WD 6TB My Book Desktop HDD USB 3.0 with software for device
WD 6TB My Book Desktop HDD USB 3.0 with software for device management, backup and password protection works with PC and Mac
WD Quality
Designed to meet WD’s demanding requirements for durability and long-terms reliability, we stand by the trusted My Book desktop storage.
My BookComparison Metric
Up to 22TB | Capacity(2) | Up to 44TB |
No | Remote Access | No |
1 x USB 3.0 | USB Ports | 2 x USB 3.1 |
5.5 x 1.9 x 6.7 in | Size | 6.3 x 3.9 x 7.0 in |
Included | Backup Software | Included |
256-bit AES | Hardware Encryption | 256-bit AES |
Up to 22TB | Capacity(2) | Up to 8TB |
No | Remote Access | Yes |
1 x USB 3.0 | USB Ports | 1 x USB 3.0 |
5.5 x 1.9 x 6.7 in | Size | 5.5 x 2.1 x 6.9 in |
Included | Backup Software | Included |
256-bit AES | Hardware Encryption | No |
- My Book Duo
- My Cloud Home
(1)Download and installation required. Terms and conditions apply. User account registration may be required.
(2)1TB = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment.
Product specifications subject to change without notice. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Western Digital, the Western Digital Logo, WD, the WD logo, My Book, and My Cloud are registered marks or marks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
2022 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
| Weight: | 1.05 kg |
| Dimensions: | 13.93 x 4.9 x 17.06 cm; 1.05 Kilograms |
| Brand: | Western Digital |
| Model: | WDBBGB0060HBK-EESN |
| Colour: | Black |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Western Digital |
| Dimensions: | 13.93 x 4.9 x 17.06 cm; 1.05 Kilograms |
Good hard drive, reasonably quick to transfer and use. Works with mac and windows out the book and has a dmg file for full mac installation. Standard file type is exfat which seemed a bit unusual to me but it works well for me
We have tried a number of clouds so that the family could share files, photos etc.
We wanted one to use for sharing graphics and other products items and files.
It was easy to install and use, and the storage capacity is great, it does as the product description says and holds a lot of files.
Once I have some more money, I will definitely be purchasing more of these products.
Very easy to setup and get working and great price for the capacity, but it is quite noisy and seems to make clunks and whirring noises even when I’m definitely not reading from or writing to it. They aren’t the fastest drives inside it but as a drive for backups etc (basically that you’re not going to be running video editing from etc) it’s great.
Other than the noise and speed though it’s great for a storage device and with the current range available I’d probably get it again.
Pros:
– Lots of storage
– Easy to use
– Fast transfer speed
Cons:
– Can be nosiy with fan and rattling when using i
I bought a 6TB seagate drive initially as it was on sale for 83.49 which is a pretty decent price per terrabyte however it soon become apparent that it was a bad buy for reasons beyond the scope of this review.
I returned it and noticed this one was on sale for 129.99 (8TB) I didn’t want to really be spending more but I was running out of space fast so I bought this one whilst waiting for my refund on the previous one to complete.
I mainly use it for playing movies and it does that job well, Just be aware it can make a low ‘knocking noise’ when in use, Apparently a lot of high capacity drives do this even more so when its a helium drive (filled with) as this one is. Its not really noticeable through the day but on a night when the TV is turned down it can be noticed (my drive sits on a glass tv unit, I’ve tried putting sponge legs under it or sitting it on foam buy it doesn’t help at all.
Kind of ironic as helium drives are supposed to run quieter and cooler but to be fair this is the hottest external drive I own. It doesn’t affect its operation though.
It comes with free acronis backup software (needs to be downloaded separately from acronis, search for ‘acronis backup for WD’).
The drive has Hardware encryption to keep the contents safe, you can also use the WD software to put the password in automatically, So you don’t have to punch it in every time you log into windows but its still going to protect the contents if its ever moved from your PC.
A pretty solid buy I’m glad I paid extra.
I have bought a couple of these for my home NAS server for primary and backup. They are a cheaper option than building out an internal RAID array, and are easily expandable given the number of USB 3 scokets on modern motherboards.
