before wiping and reinstalling. it just plugs in, works and we transferred all the data there and back. took a while, but it is a lot of data.
the drive does not move from the desk, so portability is not an issue, and having never had to contact their tech support (stuff just works!) I cant rate that either!
I have a couple of these and they work fine. They are what they are. I use with a Mac and you just plug in, format and off you go. I don’t use the software it comes with, format through your computers system tools for formatting. It’s sort of portable, certainly doesn’t fit in your pocket, but I would say it is for a desktop use not to put in a rucksack or bag to use at work / college etc. Good product.
Had it 3 months and no problems. I got loads of photos/videos from my phone to laptop. I then dragged onto this external hard drive. It’s not the quickest coming on when plugged in but find it reliable due to having to return a different manufacturer. So far good.
I had a fault with my NAS and needed a large amount of data backing up. This was the cheapest (per TB) option for backing up. It works well, not the fastest external USB drive i’ve had, but I suppose that’s a drawback of a huge single drive. It’s also quite noisy & clunky in operation, much noiser than all my other external drives (1-8TB). Not a massive drawback and can (have to!) live with it while rebuilding my NAS.
If you want to use it in all its case and glory, just remember to keep it upright and don’t move it when it’s on, as it’s an HDD in the end and needs to be still. I lost only 2TB due to the disk having to take some.
Overall 9/10 would buy again, just remember this is a long investment, it’s better than buying the odd 1tb now and again, this is very unlikely to let you down.
I did read a long time ago WD MAY encrypt the hard drive, so if the drives fail and you want to access the info by removing it and connecting to a PC (sata or USB dock) you may not able to do so. I do not know if this is the case but it remains in my mind.
In fact the whole drive is formatted as NTFS, which both Windows and Mac can work with. I don’t run either of those OSes; I formatted the drive with the Linux ext4 file system and it seems fine with that.
I tried the Report-wrong-information link on the Amazon site, but nothing happened, even after I’d disabled Ublock Origin temporarily.
While it is easy to set up and basically plug and play I have noticed that since it was set up if I switch the PC off at the mains (I have to do this when I go away as my PC switches on by itself if left plugged in and closed down) and when I switch on the PC again the system freezes and does not boot up. I have to switch it off and on again and then it works fine. Not sure why this is but it only ever happened after I connected the drive. Strange!!
I format to a Mac format, plug in and go. The drives are fast enough to do simple FCPX edits on as occasionally I have to go back to and old FCPX event and amend and re-output a project without having to copy back over to my fast edit drive. Wouldn’t do a heavy 4K project on the drive though.
I have had issues with the build quality of other major brands but now pretty much in the Western Digital camp for archive. Also use WD potable drives on a daily basis too.
Needed a large amount of space for photo and video storage. This fits the bill for that. It makes a few noises that echo through the table, though that soon becomes background noise. The annoying element of this is that if the drive hasn’t been used for a while and you want to use any other drive on your PC, it holds the entire PC up while the HDD wakes – this is especially annoying when the files and programs in use have nothing to do with the drive.
The 18TB drive is absolutely fantastically priced for its size!
The drive is a little noisey as it awakens from its slumber, it’s also a relatively slow drive and doesn’t try to hide that.
However it’s space and value far exceed the perceived downsides of the speed and noise of the drive as you won’t be using this daily of you are using it in its USB form factor.
However when you crack it open, that’s when this drive really comes alive. Inside the slow plastic USB shell lies a 7200rpm WDC WD180EDGZ which when connected directly to an array or PC is silent and really rather impressive performance.
If used as a USB drive Its sheer size alone will allow you and the entire family to back up all of your important data such as photos, videos documents safely in one east to access place.
If you are cracking this open and putting inside a sinology, raid array or simply a PC the 7200rpm WDC WD180EDGZ really does hold its own against smaller drives, theoretically faster drives.
Overall this is a reliable, great value drive that is designed for backup and storage (not for high speed gaming or searching) and If you understand that going in you won’t be disappointed!
