Features:

  • Auto backup with included WD Backup software and Time Machine compatibility
  • Password protection with hardware encryption
  • Trusted storage built with WD reliability
  • USB 3.0 port; USB 2.0 compatible
  • 3-year manufacturer's limited warranty
Best bang for buck. My 3TB model has been reliable for years.

As a digital artist and Maya animator, and a huge movie aficionado, and a photographer, I'm constantly butting my head against storage ceilings. This is the best bang for the buck you're going to find. Take it from someone who had terabytes when people still thought gigs were a lot: You can never be too thin, too rich, or have enough disk space. My 3TB model has been reliable for years, the 1TB from the same family has powered my Stora NAS for most of a decade now. The 8TB is excellent headroom and is literally best bang for the buck, in that it's the sweet spot of dollars per terabyte. Do the math: bigger ones and smaller ones are both more expensive in $/TB. Recommended.

You gotta have backup with all of the threats out there

I opened it up, plugged it in and into my Mac, repartitioned for Mac and set it up as a secondary Time Machine backup and it's backing up my system right now. The transfer speed isn't great as I've been spoiled by SSDs but it's adequate for backup purposes. I decided to set up a second Time Machine backup after WannaCry and I'm considering a third, Monthly backup with an old disk. The decision here was between this drive and the WD portable drive (a few bucks more) and I decided to go with the larger drive as portable drives can get lost or misplaced on a desk. I have a total of five of these things for our systems now. One of the old ones died last year after about six years of service.

Buy it - Not hot, no encryption, Single Drive model works well

This review is about the SINGLE DRIVE 8TB version of the WD MyBook. Green & white cardboard box, black plastic drive case. No Encryption. Go ahead & buy it, it is ok. :-) SPEED: The drive is faster than I expected. It took about 1 day to copy 5.14 TB to it via USB 3. Those were mostly music files 3MB to 60mb plus some videos. I did not time it or watch it closely. You can easily play movies or music from this drive without skipping. HEAT: the drive did NOT get hot. Not even very warm while chugging away for almost a whole day relentlessly copying over 5 TB of data. The drive has vents on the 2 ends. You are supposed to put the vent side up, so the heat can exit. That means the drive will be standing on end, which is probably not how you were going to place it. There are rubber feet on the other end. I suspect that the people who said this drive runs hot did not stand the drive up as intended. You can not stack these drives, but you could stand several next to each other. ENCRYPTION: There is NONE. That is GREAT news. I had heard that the drive was married to the case by hardware encryption. Without getting in to the reasons why that is a terrible idea, I'll just say that we don't have to talk about encryption here, because there is isn't any and that is fine. Before doing anything else, we reformatted as HFS+ for Mac, then copied over 5 TB of data. I can tell you that if you remove the drive from the plastic case and pop it into a SATA "toaster" or other external sata case it works. The data is still there and useful. Yay! There are a lot of reviews saying that the drive will not work if removed from the case (unless reformatted), but I'm telling you it does work & all data is preserved. Maybe they did not reformat before starting a or maybe they have the dual-drive raid version. This means that if the case ever fails, you CAN put the drive into a different case & run with it as is. Great news! NOISE: there is some vibration when the drive is running. A very low hum. It may or may not bother you There is no fan. The case has rubber mounts & rubber feet which help dampen the vibration. There is some minor vibration while running in the factory case, and also when running in a NewerTech "toaster". Neither vibrations are objectionable unless maybe you are in a recording studio. CONNECTOR: USB 3 micro B. Just one. POWER ADAPTER: is rated at 12v dc 1.5 A. Does not block multiple outlets in use, but it does protrude to the side. There may be a ferrite bead around the cord, near the end. WHATS INSIDE THE PACKAGE: The drive, a warranty statement, USB to USB 3 micro b cable and power cable. Some packaging and a Need Help? card directing you to support.wd.com/contact No software is included, unless it was on the drive, which came formatted as ExFAT, but we reformatted it to HFS+ which is normal for Mac. NO ACTIVITY LIGHT: I can hardly believe WD cheaped out by not providing an activity light. Weird, I wish it had one, but for the price/performance I'm not going to change my rating. NO POWER SWITCH. No big deal. There is a wall-wart which isn't that bad. Does not hog more than 1 power outlet. WHAT"S INSIDE the case: a single 8 TB WD drive (128MB cache) and a small triangular SATA to USB 3 board. (opening the plastic case is tricky! See how to on youtube & make sure you are looking at late 2016 or after. the case tabs are U shaped, pointing back at you. Very unusual & you are certain to break some tabs off. There are 3 tabs on one side, and 2 tabs on the other side of the same end. The feet end does not have actual tabs. Several credit cards, then Torx 10 and Phillips 2). Drive has a large white sticker. Model WD80EZZX. Rated at 5V 440mA, 12V 550mA DC. No jumper pins and no place for them. The bare drive feels pretty heavy compared to lower capacity drives. No software was included unless it was on the disk, which we ignored and reformatted for Mac. All in all, I'm happy with this drive so far. At current price it is a real value and seems faster than a 'back up drive'. I'll update this review if my opinion changes, but this 8TB single drive is a Buy.

