WD 8TB My Book external hard drive, Desktop HDD with Password Protection, USB 3.0, SuperSpeed USB, software for device management, backup, hardware encryption, works with PC and Mac, Black

Excellent product. This is the second one I've purchased in the last four years. It is very easy to install on a Mac and comes with very handy software to secure your drive with password protection. I use this one as a backup for the old one. Reliability and speed have been excellent. I have the 18TB version, which is massive capacity for storing anything you want. I would highly recommend it.

Large storage at an affordable price, WD trusted build quality

I've only had this hard drive for a day and I haven't tried many similar modern products, so take this review with a grain of salt. But this external is noisy. It's not a constant white noise that you get used to, it's a varied and heavier sound, as if it was changing gears or something. I wouldn't say it's really loud, but it is distracting.Another issue I found is that sometimes it is still active even when I am not reading any files from it. Normally, I expect that when I close all windows that are looking at files on this external and if I stop any transferring or programs that are reading off it, then it should stop 'thinking' and I should be able to 'safely eject'. With all my other externals (these are all not wall-powered FYI) that works fine. But with this external, it somehow is still thinking when everything is closed, I can't eject it and it makes noise. Usually I can then eject a few minutes later, but not always.

Use it for backups and it does what its meant to.

Bought several of these external drives in the past they all worked on plug in. This one bought October 8th 2024 is inaccessible. Even WD utilities can't access it. It appears in devices but reports it is "unformatted" and "not ready". So when WD own utilities formatting software fails because of a 5X "password" error makes me think this is a customer return unit and not a new unit. I've obviously not set any passwords. Too late to send it back to Amazon by a just few days. I should have powered it up on delivery. Last WD product I ever buy and maybe the last time I buy from Amazon. £319 down the drain. If I'd bought it from PC World I'd be able to return it today. If I could put minus stars on this review I would.

Quick setup and easy to use interface. I was up and running, backing up my laptop in no time

I've been using Western Digital drives for years, as anecdotally I've found them to be more reliable than Seagate. Thus far, this 14TB external drive is no exception. I regularly write and read data from this drive and find it to be more than capable of large data transfers whilst staying cool and quiet.Inside the enclosure is a white label 14TB drive, which I believe to be a varient of the WD Red NAS drives, which bodes well for reliability. Via USB 3.0, I am getting around 200mb/s read speeds and 180mb/s write speeds, which is excellent for a HDD, especially via USB.The drive isn't silent when operating, but it's certainly much quieter than my Toshiba N300 drive which easily drowns out the WD when both are being used. The drive also runs cool, topping out at around 45C when writing in an open air environment with plenty of ventilation.The only complaint I would have is that WD are still not using USB-C connectors, having to keep a specialised USB Micro-B cable around is a real pain when everything else I use has USB-C. It's a minor complaint, but the difference for a manufacturer to use USB-C over Micro-B is around 25p per connector, so it's definitely doable from WD's side.Pros:- Runs cool and quiet with proper ventilation.- Large capacity for the money.- Shuckable should you want to remove the drive from the enclosure (this does void warranty).- White label WD drive inside, similar to a WD Red NAS drive (but much cheaper).Cons:- USB Micro B.- Can slow down after an hour or so of solid writing, but you won't find a hard drive that doesn't do this.Overall, thus far I'm very happy with the drive, sustained writes maintain a decent speed and it stays cool and quiet when in use. I've had several external WD drives and all are still working to this day, so I have confidence that this one will continue to do so too. Though if you have crucial data, you should always back it up, no drive will last forever!

I bought a 6TB seagate drive initially as it was on sale for £83.49 which is a pretty decent price per terrabyte however it soon become apparent that it was a bad buy for reasons beyond the scope of this review.I returned it and noticed this one was on sale for £129.99 (8TB) I didn't want to really be spending more but I was running out of space fast so I bought this one whilst waiting for my refund on the previous one to complete.I mainly use it for playing movies and it does that job well, Just be aware it can make a low 'knocking noise' when in use, Apparently a lot of high capacity drives do this even more so when its a helium drive (filled with) as this one is. Its not really noticeable through the day but on a night when the TV is turned down it can be noticed (my drive sits on a glass tv unit, I've tried putting sponge legs under it or sitting it on foam buy it doesn't help at all.Kind of ironic as helium drives are supposed to run quieter and cooler but to be fair this is the hottest external drive I own. It doesn't affect its operation though.It comes with free acronis backup software (needs to be downloaded separately from acronis, search for 'acronis backup for WD').The drive has Hardware encryption to keep the contents safe, you can also use the WD software to put the password in automatically, So you don't have to punch it in every time you log into windows but its still going to protect the contents if its ever moved from your PC.A pretty solid buy I'm glad I paid extra.