Colour:Black | Capacity:2 TB | Style Name:Portable
Product Description
Back up your computer’s data with this WD Elements portable hard drive. USB 3.0 connectivity delivers fast data transfer times and the 2 TB storage capacity stores your photos, videos and documents in one place. With its compact size, this WD Elements portable hard drive fits conveniently in your briefcase or backpack.
For the hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a PC and Mac computer, it must be formatted to ExFAT or FAT32 file format. WD Elements is pre-configured for usage on a Windows PC. Mac users need to re-format the drive to either EXFAT or HSF+J (for using it with Time Machine). Users can either use the Disk Utility app on their Mac or download the WD Drive Utilities software.
Box Contains
WDBU6Y0020BBK-WESN Elements external hard drive 750GB black, USB3.0 cable, and quick installation guid
J Shulman –
This is a fantastic portable external drive. I’ve purchased two of these, and another few with smaller capacity but identical model in every other way. I’ve got them as a Time Machine drive on a Mac, a removable backup on a PC and a 4TB drive attached to my Xbox One and they all work fantastic. Fast and reliable, I’ve had one for over 4 years, the rest are newer but have never had any problems with them at all. They don’t require external power on any of my devices, including a MacBook, Xbox One, PC, PS4 and iMac. You can format the drive any way you like so it will work in almost any situation. I highly recommend it.
Morlock5K –
I bought this to replace the 1TB Samsung HDD that I have had for several years now as it was starting to fail. I use the HDD as a Network Drive plugged straight into the router. I copied the file structure from the old HDD over to the new one and then when plugged into the network worked first time without issue. My various Kodi devices througout the house all recognised the new HDD instantly and as the file structure hadn’t changed there was no need to refresh my library. I haven’t done any real world speed tests but it is able to stream full HD videos to anywhere on my network. I upload music and photos from my phone sraight onto the HDD and this also is very fast and able to be done while streaming video to other devices. 4TB is a huge upgrade for me also so can’t see me needing an upgrade in some time.
S. Morris –
It was less than 2 years ago that I purchased an 8Tb Seagate Backup hub Plus external drive – what I thought then was a “big” drive, but found I had filled that up all too soon. I use this drive to backup my NAS, which stores all my media, so as this slowly grew in size, I needed to get myself a higher capacity drive.Enter the Western Digital 14Tb Elements drive, which at £249 at the time of writing, represents pretty decent value considering I paid £179 for the aforementioned 8Tb Seagate model a couple of years back. Strangely, if I want to buy the equivalent drive as a bare unit i.e not housed in an external enclosure with all the additional electronics that entails, it would actually cost me over £300! Why a less expensive to produce version should cost more than one in an enclosure is beyond me.The WD unit is rather like a heavy book, in that one edge is curved, rather reminding me of the spine of a hard back. On this surface you will find the single power/activity LED, which is quite small. The drive has small rubber feet such that it stands in a vertical orientation – like a book in a book case. This is perhaps the best orientation for air flow given the vented top and rear edges. I personally don’t really like drives standing up like this, it’s too vulnerable to being knocked if its stood on a busy desk. Lying flat is OK, but I think my unit ran a little hotter like that. I don’t know why WD do not provide an optional to fit stand with wider feet to provide better stability. Such a simple plastic stand would cost next to nothing to produce and would give customers the option to have a more secure base.That minor gripe aside, the drive itself is impressive in its performance. Unlike the Seagate which was an SMR type drive and thus termed an “archive” drive that suffered from slow write performance at just 38.7 Mb/sec sequential writes according to my Crystal Disk Mark test, the WD Elements 14Tb drive tested at an impressive 214Mb/sec read and write sequential transfer rate. For reference, the Seagate tested at around 118Mb/sec sequential read as I recall.As with these large capacity drives, the head seek action is quite heavy, far heavier than my internal 2Tb drives and will feel like the drive is suffering from a fit of the shakes when initializing after a power on. Not an issue, but worthy of note to those who may think they have received a faulty unit. The previously mentioned 8Tb Seagate had a heavy seek action too, but not as heavy as this monster from WD, I can only imagine it may have to do with the high platter count such high capacity hard drives have.These external drives actually appear to run warmer than internal drives, so it’s advisable to situate the drive somewhere where it is not penned in by other items. The drive performed flawlessly when I backed up my entire NAS to it over my horribly slow USB 2 connection on the NAS (only one I have) and took some 81.5 hours to complete the transfer of some 7.3Tb of data. So, it is certainly able to operate continuously for that length of time without issue. Of course, had I backed up via a USB 3 connection, then the transfer would’ve been far faster.I suggest that purchasers of this drive, as with all Western Digital drives, register them on the WD website in order to ensure the full warranty cover.The drive comes complete with the required power and USB cables of generous lengths. The drive has no power switch as such, so once connected to power and an active USB port, will power up. This drive seems to be smart enough to power down/enter standby if the connected computer is shut down or goes to sleep.Connected to a Windows 10 PC, the drive reports 12.7Tb available. Of course, 12.7Tb is what I call “proper” Terra bytes despite hard drive manufacturers deeming a Tb to be an even 1,000Gb where as I, being old school, see a Tb as 1,024Gb hence the 12.7Tb shown in Windows. That’s fine, not a WD thing as all manufacturers go with this system of measurement. The drive’s default volume label is “Elements”, but of course you can change this if you so wish. Nothing required to do if using with a Windows based computer, so you can immediately start copying files to it once connected as the drive is pre formatted using NTFS. Mac users will either need to reformat or use a utility to permit use of NTFS file systems. No backup software is supplied with this drive, unlike the My Book series from WD. however, this is a bonus as I generally prefer not to use the software provided by the manufacturer for this purpose anyway. A quick note to those less computer savvy; There are numerous free backup programs for Windows you can use if you need backup software.This Western Digital 14Tb Elements is an impressive drive at an impressive price.
