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

I got this USB Drive to perform Time Machine Backups of my MacBook Air M2. There is plenty of storage to backup the 1Tb laptops hard drive. The only downside is that the connector is USB-3, so I have to use a multi-port adapter to connect the USB-3 to the laptop via the Thunderbolt port. I do like that this drive has a separate AC adapter, rather than drawing its power via the laptop itself.

Good deskside HDD. Adequate size and semi-portable. Actual usable storage is 18.1TB vs the advertised 20TB. Good for virtual hoarders.

***Update - I now have three of these drives and they all clunk to one degree or another. The clunking is inconsistent and each of the drives are sometimes completely quiet, and each are sometimes very noisy, even when sitting idle. It is all very odd to me and, while the clunking is certainly annoying, I have come to the conclusion that this is just the nature of these WD 18 TB hard drives. ***End of Update This seems to be a solid drive although I have only had it three days. On day two I noticed a rather loud clunking sound that I initially thought was coming from outside. But tracking down the noise I determined that it is the 18 TB Hard Drive that clunks every couple of seconds whether in use or not. I can feel the clunk by placing my hand around the drive. Love the storage capacity and, hopefully, the noise isnt a sign of potential problems, especially since I have a second 18 TB drive on order which, when added to the first 18 TB drive, will allow me to retire my three smaller WD external hard drives that have been in use for nearly 10 years.

If you want actually 16tb dont buy this. This was a nasty surprise to say the least. That being said this works very well. I could transfer media and files from my dying drives over to this very quickly and without issues so it was worth it. That being said the actual drive capacity is lower than what was advertised which is annoying to say the least.

Bought it because I do a lot of video recording and I needed space. I was practically able to move my entire computer over onto this device and I still have enough space to do it about 6 more times. Very good as a backup source of room with the added knowledge that if your computer blows whatever is on there is safe. The unit is also quiet. I dont hear it at all over my desktop.

It works like it should. Just want to point out that its not ready to go out of the box for many use cases. If you want to use it as a windows installer or something the FAT32 format makes sense, but as a single partition storage device youll need to format as NTFS and delete the smaller 2 tb partition to Allocate as a single, 16tb partition.

The drive works. Just plug it in, turn it on, let Windows install the relevant drivers, & youre good to go. Ive had it for only a couple of days so I cant address durability. But my experience with other Western Digital equipment has been good. Theyre a reputable company for a reason. I decided I ought to be prudent & do a full format of the drive, not a quick format. It took a day. Yes, a whole 24 hours. On a USB 3 port. This is not a complaint. Its 20T. Thats a ridiculous amount of space. Format takes time. This is NOT a shortcoming of either the drive or your computer. If you do a full format, plan for it to run a long time. And any sizable backups you do to the drive will also take a long time. Dont complain about it. Expect it. Actually, the size of the drive is 20,000,553,295,872 bytes. Thats a human number. That is not actually 20T. 20T is 20 times 2 raised to the power 40. In human numbers, 2**40 is 1,099,511,627,776. 1T is not 1 trillion. They are different numbers. Drive manufacturers like to say their devices are a certain number of T. They are intentionally inflating their numbers to mystify the unsuspecting consumer. Learn. This 20T hard drive does not contain 20T of space. It is actually 20,000,553,295,872/1,099,511,627,776T, which works out to 18.19T. Windows reports it as 18,626.97G. Computers work in powers of 2. Disk drive manufacturers dont. Understand the difference. 20T is actually 21,990,232,555,520, nearly 22 trillion, larger than the manufacturers claim that the drive is 20T. Dont be fooled. Its just fun with figures.

Reliable, cost effective back - up. Highly recommended

This drive is an excellent portable drive it works perfectly is very fast and is made high quality

pleased with the transaction