Western Digital 4TB WD Black Performance Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 256 MB Cache, 3.5 - WD4005FZBX

While looking for the best storage options I could shy away from western digital. Bye for the black series has proven time and time again that they are reliable in terms of your ability fast in terms of right speed and quiet. I use this storage device as a secondary Storage for my gaming set up. Although just 4 TB at least for now this is more than enough for my daily needs.

I purchased this drive to replace a failing one on a relatives Windows-based system. I also used the Acronis True Image WD Edition Software, downloaded from the manufacturers site to clone the old drive. I was half-way through the installation when I thought, What if I were just a general consumer and not a computer geek? In other words, what if my relative had ordered this drive and tried to replace the old one without calling me? It probably would not have gone well, as it arrives as just a drive in a box, with no documentation or hints of what to do. The documentation on the manufacturers Web site is fair, but maybe not enough for an average person off the street. With that in mind ... The installation went very cleanly. I had a spare SATA cable handy, which I needed during the replacement, and a SATA power Y splitter, which I did not need in this case. Those items do not come with the drive: You will have to purchase those separately if you need them. You may also need to buy 4 drive screws, but I personally did not need them for this installation either. I was going to use different software to clone the failing drive, but decided to use the utility provided by the manufacturer on their Web site. I Read The Friendly Manual and it worked very efficiently. After cloning, I removed the old drive and rebooted with only the new one. Everything was fine. I did not run any extensive diagnostics, but this new drive is relatively fast and quiet with no obvious defects so far. That was just a day ago, so I will leave my rating at 5 stars for now. Other reviewers have had quality and return problems after a few months and have submitted lower ratings. Hopefully, years will go by and I wont hear about any problems. The manufacturer makes kits providing additional documentation, cables and such if you need them -- but for me this purchase was a good option.

I bought this WD 6 TB Black drive to store videos. It appears to be fast although I am not sure I saw a big difference compared to the cheaper 5400 rpm WD drives I have owned in the past. My PC has a Samsung SSD with my operating system on it (C: Drive) and another WD HD plus this 6 TB WD Black HD. I have bought many WD drives in the past and they have been very reliable. But, this drive is very noisy. It makes an annoying humming sound that is very audible if you work in a quiet office. Someone said it is like a humming refrigerator noise and I think that is an apt description. That is unfortunate. The hum could possibly be heard over audio if you record for YouTube or something like that. I still have the drive in my PC but I plan to remove it and either use a 4 TB WD Black which I heard is quieter, or a WD Blue or just invest in a smaller and faster 4 TB SSD instead even if a 4 TB Samsung SSD is now more than twice as expensive than this 6 TB WD Black. I may use this 6 TB drive as an external backup in a USB case, i.e., docking station. The second thing I learned through this install is that transferring my old desktop internal PC drive into an external USB 3.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station did not go as smoothly as I hoped. It took some research but it turns out you cannot take your old internal HD with the data on it, put that HD in an external USB case and easily access the same data in the portable USB Hard Drive Docking Station ( I used a Sabrent USB 3.0 Sata Hard Drive Flat Docking Station). Apparently Win10 now prevents data access from a previous PC SATA internal drive that has been installed in a portable USB docking station unless you first reformat the drive in the USB case, which of course, erases your drive. So I had to put the old drive back into my PC and copy the data to my regular Passport WD Portable Drive. Then re-install and format the new WD 6 TB Drive in my Desktop PC and then transfer the data from my WD Passport to the new WD 6 TB drive. I suppose I could have tried to clone the new drive with Acronis or similar software but that would have taken installing new software. So, with Windows10, you cannot just remove your old PC SATA Desktop Drive with the data on it and put it in a USB Docking station and have access to the same data in the external USB docking station to use or to copy to your newly installed PC Internal SATA Hard Drive. Back to this WD Black 6 TB Drive. If you dont mind the humming noise, it is a nice fast drive (7200 rpm - WD Black is obviously faster than 5400 rpm - WD Blue). If, like me, you are likely to find the humming sound annoying, then get another drive. I should have listened to the other reviewers who mentioned the noise. I still like Western Digital and so unless I get a Samsung SSD, I will likely buy another WD Drive - just not this one.