Performance is good – on a single file copy across gigabit LAN, I can get 100MB per second data transfer (read and write). It drops significantly when there are 2 active file streams – multiple I/O requests don’t seem to be a strong point – but you would only notice this on file transfers. If you have multiple streams going for the family (each only requiring a few MB/sec for hi-def transfer) you will not hit an issue with stutter etc.
Performance of the initial backup was very impressive – around 300MB per second transfer (both primary and backup drives were connected to the same PC for this initial backup).
The reason for 4 stars for me is that
1) It comes with a 1 metre cable that I think is a bit tight for most people and almost no cost for a longer one if supplied instead. I had to buy another. (Not a fault) but for me annoying
2) There is no external led to see if on. I like my other drives that have an on or off LED
3)If you disconnect the drive via Eject or fully disconnect and then turn it back on it cannot be found without going through the WD software.
Small issues but drops a star. Otherwise all good
First one delivered was dead on arrival. Amazon asked me to do a RMA with Western Digital. I was a little surprised by this as I purchased the item direct from Amazon. WD responded very well and replaced the item within 14 days. paying postage in both directions.
I have been using the device now for over a year and it has now developed some coil whine from the power supply. It works perfectly apart from this.
The second unit has had no issues and both are used daily.
The transfer speeds are some of the best on the market and I find that copying files to and from the external drives is same as internal drives when using USB3.
Whilst I had initial issues (And now coil whine) I still recommend them when they are discounted.
We use DropBox extensively for our small company use. We have been working remotely for about 8 years since getting rid of our server and it allows us all to work remotely whereever we are. So far so good but one big worry as we rely more and more on it and generate vast amounts of data is that its not a secure backup system. None of us now have a PC with a large enough hard disk to download all our DropBox data and in fact we hadly store anything locally and rely on having a decent internet connection to synchronise and download data with the cloud as required.
Backing up from DropBox is difficult and they dont offer any tool to make this easy, there is a limit on the number of files that can be downloaded at any one time and folders are downloaded as .zip files. Not very user friendly!
This WD drive changes all that, given the credentials it logs into our DropBox account and is busy downloading everything and saving them as individual files. I expect this to take a week or two to complete, but I will sleep easier at night when its done knowing I’ve got a secure backup that I can store securely.
Went for the My Book version this time, purely because at the time it was cheaper than the Elements version – I have absolutely no use for any of the WD software, I just want reliable USB 3 disks I can copy stuff to and from
Again, my only real gripe is the funny socket type on the disk unit so you can’t just use a standard USB cable if you happen to lose or damage the supplied one. Apart from that, it’s quick, and a good size and, touch wood, reliable.
I got this for a great price on amazon (it was on offer). I was considering buying two WD Red drives separately to upgrade my storage capacity, but happened across this unit which contains the red drives I was going to buy at a much cheaper price. I have an internal 8tb seagate drive but I have noticed that these drives connected by USB C are much faster than my internal drive on 6gb sata. This is probably because the unit comes configured as a striped raid out of the box, no not surprising that it is faster than a single drive I suppose. Easy to setup, I just plugged it in and the drive was detected immediately and I started using it. Installation of the software to manage the drives is recommended, and also before you start copying files onto the drive I would recommend thinking about how you want the drives configuring as reconfiguration will wipe all data from the drives so best configure it first. Options for configuration arestrip (default setting for speed and capacity), mirrored (for data security) or JBOD (for capacity).
I use it for my Time Machine back up on my Mac
I was using another WD drive which after years of use was giving some trouble, not terminal but not 100% either, so thought it time to replace it just in case so purchased yet another WD
My previous one was only 1TB but thought I’d order the 3TB version this time
I’ve partitioned this 3TB into 2 partitions so I have 2TB for Time Machine Back Ups and 1TB for extra storage
I’ve marked the rating down by one star as the drive is a little bit noisier than my previous WD but it’s really not that bad
It is quite evident to me the software developer who write the firmware does not understand temperature control algorithm at all. The fan kicks in really late, really hard and release really late. In a room of 25C, under normal stress, the fan switch on about 5 min after starting copying when hard drive is 50-55, and keeps going even after when it drops back to 50 again, and it is LOUD! It is like having a working vacuum cleaner right next to you. I will suggest to take the lid off before starting a long access, which seems to help.
Out of the box, the unit is set up as RAID 0, to offer or show 12TB when connected to your PC.