These are also the same drives that the extremely handsome “Richard” form Digital Foundry purchased and recommended during the Black Friday sales (2021) and we all know that recommendations don’t come much higher or more prestigious than that.
A fantastic purchase!
Anyway, as others have mentioned, there was a weird clicking sound to it – like every 30-60 seconds I think it was, it would make a click. This was a bit annoying at first but my computer is pretty noisy anyway and I usually have headphones on so I didn’t notice it much, but did think that it might not be the best for an htpc. However, at some point it stopped – I really can’t remember the last time I heard it, aside from in the weeks after buying it, so I can only assume it must have stopped within a few months. So maybe it’s fine for an htpc after all, if you can put up with a bit of noise initially.
Can’t comment as to longevity of course, but I’ve been using exclusively WD for over 10 years now and haven’t had a single issue yet. If/when this comes back down to 100 or less, as it did often enough last year, I’ll definitely get another one.
I bought this unit to on and connected on 24/7 so i have also purchased the 3 years insurance which was about 7 extra Worth it in my opinion.
So this item is being used as storage for my Plex media Centre..
The item seems to be really good for my needs plenty of space and doesn’t seem to heat up too much atall.
Currently the unit has been running for the last week continuously.
The unit its self is warm To touch as you expect but nothing that seems Too hot or that there is any problem.
Its a low heat that is to be expected.
The transformer (Power adaptor) is also warm to the touch but only slightly and again not hot and nothing out of the ordinary for an item that has been on 24/7 for the last week (at the time of this review)
I managed to get a transfer rate of around 75mb transfer rate over usb 3.0 with this item
Overall I’m happy and i will update this in time with reliability of the item
++UPDATE (24th jan) this hdd has now been running 24/7 since day of purchase and as of this update that is just over 3 months solid this unit has been powered on and in use with no problems++
Further update it is now 13/04/23 at the point of this update and this hdd has been powered on 24/7 since the day i bought the unit which was oct 2020 so almost 2.5 years with absolutely no problems atall and not being switched off..
Still stable still working as intended and i.ln daily use..
I will add more updates as time goes by
Excellently priced for 8TB of storage. Curry’s had it at 10 more and wanted to charge delivery.
Delivered next day free of charge from Amazon which was good.
As this is a Western Digital drive the manufacturer has a 3-year warranty. I own lots of WD drives (I even have a 2TB home cloud for years now) and I have NEVER had a single failure.
I am using the drive as external storage and I am already up to over 7TB. As it’s USB 3.0, it is very fast at both read and write.
The supplied USB 3.0 cable is about 1m which is quite good. Allows me to sit the drive on my desk with the computer under the desk.
A few negatives but only tiny things:
It stands upright and doesn’t take much to tip it over, twice I have knocked my knee on the desk and the drive has fallen over whilst it was in use. It could do with some sort of stand for the base to prevent this.
I would not call it a portable drive, it requires a power adapter (supplied with it), and its not one of those 2.5inch drives, it is quite chunky.
Regarding the button on the rear, its not clear what it is ‘supposed’ to do. While the drive is running, holding the button for 5 seconds will shut the drive down. If the drive is in standby (not shut down) it will wake it up. If a short press when it is running, it will go to standby and then sometimes immediately wake again!
When in standby, it can take a while to run up to speed, specially annoying when booting my computer in the morning as the computers BIOS detects the drive but then has to wait for it to spin up and ‘come online’ before my computer continues to boot. Although this may only be a matter of 10 or 15 seconds, it doubles my computer boot time which is normally only 10 seconds!
If I remember to shut the drive down at night, then this is not a problem, but who does that!
It churns away on its own, it has a constant ‘duh-du’ sound about every 5 seconds with the odd ‘duh-du-du’. As it’s sat on my desk it just sounds like someone drumming their fingers on the desk. It’s very quiet but noticeable, I’m constantly wondering what it’s doing!
Overall, excellent value for money, well respected manufacturer, excellent speed and capacity.
