WD 4TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

WD 4TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
B&H Photo Video (2156)
80%

WD Hard Drive running quietly, with no drama

Nov 5, 2017

My 3 TB WD USB 3.0 external HD is attached to my new iMac running High Sierra. Having owned a similar 2 TB Firewire WD HD for years, I expected no trouble and have not been disappointed. The drive is behaving as it should, quietly, with no drama. Since I use CCC backup software vs the backup software that comes with the drive, I simply re-formatted it after arrival with Disk Utility. It is now in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, divided into p... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Loud.

Apr 2, 2019

In the last 20 years I have used just about every flavor of external drive for redundant backup. I currently have 3 plugged in and running right now. It is whisper silent. The WD drive sounds like a logging truck barreling down a mountain with a driver learning how to shift through the gears. It literally vibrates my desk. You can hear it from 12 away. I have absolutely no idea how this thing is designed to survive with that much noise- and thi... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

How I use the 8TB WD drive

Jul 27, 2017

I use this particular WD drive as a hot backup of all my system's application programs and associated data files. I set it up to automatically backup any changes I make on an hourly basis. Just remember to switch the default sleep mode of 30 minutes, which is how the drive ships, to OFF when you first install this drive on your computer. Setup by the way took less than two minutes. I've found from several years of use that WD drives are highly re... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

NO GOOD!

Feb 17, 2017

Not as fast as their previous model that replaced this, very slow for being 3.0 and some of my AVI, MPEG, MKV video and jpeg files don't show on samsung smart TVs like their previous model did, I thought this was a problem with this hard drive and when I bought a second one I had the same problem , never had that issue with their previous version of their external HDs 4Tb, very disappointed with these hard drives, plus no light to show me that it... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

WD 6TB My Book

Feb 27, 2019

Was told the drive came with great backup software already installed, Acronis? Turns out the software is NOT on the drive, but there is a way to obtain a free download of that software. The kicker is, that software will not work if youre trying to backup a Seagate external hard drive, which is why a bought the WD My Book. You can obtain a free download of WDs backup software, but it will only automatically backup the Documents folder of the Seaga... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Caution...

Jun 18, 2018

When I first noticed this drive, it was too good to be true. 4 GB for this price, well after getting it home, connecting it to the computer, I always format new and old drives for compatibility purposes to my computer; well the message was the format did not take, and the drive did not show up on my desk top anymore, it just should down, and I did check for compatibility to a Mac. The other issue is this drive will slip out of your hand and off t... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Pretty good. It works well.

Jul 31, 2017

This serves as a desktop expansion and replaces a failing Seagate 3TB. Since I use it for everyday storage and frequently generate files larger than 4GB the first thing I did was to reformat to NTFS and re-partition the drive. In my experience the preloaded back-up and drive tools should given ye olde heave-ho straight away. Don't bother with them as they are given minimal resource development by the vendor and rarely updated. Gaping security hol... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

A product everyone needs but doesn't want to buy

Jan 12, 2017

Great price for the amount of storage. This is my fourth external WD drive. All have been great. Only replaced the others because my library keeps growing. Haven't had an issue with any of them. Word of caution for those using a mac and connecting this to a netgear nighthawk 7800 router to back up wirelessly. You will need to reformat with the MacOS disk utility to a macOS extended (journal) format before your mac can see it in finder. The format... Show More

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Hooked on WD drives, but...

Jul 3, 2017

Buy one formatted for your particular platform. Although that in itself is a challenge as well if your system is only slightly dated. Because I refer their products to my clients, clients who aren't so eSavy, the hoops I had to jump through to format this drive for my mac was so PC. I know they would have great difficulty formatting the drive. For Mac: They assume everyone uses Apple's newest OS. So, if you don't, then you've got to wipe it and format it for your particular platform. It didn't make sense for it to be so convoluted a process. But, I would still buy WD products over all others.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

B and H Service Beyond Reproach

Jul 22, 2018

As usual B and H's service was outstanding. As to the 4TB WD hard drive, this was a replacement for a 3TB WD drive used to back up my Synology server. The 3TB drive failed after approx 4 years. Because the new drive was formatted exFat instead of ntfs, I chose to purchase and install the exFat service for my Synology server rather than reformat the drive. This went smoothly and quickly. So far the new drive works well, but slowly. It takes twice as long to perform its nightly backup compared to the old 3TB. No real issue since it starts at 1:00am, but seems a step back in technology.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

No activity light!

Jul 30, 2017

It's a typical WD My Book, except in a cheap move they've eliminated the activity light. You don't know how handy that little light was until it's gone, you get no confirmation of the drive operating. AND, they don't tell you before you buy it. WD has the worst web site on Earth, as far as disingenuous advertising. You simply cannot discern the differences in the products, which is often just the styling of the case. If you call you get absolutely clueless kids reading off of canned blurbs. A very annoying dense corporate layer of advertising fudge, it's too bad, the devices are fine.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Plenty of room for total system backup or photo storage.

May 21, 2019

I purchased this drive to do a whole system backup before reformatting. Good transfer speeds for the price and overall a nice tidy package. Looks good and is fairly quite when operating. After a few Seagate failures, resulting in total data loss, Ive become a big fan of WD products and use them almost exclusively for photo and video back up. My only criticism would be that the wall plug transformer unit is massive, meaning it doesnt play well with others, especially when plugged into a power strip. And as always, great speedy shipping and good pricing from B&H! Customer for life.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Good for Mac Time Machine Backups

Mar 20, 2017

I use this drive for Time Machine backup for my 13 MacBookPro. I used the Apple Disc Utility to format the disk first, and it has worked perfectly. Because my MacBookPro is an older model and has USB2, FireWire and Thunderbolt ports, and this WD drive has USB 3, I had to buy a Thunderbolt to USB 3 adapter to get high speed data transfer to the drive. Unfortunately, these adapters are expensive. I wish this drive had a light to show when the disc is active (the previous WD external drive I used had a light, I replaced it only because it was full and I want to keep old backups).

