WD 4TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN,Black

Nice product. Be sure you are familiar with setting up computers/software if you buy this. Step 3 on the box says install the backup software but there is none included in the package. Panic. Will I have to return it? No. You simply have to figure out where to find and download the appropriate software from the internet, and there are NO instructions on how to do this. Fortunately Ive worked with personal computers a LOT, have an engineering degree, and was able to read between the lines enough to get it all done. Once set up with the software installed, this is an excellent tool for backing up your operating system, pictures, files, etc. (basically everything on your computer). It also allows continuous file updates. Very intuitive, easy to use, and graphically informative after it is up and running. Plus it works with Dropbox for additional capability. It appears to be ideally suited for Windows 10. Now Im happy I bought it, AFTER getting over the temporary frustration of not knowing where to find the associated software, checking for prerequisite software, and updating the software after downloading. Voila! Just what I needed.

I bought this specific model because I had been using WDs Smartware Pro for quite sometime and liked it. The MBBG WD series will NOT work with the Smartware Pro software. My local computer store ...I found out only carried the MBBG series (and other WD models that soes not work with Smartware Pro) and I was desperate to replace my current 4TB drive as it was running out of space (I do photography and digital artwork as a hobby). Amazon had this specific model in stock at a fair price and after applying my Prime Membership discount (includes free 2 day shipping too) plus my CCs reward points (conveniently presented at checkout time) I ended up paying an amount no competitor website can ever match. The product arrived as promised (a few hour earlier too). Pros: The same day it arrived it just took me less than an hour to connect and do my much needed backup. This model still has the led light in the front panel which I find very useful in doing a quick visual check if my Continuous Backup setting is functioning well. The drive is quite and my older same model 4TB drive that Im replacing worked well with no known glitches at all. This model will works well for those who use WDs Smartware Pro and Acronis (I have not had a chance of bench testing the latter software). Cons: I would have given a 5 star rating for this order except when I registered the SN in the WD website it only gave me a few months for the warranty. I had been quite busy lately so I had not had a chance of contacting WD to correct the warranty period issue.

My Setup: HP Pavillion 17t, 6th Gen Skylake Core i5, 7200 RPM HDD, 16GB RAM, USB 3.0, Win 10. My Review: I’ve been using a 3TB Western Digital MyBook for about two weeks now and feel like I have a pretty good handle on it. Bottom line is that I like both the hardware and software. First the trivial: It’s really pretty; all glossy black with rounded corners and a blue power/activity LED that perfectly matches my backlit keyboard. Second: It works pretty well. Plug in the power supply and USB cable, then set it next to your PC. Cooling is by convection, so it’s quiet if not completely silent. Software is already on the drive and configuration is straightforward. I’m a believer in WD storage so that’s all good, and there are two well designed apps to run things. Things like diagnostics, a sleep timer and an erase disk feature. WD Smartware lets you define the source and target (you can backup to non-WD internal/external drives and the cloud as well), plus an advanced setting for geeks. There is a file backup option, and you can define the save frequency from continuous to monthly, plus enable or disable your plan. Retrieve lets you choose to restore to the original location or a designated folder. Software can be updated either automatically or manually. My initial backup was about 115GB and took just under 40 minutes. With all the space available, I also use File Explorer to drag and drop folders like Pictures, Documents, etc. I’ve even tried working from it directly, in effect using it as my primary drive, without delays or other issues. BTW: It’s smart enough to sleep when my PC sleeps and shuts down with Hibernate or Power Off. The website is extensive, and as it turned out, really useful. After a few days of smooth sailing, I killed the unit by trying to partition it into separate volumes. From dead in the water, I downloaded what I needed to wipe the disk (no, not with a cloth), reinstall the software, and got up and running within a few hours. All in all, this is a very satisfying package that I confidently recommend… especially since I don’t fully trust either iDrive or OneDrive.

Instructions virtually non-existent. It loaded on my laptop automatically when I plugged it into the usb port. I had to look in the G drive to even find the online manual. Needed to add Asian fonts to Adobe reader just to page thru contents. Had problems because it was not compatible with Windows 10 as loaded and I kept getting errors from my laptop saying the last device added is malfunctioning. I would unplug MY Book from the wall and re-plug it to get it to work but it was intermittent. Sometimes I could see the G drive and files in it but when I clicked on a file it would say file not found. The second day I signed on and I got a message on my laptop saying that it found an update for My Book so I downloaded and applied the update. After that it started working correctly and it even referred to Windows 10 in the updated manual. If you have Windows 10 make sure your version of software supports it. If not look to update. Also in your G drive you will find executables to load WD smartware and WD utilities to your PC. LOAD these to help you update and monitor the software. They tell you NOTHING!! in the box about loading anything. All I got was three drawings. First a picture of a hand plugging the hard drive into the wall. Second a pic of a hand plugging the usb cable into a port on your computer. Finally a pic of a window popping up on your computer directing the installation, This window never came up on my PC as it ran automatically and disappeared.