Quick download of Western Digital’s drive tool and you’re able to reconfigure this drive for RAID 1, which enhances data security in mirroring the two 6TB drives, which means, should one of them fail, the second drive retains your data and allows replacement of the faulty drive.
Connecting to a USB3 or USB-C connection, the drive comes with two cables for this purpose, I’ve found the data throughput at around 100mb/s on large, single files, which made copying of all important data a doddle. Using the Western Digital data backup tool, regular backups also don’t take longer than a few seconds and don’t impact PC performance during the process.
+ side, value for money and good performance for home or small business use.
– side, external mains (UK plug) power supply and I found it to be rather awkward switching back on when the PC was shut down (drive doesn’t show or restart automatically when restarting the PC, but that might be just me or the way I’ve set up the connection?).
This is the most cost effective way to obtain genuine WD Reds and not white label versions that require the 5v pin trick after being shuckled. Purchasing bare 12TB WD Reds at the time of writing were hovering around 300 each. WD Reds speak for themselves in terms of performance, with lots of Youtube reviews available.
It was a good buy, worked straight out of the box and is easy to use, it also runs very quietly. The bundled back-up software looks perfectly adequate even if I haven’t used it as I prefer to use the same third party product across all my devices.
I’ve only got one minor niggle and that’s the lack of an indicator light to show its on, aside from that this WD My Book suits my needs perfectly.
Note: When mounting this enclosure on the QNAP NAS it’s seen as an external drive and not a RAID enclosure, so can’t be used to expand QVR storage for example.
So; like many others I decided to dismantle one of these and stick it in my PC. Dismantling is not that hard and there are YouTube videos that show you how to do this.
Do bear in mind that you need a torx screwdriver (not an allen key) to unscrew it once you get it out of the case (which only has to be opened from one end).
I get the drive out and put it in another USB caddy in order to copy data to it. It’s nice and fast lovely.
However; when I put it in the PC; nothing, I do not see the drive in the BIOS or in windows (“Nooooo! I’ve just invalidated the warranty and now it’s broken”).
I try it in multiple PCs and with multiple different SATA cables. No dice.
Then I realise when I put my ear to the drive that it’s not even spinning up. There isn’t enough power I think.
This is almost true… the issue is that these drives have a pin on the SATA connection (number 3) that disables SATA power. If you google “wd sta 3.3v issue” you will find an article on this.
The easiest way to get around it is to use a Molex to SATA adapter (about 2) to power it and you’re golden.
Hope this helps others.
So far it seems to be doing what it says, it worked right out of the box and came with a AC adapter, USB 3.0 cable and software on it pre installed.
Used CrystalDiskMark v7 to test the drive and got slow speed but then I realised I was plugging through the USB 2.0 port (see Pic). I then used the USB 3.0 port on my laptop and it significantly improved (see 1st Pic). I’ve uploaded the pics incase anyone can find them useful.
Is it better than my last external drive? Well time will tell but so far it seems so. Some people have said the drive dies after a few months so I will update in the future and will give a 4 Star Rating for now.
I was initially utterly dismayed to see that the file timestamps are not preserved on the backup drive, leading me to think that a restore of, for example, a load of photos would result in their timestamps being meaningless, but I thought this would be completely bonkers for backup software to behave like this, so I did a test restore of some files and was relieved to find that the restored versions did have their original timestamp info put back, so this information is obviously being stored somewhere in the backup, albeit not on the files themselves. You can restore files to their original location or somewhere else. All in all, a great drive with great software, and after a long period of having no backups after the online service I used was shut down, we are now safe again!
I have changed the file format to NTFS and now it looks like stable. But I’m not sure for how long. I need to do more tests on this drive to find out exFat failed in Windows 10 Pro.
I request a replacement and Amazon send it next day to my home. I really appreciate Amazon customer service. So I ended up by keeping the replacement drive and original drive by paying the replacement.
I have change my ratings from 1 to 4 starts due to Amazons fantastic customer service.
—Edit—
It was working fine for couple of days. Then it stared to hang and unresponsive. I unplugged it and replugged it several times to make it to work. This my book suddenly disappeare from Windows explorer and reappear only if I reopen the Windows explorer. Then I have to wait longer until it recognise by Windows. I installed the wd utility program. It says drive is working fine. What a joke.
