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

Im not sure why the external drives with the enclosure are less expensive than the bare drive, but they are. I got this, took the 14tb drive out of the enclosure, and installed it into my Plex server. Works perfectly.

I purchased this to use as a local backup for system images of several machines. Although I have an online backup service that regularly updates documents, images and videos, I have found it wise to have an on-site tool for protecting against a hard-drive failure that results in the loss of the operating system and applications. Having just suffered an SSD failure of a drive that was just over a year old, Ive decided that a local backup of the entire drive is more useful than a partial backup of data-only using an online service. Using the two together ensures the least painful near-complete recovery, if handled intelligently. I didnt feel the need to use the encrypted WD backup software thats included on some of their other offerings, which is why I bought this one, which was a little less costly. Im using it with Macrium Reflect to write system images to guard against catastrophic failure & loss of important data/apps. The drive connects easily and quickly to my computers, and can be used on both USB-2 and USB-3 ports. When connected to the USB-3 port of a PC with over 600GB stored on the system drive, I was pleased that a complete system image backup could be written and verified in under 3 hours. This isnt strictly a function of the drives raw read/write speed, as there is some overhead in Macriums backup process. I havent tested the Elements drive for raw read/write speed -- I just know that it seemed pretty speedy for this application, and I was pleased with its performance! Im hoping to get many years of occasional use from this drive, creating periodic system images to guard against the loss of my O/S & data.

Would have been nice to know the full capacity is only available on Apple products

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.

Great product. I have no complaints.

easy to use and high CP value big HD size

Many reviews complain that the drive doesnt have 18T, but only 16.3T. Its both. Hard drive manufacturers give terabytes not in computer terabytes (T, 2^40 = 1099511627776 bytes each), but in SI terabytes (t, 10^12 = 1000000000000 bytes each). Thats because some hard drive manufacturer started doing that once way back, so they could make their hard drives sound like they were bigger than they were, and the consumers were fooled, so every hard drive manufacturer had to start doing it. So it really is an 18t drive, but thats only 16.37T of space. But NTFS drives cant be initialized with compression enabled if theyre bigger than 16.0T. If you initialize your whole 16.37T hard drive with NTFS, you cant enable compression, and not having compression will cost you more than 0.37T of space. So using Windows, you should shrink the partition on this hard drive to 16T before initializing it. The bottom line is that 16.37T is not a sensible partition size; its worse than having just 16T. But this drive will be fine if you repartition it to 16T, and dont mind throwing away 2% of your disk space.

This is the best deal on an ultrahigh capacity external hard disk I have found, in the sense that the price per terabyte: $18/TB, is the lowest Ive seen. If you have terabytes of data that need reliable local backup, you probably cant do better than this. This is not a pocket storage device: 1.4 lb, 5.3 x 1.9 x 6.5 inches. But that is currently a reasonable size for a 16 TB device. It is probably only fair to mention that most people dont actually need 16 TB of external storage. So, it would be wise to asses your needs and perhaps go with a smaller, cheaper drive. On the other hand, storage needs always increase rapidly with years, so if you want something that will continue to serve your needs for several years, this is worth considering, even if you dont need 16 TB right now. One thing to mention: your computer may report the size of the disk as 14.5 TB. What that really means is that the drive capacity is 16 x 10^12 bytes, which corresponds to 14.5 x 2^40 bytes, sometimes written as 14.5 TiB. (One tibibyte, 1 TB, is 2^40 bytes.) Computers often work in powers of 2, which is why your computer may say the disk is 14.5 TB.

pleased with the transaction

As easy to set up as possible. Huge storage and easy setup. Save, Save, Save.