After fully testing the drive for any errors (approximately 72 hours!), as an ‘experiment’, I decided to ‘shuck’ it which is essentially removing the drive from it’s plastic USB enclosure. Plenty of videos online on how to do this but essentially:
– Use 4 plastic/credit cards and slide one into each corner of the rear plate, in between the rear plate and sides (this dislodges the hidden internal plastic clips).
– Slide the inner part of the enclosure out from the front part of the casing
– Unscrew the USB controller from the bottom of the drive
– Gently push from the bottom of the drive and slide it out from the enclosure
– Remove the 4 rubber corners from the drive
– Remove the USB controller from the drive by sliding it off the drive
– Remove the USB controller mount from the drive by removing the screw
– Jobs a goodun!
Disclaimer: Shucking the drive will most likely void your warranty so just be aware of that if you are considering doing it!
To my (pleasant) surprise I discover what appears to be a white label WD Red 10TB drive inside. The hard drive chassis is identical to the WD Reds I currently own and has model number WD100EMAZ. The drive has firmware 83.H0A83 which is the same as my other WD Reds and on checking the S.M.A.R.T. values for the drive it also includes a Helium level counter, so, this is very likely to be the same drive as used for the WD100EFAX WD Red 10TB. I now have the drive running in a Synology as part of an array so if it dies it’s not the end of the world.
I think it’s a bit of a lottery what you might get from shucking drive enclosures but sizes 10TB and upwards are likely to be the newer, Helium filled drives and are potentially rebadged WD Red drives.
I have bought several WD Red 10TB drives for use in my NAS’s which tend to be quite expensive and hover anywhere from 280 to 350 a pop. The WD Red I use is the WD100EFAX model which are 10TB, helium filled, 5400 rpm drives and come with a 3 year warranty. WD Red drives are tested and rated for use in NAS enclosures but Backblaze use also 1000’s of desktop drives in their datacentre with great success.
Like most, I was purchasing these for the drives inside, rather than for use as an external unit, typically proving to be the cheaper way of buying larger drives when they’re on offer.
Issues that you may need to know:
Firstly, and not wholely unexpected, this doesn’t have the standard mounting screw holes you’d expect on older/smaller 3.5″ drives, missing the middle of the three on each side in order to accomodate the additional drive platters, and repositioning the mount holes on the bottom for the same reason. This might not sound like much, but if you use a screwless case of any kind, or some kind of tray system that use the older style mounting holes, you’ll likely find that can’t secure these drives into the bay with the standard kit – I had to resort to some adaptation myself.
Secondly, and more importantly, some older PSUs can have a problem powering these drives up due to the use of a newer SATA power specification. There’s a few workarounds, so have a quick look for ‘fix 3.3v issue in white label drives’ if you have a problem. Using a simple molex-to-sata adapter works if you’re stuck.
The good:
It’s still very simple to open the case itself – a small flat-nose screwdriver or some plastic cards will do to pry the top-end open (from there it’s just a case of pushing), and you’ll need a screwdriver (Phillips head) to remove the drive from the two screws attaching the drive to the SATA/power connector. Other than that, there’s some rubber mounts that simply need pushed out. There’s youtube videos about removing it from the case and what to watch for it you plan on removing it (just needs a bit of care to watch snapping off some plastic clips when doing the initial steps).
This is my second – the last contained a WD red, but this latest contains a WD120EMFZ-11 drive (manufacturing date of January this year), hence adding a review for those still hoping for Reds specifically. These latest models are specifically Western Digital Whites: 3.5″ SATA III drive, seemingly 6Gb/s, 5400 RPM disks. In open air, spin and seek noise seems to be far better than a neighbouring Seagate drive, appearing to be very similar to some of my older, very quiet, WD Green drives. For use as a video-hosting server drive, it’s pretty much ideal – very low power on idle, 5A peak during full use. My only gripe is that it runs roughly three degrees hotter than my other WD drives, including the last 12gb (an EMAZ drive), but nothing major.
