WD Elements Desktop Hard Drive (Recertified) 10 TB Hard Drive

[Larry Shelby]

$129.99 at Western Digital

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/recertified/external-drives/wd-elements-desktop-usb-3-0-hdd-recertified#RWDBWLG0080HBK-NESN

[abacab]

So far I have bought a total of 4 WD Elements, all of them worked great until I finally had one of their funky USB 3.0 micro cable sockets on the drive case mess up on one, rendering it useless. Not a cable problem, but is a fault with the socket on the external drive case itself. Crappy design.

From now on I'll stick to the new WD Passport Ultra, with the USB C connector on the drive case. That's my latest WD external drive purchase, and I must say the USB C is a much better design... Ultra is only a little bit more spensif than the regular Passport.

Example: https://www.amazon.com/WD-5Tb-My-Passport-Ultra-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B07X46C64N/?th=1

Comes with a USB C to USB 3.1 adapter for your PC side if you don't have any USB C ports.

Edited June 23, 2022 by abacab

[kitekrazy1]

 Recertified - means it was broken and will break again.  Also a much shorter warranty.  These are often 5400RPM.  

[e-cue]

1 hour ago, abacab said:

So far I have bought a total of 4 WD Elements, all of them worked great until I finally had one of their funky USB 3.0 micro cable sockets on the drive case mess up on one, rendering it useless. Not a cable problem, but is a fault with the socket on the external drive case itself. Crappy design.

From now on I'll stick to the new WD Passport Ultra, with the USB C connector on the drive case. That's my latest WD external drive purchase, and I must say the USB C is a much better design... Ultra is only a little bit more spensif than the regular Passport.

Example: https://www.amazon.com/WD-5Tb-My-Passport-Ultra-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B07X46C64N/?th=1

Comes with a USB C to USB 3.1 adapter for your PC side if you don't have any USB C ports.

I literally gorilla glue these connectors to the drives along with the power supplies.  I hear "I should do that" from clients all the time.  

[abacab]

30 minutes ago, e-cue said:

I literally gorilla glue these connectors to the drives along with the power supplies.  I hear "I should do that" from clients all the time.  

Great idea, since the port on the drive cases seems to be the weak link. And these drives cannot be "shucked" like older external drives could be, to reveal a functional internal drive. The ports are hard-wired internally to the drive electronics.

Fyi, these Elements 2.5" drives use USB bus power only, so no power supplies needed like their larger brothers.

[kitekrazy1]

4 hours ago, abacab said:

Great idea, since the port on the drive cases seems to be the weak link. And these drives cannot be "shucked" like older external drives could be, to reveal a functional internal drive. The ports are hard-wired internally to the drive electronics.

Fyi, these Elements 2.5" drives use USB bus power only, so no power supplies needed like their larger brothers.

Kinda like Apple products.

Hard to beat a RYO external drive or just use drive docks.  

I'd be afraid a platter would go bad on those mega drives before you fill half of it.

[abacab]

8 hours ago, Paul Young said:

I'd be afraid a platter would go bad on those mega drives before you fill half of it.

Generally the external drives only hold backups of my internal drive partitions, so if one of the externals fails, I still have the data on the source drive to copy to a new replacement external.

I also prefer to use several smaller capacity external backup drives, to spread the risk around. The mega drives worry me too regarding putting all your eggs in one basket.