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

WD: the right choice for outboard drives

Jul 8, 2019

If you are looking for a USB 3 outboard drive for your PC, look no further than WD. I've been using WD my book drives for 12 years now. I've run individual drives as long as 5 or 6 years, I've never experienced a failure. Now that 4 TB seems to be the minimum drive size, we all need to remember they need to be exFAT-formatted (Windows). While this provides access to the full 4 TB of the drive, the sector sizes are much larger than with NTFS, meaning the drive is wasteful of space if your average file size is small. Such is the price of progress.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

A different experience

Jan 27, 2017

To allow for expanded capacity the platters in these drives now float on helium and not air. That means they make different noises on startup than you'll be accustomed to from air filled drives. They're also a bit noisier when idling and make a soft ticking noise. They run quiet while writing to disk and spin down when not in use. The sounds they make do take some getting used to, but overall I've been very satisfied with the drives. They might not be the best choice for a very quiet environment. The aesthetic design of the case is outstanding.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Reliable

Dec 11, 2017

I keep buying these hard drives because they last and don't fail. I use these hard drives to store photos on. I have six that I'm continually rotating and updating. I keep three in a safe deposit box at the bank incase of fire or theft at home. My house was broken into and most of my hard drives were taken and I lost many photos. A Mac technician told me that to not use more than a 2 TB external hard drive that the computer wouldn't handle it . but 3 or 4 tb work just fine. Very reliable these hard drives other brands don't last.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Beware of drive limitations

Nov 14, 2017

The drive performance is as expected, even if a bit louder than I'm used to. It never occurred to me, however, that an external hard drive would lack a power switch like this one does. Lacking a power switch means the drive can wake up at inopportune moments, such as when the operating system for some reason decides to probe all the drives. When it does so, whatever application you are using can grind to a halt until the drive finishes waking up some seconds later. Because I use the drive only for backups, this is quite annoying.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Won't Turn On!!

Aug 6, 2019

When I received this item from B&H was not packed properly in a box no caution support inside so this was bouncing inside the box and I told them this and B&H given me 30 days to returned the item but I have no choice I needed to bak it up my files. Aside from sometimes this make abrupt sharp spinning noise I ignore it I wanted to save my files no choice of sending this back but after 4 months this item died and lost my files!!! My advice is if you received the item bouncing inside the box refuse it or send them back .

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

8TB My Book Native To My Mac Book Pro

Feb 12, 2017

Feb. 12, 2017 I was considering trying another brand for my external hard drive for my Mac Book Pro Retina, Early 2013 because I already had two previous external hard drive WD My Book products. But when I saw WD 8tb My Book Desktop Usb 3.0 External Hard Drive up in B&H for sale, I could not resist trying it again. And I have no regrets. When I installed, it was friendly and seamless as if it was native to my desktop! I will recommend this product to others looking for a heavier-duty external hard drive. Thank you. JGL

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Nice Drive Excellent Price.

Mar 10, 2017

Appears so far to be an excellent hard drive with a large amount of storage space. Is light weight and is decent sized. Does seem to vibrate a little more than my other drives when the disk is spinning, but that's no big deal for what I'm using this drive for. The only bad thing that I have discovered so far is that it supposedly won't work with Win XP (haven't had time to try it out and make sure yet) which is one of the computers that I had planned on using this drive to backup.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Works fine when it stays connected

Feb 19, 2017

This drive works fine except periodically it will go to sleep and the system cannot see it. You then have to unplug it and plug it back in; sometimes you have to reboot. I contacted WD and they suggested I plug it directly into my Mac and ensure I have have latest updates to my system. I do have the latest updates and it is plugged directly int my computer. For any drives I purchase in the future, I will stick with Seagate as none of my Seagate drives have ever had this issue.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Good product !!!!

Jul 18, 2017

I have been working with WD products for 7 years and never had an issue so far, I added my 8 TB recently and is doing a good job overral, I noticed a noise that the 3 and 4 TB's don't have I guess is normal in this unit, I also noticed is a bit slower when transferring large amounts of data. I am using my 8TB as a back up unit for all my data. I have 12 3 TB of data that I would like to consolidate into larger drives and the 8TB unit is a start. I will buy more of them soon.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Decent shuck drives

Mar 21, 2019

Hi, I cant say much about the USB operation, as i shuck both drives, they are working on a DIY server. If you shuck them know that if you use a standard ATX psu, the drives wont start with sata power, you either need a Molex to Sata power, this will make the 3.3v connection not affect the starting of the drive. The drives have a high pitch noise, inaudible inside a case at 1mt, but on my test bench i could easily pick it up. That said, they work great on unraid or whs,

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Good but worrying.

Mar 25, 2017

I have a lot of external hard drive but this one (quite new) worries me. So far speeds are 100mbps speed which is pretty sweet mostly. But when I transfer small files sometimes it slow down to a few kbps for some reason. But the one big issue was that it makes screechy noises sometimes and it kinda make me think there would be hard drive failure. It still works as it is but that doesnt sound good. I stand by on WD hard drive since I have a few of them along with Seagates.

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video

Page: 2 / 9
7 Prices
WD 3TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$89.99 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT
WD 4TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$98.99 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT
WD 6TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$129.88 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT
WD 8TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$149.96 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT
WD 10TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$198 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT
WD 12TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$259.95 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT
WD 14TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
$279.99 International shipping In Stock
(308)
B&H Photo Video B&H Photo Video
SEE IT