– “Elements” – this product – gets you a non-SED (unencrypted) firmware White HDD. The other version “My Book” gets you a SED (encrypted) firmware White HDD. Thus with this version you can remove disk with files and read over SATA/other enclosure – as it’s not encrypted.
– 8TB and higher are non-SMR (at this time 2019/2020) Helium disks thus good performance (over 200MB/s read/write) so try to get these versions not 6TB and lower. But they are more expensive. [Stay away for Seagate SMR disks for a NAS]
– If you’re using enclosure there’s not much ventilation and disk may get to 55C+ especially if you copy to it for hours (initial transfer). So try to put it in a ventilated location or get a little fan to blow on it. In a NAS I would expect some sort of cooling system to keep drives cool.
– Keep an eye for bad sectors – I’ve had 3 of the older 8TB 1st generation Helium (also from USB3 enclosures) fail after 2-3 years (out of 6). Perhaps I’ve been unlucky, perhaps it was a 1st gen problem that was solved but you never know. Always backup and don’t forget RAID (whichever version) is not a backup.
The USB3 cable supplied is longer than other usual devices (1m).
Work fine for the first week without an issue filling all but 500Gb.
“How to Read Model Numbers: WUH721414ALE6L4 — 14TB SATA 6Gb/s 512e Base (SE) with Legacy Pin 3 config:
W = Western Digital
U = Ultrastar
H = Helium
72 = 7200 RPM
14 = Max capacity (14TB)
14 = Capacity this model (14TB)
A = Generation code
L = 26.1mm z-height
E6 = Interface (512e SATA 6Gb/s)
(52 = 512e SAS 12Gb/s)
** 512e models can be converted to 4Kn format and vice versa
y = Power Disable Pin 3 status(0 = Power Disable Pin 3 support
L = Legacy Pin 3 config — No Power Disable Support)
z = Data Security Mode
1 = SED* : Self-Encryption Drive TCG-Enterprise and Sanitize Crypto Scramble / Erase
4 = Base (SE)* : No Encryption, Sanitize Overwrite only
5 = SED-FIPS: SED w/ certification (SAS only)
“What’s interesting about this is that it looks like a 7200-RPM data center drive that’s been slowed down to 5400-RPM for stuffing into the Best Buy packaging.”
Thanks to jitter skater:
“The ‘F’ in WD140EMFZ actually reveals that it has 512MB cache, like all WD 14 TB drives have. The smaller models like 12TB or 10TB only have 256MB cache (‘A’).
“WD140EMFZ = Easystore / Elements 14TB drive
WD140EDFZ = My Book 14TB drive
“The only difference is that the My Book support encryption on the hardware level (“D”= enterprise drive) and has a three years warranty, instead of two years.
These are all basically Western Digital Ultrastar HC530 drives, slowed down to 5400RPM and hence absolutely comparable to WD Red 14TB drives.”
Enter the Western Digital 14Tb Elements drive, which at 249 at the time of writing, represents pretty decent value considering I paid 179 for the aforementioned 8Tb Seagate model a couple of years back. Strangely, if I want to buy the equivalent drive as a bare unit i.e not housed in an external enclosure with all the additional electronics that entails, it would actually cost me over 300! Why a less expensive to produce version should cost more than one in an enclosure is beyond me.
The WD unit is rather like a heavy book, in that one edge is curved, rather reminding me of the spine of a hard back. On this surface you will find the single power/activity LED, which is quite small. The drive has small rubber feet such that it stands in a vertical orientation – like a book in a book case. This is perhaps the best orientation for air flow given the vented top and rear edges. I personally don’t really like drives standing up like this, it’s too vulnerable to being knocked if its stood on a busy desk. Lying flat is OK, but I think my unit ran a little hotter like that. I don’t know why WD do not provide an optional to fit stand with wider feet to provide better stability. Such a simple plastic stand would cost next to nothing to produce and would give customers the option to have a more secure base.
That minor gripe aside, the drive itself is impressive in its performance. Unlike the Seagate which was an SMR type drive and thus termed an “archive” drive that suffered from slow write performance at just 38.7 Mb/sec sequential writes according to my Crystal Disk Mark test, the WD Elements 14Tb drive tested at an impressive 214Mb/sec read and write sequential transfer rate. For reference, the Seagate tested at around 118Mb/sec sequential read as I recall.