I have a Mac Book Pro 2014 so when I went to try this external Hard Drive to expand my computers space, it took me a few trys because I did not know how to sync hook it up properly to the laptop (What I mean is configure the thing so it could work with my computer) After I opened it I plugged it in hoping it would just convert into a Hard Drive where I could drop stuff into it. But the thing is I didnt know you were suppose to convert it to be Mac only or PC only. So after a month I found a video on Youtube that helped me figure it out. I might make one my self to help people like my self who had no idea what they doing and just went ahead and tried to get it to work. So overall, its great! once you figure out how to plug it in and convert it to a Mac or PC only then it works like a charm!

Unit came unformatted and I am not tech savvy enough to trust trying that on my own. Scott at All4Computers quickly and simply walked me through the set up and formatting This is my second WD unit and they work so well I am thinking of getting one as a secure back up in case something goes wrong with my desktop

Ive had this for only a few days however I bought it with the intention of using it for external storage for my xbox one. I immediately move all of my games from my xbox internal hard drive to the external 4TB drive. Btw you will only have about 3.6 terabytes available after formatting and the drive can only be used for xbox one consoles. I did my due diligence and researched what would be the best drive for my application. My requirements were: Usb 3.0 External power source (for the HDD) 7200 RPM 4 TB (I plan on purchasing 35 to 50 games in the next year) Pros: *The games load about 8-15 secs faster than the internal hdd (this is really important to me) *It only took me approx 15 mins to move 22 games from the internal drive to the external drive *Its true plug n play. The Xbox One will immediately recognize it and ask you to format it. Also itll ask if you want to make the new drive the default for installs (when its connected). Cons: *None so far! *Some people complain about it being loud or the light, but mine sits behind my TV so I never hear it and the light creates a faint ambient white glow behind my TV but if you dont like it just put a piece of electrical tape over it.

I purchased this product to use with our Xbox One. It is very easy to connect. Once connected I reset the Xbox and after turning it back on it led me through a few simple steps to set it up. Probably spent less than six minutes. Highly recommend this product!

My initial inclination when receiving a new hard-drive is to do a format and then use it however I want, since the software that come with them are uaually worthless. In this case though, I decided to just try it out and found that the WD SmartWare software works flawlessly. So, I have two internal drives that I wanted to backup to this one: My main C (Windows on a 512gb SSD with some user files) and D (media, photos, videos, documents on a 2TB HDD). After installing the software that came with the WD drive, I went ahead and formatted it. Using the WD SmartWare software to setup backups was easy, but the software interface was a bit unintuitive. On full 1920x1080 resolution the really important buttons at the bottom of the backup dialog were cut off. For about 10 minutes I was trying to find out how to initiate the backup, since the setup was really basic. The scroll up/down bar was the same color as the background so I had to make the app full screen, then scroll down with my mouse wheel and got lucky to see the Enable Backup button, otherwise I wouldnt have known it was there. Once clicked, it worked great for both drives. My only problem now is that you cannot see both backups from one screen. You have to go back to the original screen, then click again to the Backup screen to see the other drive. I also found a dialog in the software that says TODO: Place buttons for UI here. Looked like a placeholder made by developers and they forgot to complete it before releasing. Anyway, my initial backup with drives C and D combined was about 2gb of data which took about 6 hours to do the initial backup, and now it will sync continuously anytime a file is changed on the source drives.

This drive is big enough to backup all of my media files multiple times, meaning that I get six to twelve months of backup history and it seems to work well. I tried some 4 TB drives from other manufacturers but they cant be formatted in a way that is compatible with Windows Backup, which made them useless for me. Thats a limitation of Windows Backup but still, Im pleased that WD offers a way to make their drives compatible. You do have to reformat the drive before it will work with Windows Backup. It should work with other software out of the box. This article explains some of the steps involved in getting WD drives to work with Windows Backup. [...] We do have a problem if we reboot our desktop computer while the WD drive is plugged in -- the machine hangs during the BIOS initialization. We have to unplug the drive, start the computer, and then plug it back in. I dont know if this is a problem with the BIOS in my five-year-old DELL or if this is a problem with the drive.