I have wd elements 10tb, wd elements 2tb, wd elements Portable 4tb, Maxtor portable 4tb. All those drives work fine. My 2tb wd elements drive works fine even its 7 years old.
I’m going to return it to Amazon before I lost all my data on it. I have to back up everything before I send it back.
MY STRONG ADVICE IS DON’T BUY THIS DRIVE EVEN ITS IN HIGHLY DISCOUNTED PRICE. WD WANTS TO CLEAR THOSE FALTY DRIVES THOUGH AMAZON. PLEASE AVOID THIS ANY COST.
Thank you
The WD 6TB My Book Desktop contains a WD60EZRZ drive – a Western Digital Blue, 3.5″ SATA III drive – 6Gb/s, 5400 RPM disk with 64MB Cache. In open air, spin and seek noise seems to be better than a now-neighbouring Seagate drive, appearing to be very similar to some of my older WD Green drives (which I think these newer Blue drives have largely replaced in the last few years). For use as a video-hosting server drive, it’s pretty much ideal – low power on idle, 5A peak during full use, remains cool even during prolonged usage.
It’s 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 Torx (T10) to remove the drive from the inner mounts. 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).
I’ve been waiting for the right moment to add some storage to my PC so when this 6TB hard drive went on offer I went for it.
I already have a 5TB Western Digital Elements external hard drive but it’s been really low on space for quite a while so it was time to get another one.
The hard drive arrived well packaged with plenty of protection. It came complete with a UK power adapter and USB 3.0 cable.
I love the look of this hard drive, the mixture of glossy and matte panels works really well and the rectangular design with the ridges looks very stylish. I actually prefer this design to the rounded design of my Elements hard drive.
I literally plugged it in and it was good to go, it already had the latest firmware and was pre-formatted so I could see it on my PC.
I ran the CrystalDiskMark v6 hard drive benchmark utility and as you can see from my pictures it scores an impressive sequential read/write score of over 190MB/s which is pretty impressive for a mechanical hard drive.
The usable space on my Windows PC shows up as 5.45TB which is down to the conversion of the units and is perfectly normal and the same for all hard drives.
Overall, this was a great buy at a great price and I would throughly recommend it if your looking to add some additional space to your PC.
I’m guessing other reviews stating how noisy it is, are talking about the duel drive version.
I’ve not heard it making any noise except for the usual startup sounds. Also it takes a few seconds to spin up when you haven’t used it for a while, I’m guessing it contains a NAS hard drive inside.
The whole unit seems smaller than other external drives I’ve used in the past with only a slightly larger power plug and no big power supply brick in the middle of the cable.
It’s fast! I was copying a large 4gb video test file and getting a max of 190mb transfer rate from the WD drive to an internal SSD. From the SSD to WD drive it was more like 180mb. Using a USB 3.0 Port.
Using CrystalDiskMark6 gave me the results below
It seems to perform very well in real world file copying situations as well as bench marking.
So far I am really pleased and would recommend it.
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 199.597 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 200.457 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 0.798 MB/s [ 194.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 2.843 MB/s [ 694.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.823 MB/s [ 200.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 2.787 MB/s [ 680.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.748 MB/s [ 182.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 2.789 MB/s [ 680.9 IOPS]
Test : 1024 MiB [I: 14.4% (1076.3/7452.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 18362] (x64)
The disc came pre-formatted as ExFat, which meant I could store larger files. It connected immediately to my iMac and file transfer was rapid. Although I use a Mac, the external drive needed to be formatted as a Windows disc to be read by my TV.
I have had a lot of trouble getting movies to play from a USB drive on my late 2016 Sonia Bravia “smart” TV, unlike other brands that work immediately. It has taken a lot of time and frustration to learn the tricks to get the Sony to work. I was careful to clear the TV’s memory and completely restart and reboot the TV before connecting the new WD USD drive. The USB drive then worked, but it does take a while for all the titles on the drive to be recognised and become playable. Having said that, once the movies are visible in the menu they play perfectly, and picture and sound quality are excellent.
The WD drive is silent and unobtrusive, and it has plenty of space for my needs. At the price it is very good value and I will buy more as external data storage for my computer.