Five Stars

Inside is WD80EZZX. 5400rpm Helium drive. From my performance benchmarks it looks like a PMR drive rather than SMR one (e.g. Seagate).

WD80EZAZ's inside

I bought 3 of these for the purpose of shucking. Shucking them was somewhat difficult but all 3 enclosures had WD80EZAZ's inside. These drives conform to the SATA 3.3 standard so you need to either cover pin 3 with some special tape, or use Molex to SATA power adapters so that they'll work properly.

Great HD, but not if used with the Sabrent Hub

As expected the WD 6TB external HD arrived as promised. Based on the Amazon website heading "Frequently Bought Together," I also purchased the Sabrent 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub with Individual Power Switches and LEDs (HB-UM43). After multiple attempts, I was unable to setup the HD, while connecting it through the Sabrent Hub. Upon checking the WD website, I learned that the Sabrent can not be used with the WD. After connecting the HD directly to my computer, it works great. Don't know who is responsible (Amazon, Western Digital or Sabrent) for "suggesting" that they would work together, but someone needs to take responsibility and correct the problem!

Works perfectly

I did an extensive review of external hard drives online, trying to find one that had universally good reviews. All of the big name ones I found (WD, Seagate) had 15-18% of the reviews rated as a 1 (lowest possible). These negative reviews usually cited two problems: 1. The product did not work out of the box. 2. The product failed after many months. How could there not be an external HD that has virtually no negative reviews? Maybe it is impossible to produce 1000's of HDs without a certain percentage failing. I don't know. I had used WD drives for many years with never any problem, so I took a chance and ordered My Book. I got 8TB, even though I will never need that much. The reason for getting a new HD is that my previous HD had only 1TB, which I eventually used. (I am a photographer shooting in RAW.) I found that My Book connected only to the USB 3.0 port on my laptop. It did not connect to my USB 2.0 hub. It did not connect to my Synology NAS (although my 1TB WD Passport connects find to Synology.) Once connected, it showed up as a drive on my Win 7 computer. I use it only for backup. Each night I backup my laptop, my wife's PC, and some drives on the NAS, for a total of about 1.04TB. My Book works fine. Now I will just have to wait and see if it fails. In my case, failure would not be catastrophic because it is just a backup. I could toss the entire My Book and buy another external HD if I need to.

Works great with Xbox One

Purchased this external hard drive to expand storage capabilities on an Xbox One. Plugged the drive in to one of the three Xbox USB 3.0 ports, followed the prompt to format the drive to store game data, and was ready to go. It was easy to move existing game data from the internal drive to the external drive. Note: You will need space on your power strip or electrical outlet to plug in the power adapter. If you are using this drive with the Xbox One and use a lot of accessories that also need USB ports, you may want to buy a 4-port USB hub. I wasn't thinking about that when I bought this and had to pick one up later.

Macintosh w/ High Sierra Format Note

Macintosh owners with High Sierra, you may find yourself frustrated with an "operation failed" error in Disk Utility when you attempt to reformat for Mac. Search the WD Support area for "macOS Disk Utility Error Media Kit Reports Not Enough Space..." which is answer ID 20789. The fix is easy. However, fixes offered elsewhere on the internet are downright byzantine. Stick with the WD support file. (PS: WD notes the error may also occur for Sierra and El Capitan.)

Mine has WD80EZAZ inside. It is Ultrastar He10-8 SATA ...

Mine has WD80EZAZ inside. It is Ultrastar He10-8 SATA. This Drive has 3.3V reset function. If you plan to install this HDD inside PC, please use modified power plug with removed 3.3v wire.

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