At the moment its going great, just the noise, but personally it doesnt bother me, and Im getting used to it

Some people might find it stupid to buy a drive like this just for storage but after trying a couple of other brands and dealing with crap like SMR and loud and flat out defective drives from other brands its worth it in my opinion. This drive is pretty loud when seeking but is silent otherwise and I can deal with that. Im happy I was able to finally get a decent drive.

Your typical, run of the mill, mechanical Hard Drive. This thing gives you a good amount of storage at an extremely reasonable price.

This is an awesome drive make no mistake. These Western Digital BLACK Drives wear like iron in my experience. That said video games are getting bigger and bigger with each new title. There was a time not too long ago that a @TB could hold an absolute plethora of games but that day has passed. The mechanical drive is where you store your PC games most economically so you want space to do so. Swapping games in and out from remote sources is a time consuming laborious chore no one loves. Im sorry I brought this drive NOT because it is bad in any way. I am upset having wasted money on this drive because, I stupidly thought 2 TBs would be enough to store all my games. I WAS WRONG! Turns out I needed 4 TBs just to store my current games. I ended up buying a 6 TB drive so Id have room to add games. Same thing if you are a content creator on any social media platform. Creating 4K or 8K media content is a space and processor intensive undertaking. A 2 TB drive as your storage solution wont cut it for long. The Western Digital BLACK drives are dependable work horses in general its just this 2 TB version is an anemic little Philly that might have overstayed its welcome. 2 TBs of storage made for a good drive in its time but it really cant handle the storage needs of systems today. I took a star off for it being essentially obsolete as a valid storage solution but other than that The WD BLACK is a fine storage drive solution in terms of pure functionality!

I build gaming PCs as a hobby and part time business. This is a massive drive at a great price from a good company. I have my entire Steam library of almost 200 games as well as iTunes library and its not even a quarter full. Quieter than my fans, plug and play. If you can use 8 gigs then its a no brainer.

This is for the 8TB WD Black hard disk. I have used Seagate, Hitachi, and Western Digital hard disks. They all last a long time for me. I have no problem with any of these brands. One thing good about WD hard disks is that you can tell the hard disk is about to fail. WD hard disks will make noises, and start to run slow. So, you know it is time to replace it. On the other hand, Seagate will just fail in an instant. No noise no nothing. However, if Hitachi is still in business, my first choice is a Hitachi. I have a bunch of Green and Blue. This is my 2rd WD Black. I have a 4TB for 6 years and it is still working without any problem. The 4TB is loud. This 8TB is even louder. If you are in a quiet office, do not get the WD Black. Get a Seagate instead. I have no problem cloning my 4TB to the 8TB with the Acronis WD Edition software. The Amazon package is ok. The hard disk is in the original thick OEM cardboard box with the 2 black plastic packing materials. I tried to catch the Amazon driver to let him hand over the box. But I was too late. He already threw the box on the ground. I have the hard disk for a month now. Looks like it survived the Amazon driver. Running Crystal Disk Mark 6, the 8TB is faster than the 6-year-old 4TB. 223/214 vs 138/131. I have some Crystal Disk Mark screenshots with my Samsung 850 EVO for comparison. Hope this help.

Although I am not a gamer, I bought this gaming edition because I like the extra cache (256 MB). Drive has good throughput: both read speed 250 MB/s and write speed 225 MB/s. This was using an external enclosure with USB 3 connection (eSATA connection yielded slightly higher throughput in both read and write). I also like WDs 5 year warranty (as opposed to standard 2 or 3 year on other drives). Since the 1980s, a have mostly used WD drives in my many various builds over the years and they have never disappointed me. (I have extra drives laying around that are over 15 years old (these are smaller capacity SATA1 and SATA 2 drives) and they all still work good. Recommend this drive for anyone looking for decent performance at a decent price. Only one caveat: This drive tends to run hotter then the WD Blue drives, but still within manufacturers specs. So if you plan to use this drive in an external enclosure, be sure the enclosure has a fan, or at the very least is well cross-ventilated. If you put this in a fully enclosed fan-less enclosure, it WILL get hot.