WD 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 external hard drive for plug-and-play storage - WDBWLG0200HBK-NESN

I bought two of these to expand my storage space. I already have four of the 10TB WD My Book. Through utilities, I can turn off the power down timer in the My Book drives so they are always ready to go when I need them. When not using, I turn them off manually using switches on the USB hub. Unfortunatelly, my new Elements drives power down on their own after about 15 minutes, so when I try to use them, I have to wait each time while they spin back up. I cant find any WD utilities that work with the Elements drives to allow me to turn off the power saver feature. An email to WD directed me to a link to the same non working utilities that came with the drives. The error you get from the included WD utilities tells you to connect a valid Western Digital drive, when they are already connected and working. Other than not having utilities to turn off power saver mode, these drives are reliable and fast at just over 200 MB/s sequential read/write benchmarks.

easy to use and high CP value big HD size

I purchased two of the 8TB versions and plan to use one as a desktop expansion drive, and the other as a backup drive for all my files that just sits in a lockbox. So far I have only used one of the two drives, but my experiences so far have been pretty good overall. The ease of use is exactly like it should be. You just plug it in and its ready to go. Theres no special software to install or bloatware like Ive had on some other drives in the past. I didnt purchase the drive for speed and knew it wouldnt be blazing fast, but I am a little disappointed. I should also preface it with the fact that some of the poor transfer rates I am getting are likely because of my computer. I do have it plugged into a USB 3.0 slot on my Z97 motherboard, but the USB slot uses the ASMedia ASM1074 hub instead of the native Intel controller. Still, I wouldnt expect a huge hit because of that. When I tried to move several TB of movies over, I was getting about 37-40mbps for the whole transfer. It was similar when I moved about 800GB of photos onto the drive. It is not a deal killer for me given how often I do that kind of thing, and I will try to move the USB over to a different port which may help. One other little quirk that I dont love is that the drive makes odd little sounds during when it is idling. Its hard to describe them, but they are very short, intermittent bursts that almost sound like the motor is trying to spin up for a fraction of a second. Its a little blip of sound, then silence for several seconds, then another blip. It doesnt sound like the head, bad bearings, or anything leading to failure. From some brief research it sounds like this may actually be a common occurance on drives >6TB and is nothing to be concerned about. I just find it a bit disruptive. I generally turn the drive off when not in use to get around the issue, which is also kind of a pain because the drive automatically boots with my computer every time. If I dont use the hard drive every time I boot the computer then I have to manually shut it off after the computer boots. The alternative is that I can just unplug it from the computer completely and only plug it in when I want to use it, but thats not a perfect solution either. Really, they are both just band aids to the root issue, which is that the drive makes distracting sounds when not in use. Worse things could happen and its a first world problem--certainly not bad enough to make me return the drives. Overall I am happy with these hard drives. Given the price, I dont think they can be beat for casual use.

It performs as expected. For storing LARGE quantities of information, it works well. It is not the fastest solution, but it is also not all that expensive for the amount of data that it holds. I own several of these USB drives and none have failed. Great value for the cost.

I got this after losing my data to a Seagate external drive that died for no reason being only a few months since newly purchased from Amazon. I spent a few days reading up on various drives and decided to go with this one to now have a 2nd backup for my system. The level of nonsensical reasoning in these companies is simply comical. I install the software that came with the device and frustrate myself over how to make it work for a while. Then I entered a chat with the WD rep and after spending another hour with them Im told the software that came with the device does not work with the device, as in they know about it and designed it that way. Why include it with the device then? Instead of saving time Im wasting massive amounts of it trying to wade through their nonsense reasoning. So the device does not work with the backup software that comes with it, you have to drag and drop. It would have saved me a lot of time if itd have just said that, but instructions are nonexistent, and seeing it came with software, like the person with ridiculous expectations that I am and stubbornly insisting that things make sense, I went ahead installed that software and expected it to work. Next, I said drag&drop is not going to work for me because I have so much data and I need it to be backed up automatically on a regular basis, just like most people do need that. Duh! Then Im told to use Win File History to do scheduled - recurring backups. I gave that a try. That gave me the additional task I didnt need, to try to find out why File History does not back up everything. In fact, I read about it and realized that it is such a worthless app that it routinely leaves out upbacked-up files. In my case, it only backed up about 50% of my files. In order to give this device yet another chance and try to I, myself find a solution, and keep it, I downloaded AOMEI Backupper. After almost 3 hours of wait time, this program apparently backed up everything. Ok, I thought, now its working. EHhh! wrong! This application has the brilliant practice of not letting you open your files unless you use their software. So I cant even see my backed-up files unless I go through their application first. Thats a comforting thought: if this app goes out of business I cant access any of my data? And guess what, the application does not open. I am just not going to waste any more time trying to find out why and find solutions to make this drive work. It should come with a program that allows you to backup everything automatically and not have to jump through the hoops I jumped through and still not working. Absolutely bad design, bad thinking. Its like buying a new car that chokes and doesnt go past the dealerships gate, and they tell you a long list of reasons and additional things you must do to make it run. Thats the exact situation we have today with these drives. Its a nightmare. I read so many reviews with similar situations it makes me wonder where they get the 5-star reviews from and how real are they...

so far no issues, purchased to replace a newly purchased Seagate which failed in 20 days or less,

Used or refurbished. Loud spinning noises when loading. Shakes the desk. Takes a minute to wake up from sleeping.