As with these large capacity drives, the head seek action is quite heavy, far heavier than my internal 2Tb drives and will feel like the drive is suffering from a fit of the shakes when initializing after a power on. Not an issue, but worthy of note to those who may think they have received a faulty unit. The previously mentioned 8Tb Seagate had a heavy seek action too, but not as heavy as this monster from WD, I can only imagine it may have to do with the high platter count such high capacity hard drives have.
These external drives actually appear to run warmer than internal drives, so it’s advisable to situate the drive somewhere where it is not penned in by other items. The drive performed flawlessly when I backed up my entire NAS to it over my horribly slow USB 2 connection on the NAS (only one I have) and took some 81.5 hours to complete the transfer of some 7.3Tb of data. So, it is certainly able to operate continuously for that length of time without issue. Of course, had I backed up via a USB 3 connection, then the transfer would’ve been far faster.
I suggest that purchasers of this drive, as with all Western Digital drives, register them on the WD website in order to ensure the full warranty cover.
The drive comes complete with the required power and USB cables of generous lengths. The drive has no power switch as such, so once connected to power and an active USB port, will power up. This drive seems to be smart enough to power down/enter standby if the connected computer is shut down or goes to sleep.
Connected to a Windows 10 PC, the drive reports 12.7Tb available. Of course, 12.7Tb is what I call “proper” Terra bytes despite hard drive manufacturers deeming a Tb to be an even 1,000Gb where as I, being old school, see a Tb as 1,024Gb hence the 12.7Tb shown in Windows. That’s fine, not a WD thing as all manufacturers go with this system of measurement. The drive’s default volume label is “Elements”, but of course you can change this if you so wish. Nothing required to do if using with a Windows based computer, so you can immediately start copying files to it once connected as the drive is pre formatted using NTFS. Mac users will either need to reformat or use a utility to permit use of NTFS file systems. No backup software is supplied with this drive, unlike the My Book series from WD. however, this is a bonus as I generally prefer not to use the software provided by the manufacturer for this purpose anyway. A quick note to those less computer savvy; There are numerous free backup programs for Windows you can use if you need backup software.
This Western Digital 14Tb Elements is an impressive drive at an impressive price.
We have a reliable Apple network drive and several LaCie hard discs to feed our systems and home network.
Yet aside from local network back-ups. I want at least one disconnected drive stored at an other location that the primary home with a reasonable back up. I’ve given thought to a cloud solution but not sure given, cyber risk, the monthly cost of the close to 8 TB I need to back up. I’m not sure I want to stick to 1 single cloud provider over time.. so a physical back up remains the default option in my mind.
My previous network back up drive set started to fail me. Also it had some drawback; it was a heavy set of back up drives – a bit unwieldy to lock away in a cupboard. It was slow – it took we over a couple of evenings to perform my quarterly / half-yearly back ups. And stupidly I lost the password.
Over the past few years the cost of hard drives with large capacity has continued to decline. So I figured rather than going through to the pain of sorting the issues with the existing drive, I better get an even bigger capacity drive currently at a good price.
The pro’s of this WD 10TB desk top drive are that is is light, easy to pack for travel. Its very fast with its USB 3.0 cable, that comes provided ( it just took me a couple of hours to fill it, updating is will be a matter of minutes I guess). The capacity stands out, certainly given the price I paid for it.
The drawbacks are the plasticy-appearance. My former drive set had a luxurious, sturdy aluminium cover. This WD drive doesn’t look nice next to our distinguished mat-chrome and wheel Apple equipment – not that I care since it will locked away in a safe box most of the time. It comes with a power adapter and cable set – I have a huge preference for drives that operate just through a USB power feed. But alas, most large capacity drives seem to a require separate power feed.
