WD 4 TB Performance Hard Drive - Black

I do a lot of photo and video editing, so I use this drive as my video and photo storage drive. This Western Digital Black drive is relativelyfast (for a Hard Disk Drive), mainly due to the 128MB cache this model has over the relatively standard 7200RPM drive spin speed.It is loud though! Noticeably louder than my 1TB Western Digital Green drive I use to use. It literally sounds like a geiger counter.As with all Western Digital hard disk drives you get absolutely solid reliability, I still have two old Western Digital Raptor drives working since 2003. Where as the ultra fast SSD's are clearly the way forward for having your operating system and commonly used software on, there's always still a need for a second larger capacity hard disk drive to use for storing large files or backing up important files and family photos, as they still beat the Solid State Drives in regards to life span and being able to recover your data if they do fail, which is what I use this drive for.

Its probably unrelated but recently it stopped publishing its temp/voltage on Corsair Link 4 monitoring software. For a time, it was the power supply(AX860i) which stopped publishing its stats. I am not a professional pc builder. I sort of jury-rigged the 1080ti SeaHawk fan on the floor of the case with a bracket held by gravity and a single unbolted screw to the side of case. Several months on, nothing has gone wrong. That single screw is hasn’t failed. It also helps that the fan is maglev, thus no vibration.The hard drive has not fail. It has served and I happy with it. It seemed like the best value / price trade off, and had a good benchmark on passmark.com. That might have been its ancestor but I am sure it has inherited.

so, i first i bought one. i wanted to buy the 4 tb but did not afford it, and not all reviews were good. one must use this hard drive for a few years to be able to appreciate weather the significant extra money is worth spending or not. i bought a second one after a few months and so far, both work fine. when ssd s will be as large and affordable i will get rid of all mechanical drives!pros - quiet- fast- no problems (yet)cons - pricey- is not an ssd- spin up time (not a problem for me, but for others might be)i recommend it, although more time is necessary to properly evaluate these hard drives for reliability.

As others have stated, its not quite the 6TB you would think, however if you have any experience with HDD's and / or building systems, you would know this. That said, it was way louder than expected, in fact, its the loudest thing in my system, by far, (i should have researched how loud it is, i am aware of that. I have used WD drives for the better half of a decade and found them all incredibly quiet, i have not experienced anything this noisy for many years, again, my fault for not doing the research and assuming). If you have a water cooled system and consider quietness a priority, look elsewhere.In conclusion: Size as expected, audible volume a disappointment (but my fault).Hence 4 stars.

This was to replace a dying 3 TB WD green, which to be honest don't seem to last that long for some reason, I've had 3 Greens die all about the same time, which is ironic that these were made for eco purposes, but die early so you need to replaced it.Anyway getting back to this hard drive, I must say it's a lot faster then the greens and just as quiet if not quieter.They also come with a 5 year guarantee which is also a major factor for the purchase.I also bought a WD 1 TB Blue a while back and can say they are fast as well compared to the greens, and not really any difference in speed to the Black. Just a thought I'd mention it as its and cheaper option if you only need 1 TB.

OK, first it took over a week to arrive, so missed the delivery date. Not the end of the world. I have installed in a desk top PC and I can confirm that it IS quite noisy. I am sure I will get used to it, but quite intrusive. Install was a hassle. A lot of PCs running on Windows 7 struggle so be prepared for only 768gigs being available, then having to update Intel drivers to get the drive showing its full capacity. Acronis drive image (provided by WD, worked as efficiently as ever). Lastly, it benchmarks the same as the 3 year old standard Hitachi drive that I replaced which is very disappointing. I wanted more capacity, quicker drive, and longevity. I have one from three, with a possibility of two... but speed was a key reason for changing :-(December 2015 - Drive died - what is the point in paying extra for a black drive when it then crashes. For clarity, access is intermittent as tested by me, and the local PC workshop. So now I have purchased TWO new Seagate drives and put a RAID 1 array in place...

Bought 2 of these in April 2019. 1 for my wife's PC which worked fine and in May was installed quickly, recognised quickly, and ready to go. The other was for my PC (installed in Jan. '20) and this would not be recognised internally, in a docking station, in my wife's PC, nothing.....only indication was a constant clicking from the drive. Delivered from China via WD Store so cannot be bothered trying to claim under warranty. A shame really as I have used WD HDDs for many years now and have had excellent reliability.

Awful packaging, hard drive was shoved to the edge of the box and with nothing more than brown paper to protect it. Despite that, it does work and it works well.