Either way, quite pleased so far. After some swift Apple disc conversion it was ready to work straight out of the box.
touch wood
I would always recommend getting a smaller size hard drive (4tb max size) if possible as they can fail and losing so much data (6tb+) can be difficult to take.
I’ve also read that larger size hard drives are more likely to fail but cannot confirm this.
These devices are incredibly easy to setup and use.
Just plug in the USB cable and you’re away.
Note: I would highly recommend using a 3.0 usb slot when transferring large files.
USB 3.0 does downgrade to USB 2.0 slots but the speeds are so much slower.
If you dont have a usb 3.0 lot then use the 2.0 slot but if your desktop pc has multiple drives then make sure you use the faster 3.0 slot.
As mentioned before, I can’t fault these drives so far.
My only concern is the varying write speeds. A few of the hard drives I have purchased seem to have much faster write speeds than others despite being the same model.
I do not know why this is but others have mentioned possible cost cutting and use of slower drives/materials.
It can be frustrating but isn’t too bad on the whole, it just means waiting a few minutes more.
Lastly, PLEASE DO NOT leave your hard drive on all the time!
The heat generated will impact the drive and can lead to problems.
These drives shouldn’t be left unused for a long time but should NOT be used constantly as a seperate drive.
They are for storage/backup of larger files to decrease file space on your pc/laptop.
If you feel like the hard drive is getting hot or been on for a long time, then please safely eject the device and allow it to cool down.
Overall I’m very happy with my purchase. Delivery was very fast and Amazon were much cheaper than any where else.
I will definitely be buying another one in the future and hope Western Digital continue making high quality but affordable products like this.
I am currently using it to back up my NAS system, and as this only has USB 2.0 ports, I can’t really comment on the drive speed. However, I will say that it has been writing to the drive non stop for 3 hours, and the unit it only slightly warm, and virtually silent in operation (the small LED on the front is the only way to tell that anything is happening at all!) So far, so good – but there are a couple of niggles that show that it has been built to a budget.
Firstly, the high gloss plastic wraparound case is horrendous for picking up fingerprints – the worst I have come across in my life. This is possibly something to be aware of if the drive is going to be handled frequently. Which brings me onto the second point – the edges on the plastic wraparound are not finished off well at all, leading to very sharp edges – not badly enough to cut you, but not far off.
So, if it’s a drive that is going to be handled, I’d look elsewhere. However, if it’s a drive that will be in a single location, or for very occasional backups, it’s an absolute bargain.
Taking into account the storage I would need, 4TB is sufficient so I opted for this Western Digital model as having a good price/storage ratio.
When the unit arrived I noticed a small tick on the outside of the packaging indicating W10. This is quite small and could easily be missed. Now I don’t know if this has anything to do with a small issue I found, but considering I use two laptops of almost equal specification – SSD drive as drive 1 with the OS, i7 processors of more or less equal speed, and 16GB of RAM, the performance difference between the two laptops was pronounced, and it surprised me. My W7 laptop, i7 2.4Ghz, running Home Premium 64 bit is coming up to 4 years old, whereas my newer Acer V15 Nitro is last year’s model and runs W10 Home, i7 2.6Ghz. Both laptops are equipped with USB3 ports. The older laptop uses DDR3 and the Acer DDR4 for which Acer claims faster data transit.
First up was the W7 laptop to which I had connected one of the Toshiba USB3 hard drives to transfer my movie collection. The transfer speed was not as fast as I was anticipating and soon realised that transferring the 4TB of data from both Toshiba drives would take a lot longer than I was expecting. So I quickly connected the drives to my V15 Nitro to do a check, and the result was like chalk and cheese. File transfer now simply zipped along at quite an impressive rate. I’m no IT expert, but it does look like the combination of W10 + DDR4 makes a considerable difference. I’d sure appreciate it if an IT expert could explain it to me.
Taken all in, the WD 4TB Elements seems to have been a good buy, but only time will tell how reliable it is. It looks like it is intended to be used standing vertically as the rubber feet are on its base. It does have an on/off switch but I’ve not worked out why as switching on and off is controlled by the laptop via the USB3 port.