Pete –
WD 12TB Elements (Ordered April 2020)Like most, I was purchasing these for the drives inside, rather than for use as an external unit, typically proving to be the cheaper way of buying larger drives when they’re on offer.Issues that you may need to know:Firstly, and not wholely unexpected, this doesn’t have the standard mounting screw holes you’d expect on older/smaller 3.5″ drives, missing the middle of the three on each side in order to accomodate the additional drive platters, and repositioning the mount holes on the bottom for the same reason. This might not sound like much, but if you use a screwless case of any kind, or some kind of tray system that use the older style mounting holes, you’ll likely find that can’t secure these drives into the bay with the standard kit – I had to resort to some adaptation myself.Secondly, and more importantly, some older PSUs can have a problem powering these drives up due to the use of a newer SATA power specification. There’s a few workarounds, so have a quick look for ‘fix 3.3v issue in white label drives’ if you have a problem. Using a simple molex-to-sata adapter works if you’re stuck.The good:It’s still very simple to open the case itself – a small flat-nose screwdriver or some plastic cards will do to pry the top-end open (from there it’s just a case of pushing), and you’ll need a screwdriver (Phillips head) to remove the drive from the two screws attaching the drive to the SATA/power connector. Other than that, there’s some rubber mounts that simply need pushed out. There’s youtube videos about removing it from the case and what to watch for it you plan on removing it (just needs a bit of care to watch snapping off some plastic clips when doing the initial steps).This is my second – the last contained a WD red, but this latest contains a WD120EMFZ-11 drive (manufacturing date of January this year), hence adding a review for those still hoping for Reds specifically. These latest models are specifically Western Digital Whites: 3.5″ SATA III drive, seemingly 6Gb/s, 5400 RPM disks. In open air, spin and seek noise seems to be far better than a neighbouring Seagate drive, appearing to be very similar to some of my older, very quiet, WD Green drives. For use as a video-hosting server drive, it’s pretty much ideal – very low power on idle, 5A peak during full use. My only gripe is that it runs roughly three degrees hotter than my other WD drives, including the last 12gb (an EMAZ drive), but nothing major.
Nægling –
When this 10TB product is available for £199, you should seriously consider grabbing one.At that price, the “cost per gigabyte” is simply unbeatable value… Especially from a top-end drive manufacturer like WD.There are videos online of people ripping these open to reveal the enclosed HDD is the top-end WD Red range (some with the red labels, some with white labels but Red SN markings)… I needed mine as a USB drive, so I can’t confirm or refute this as I didn’t rip it apart. (they are not user accessible, and accessing the drive is often destructive to the enclosure).As a USB drive, it works like a charm… Does exactly as it says on the tin (as they say). Works right out of the box and is currently working well in my home setup, exactly as it is expected to.Highly recommend for the 10TB version at £199, based on value for money alone if nothing else.
Beanie Luck –
The 1st one of these i ordered didnt arrive in the box, no blame assigned, it is Black friday and humans make mistakes. Amazon sent me out another straight away so all good. Mine was £90.The drive itself is fantastic. Solid and chunky, it comes with its own usb lead. I plugged it into my Hp laptop and it recognised it straight away.My laptop is failing so i bought this to transfer all my documents, pictures, videos and music. I have just over 4 tb of stuff on my laptop and i transferred the whole out in one fell swoop. The entire lot took 6 hours which i thought was very good. I am sure techies could give you a more accurate transfer rate speed, i wasnt really taking any notice, i just left it to do its thing.I also bought a case for it to go in, cost a tenner, just search for wd 2.5 inch neoprene case. Really good and fits the drive perfectly.I am really happy with mine and i would buy it again.
Paul Mcintosh –
Excellent external drives returning excellent speeds for large files, but like most mechanical drives small files are much slower. These are perfect for backups and storing video. The drives are both quiet even in operation.10TB: Large Files: Read 208 Write 165 Small Files Read: 0.83 Write 2.914TB: Large Files: Read 205 Write 171 Small Files Read: 0.83 Write 2.8Inside the 10TB drive I found a WD100EMAZ white drive with 256MB Cache. Part Number 2W10228It is easy to use a flat screw driver to prise off the plastic outer casing. Then gently work out the four rubber corners. Unscrew the two Philips screws holding the SATA to USB-3 converter. Finally gently pull the drive from caddy – and you are done. I am not very practical, but found this easy.Once extracted: The performance is very similar to a WD Red 10 TB NAS drive. It has the same version of Firmware, the same SMART parameters, but across a range of benchmarks is very slightly slower (<5%).10TB White Drive: 210.2 MB/s Read and 209.3 MB/s WriteWD 10TB RED NAS: 213.8 MB/s Read and 214.6 MB/s WriteI have installed this in my Synology DS918+ and it is working well. Very happy.I have also installed this into a Synology DS119j and it is fully compatible.The only down side is goodbye warranty.
pixiedust1975 –
14Tb allowed me to have a cold storage drive with enough space for me to back up my NAS for removing drives and starting fresh install of NAS with the 4x 8TB seagate ironwolf.The USB3 cable supplied is longer than other usual devices (1m).Work fine for the first week without an issue filling all but 500Gb.”How to Read Model Numbers: WUH721414ALE6L4 – 14TB SATA 6Gb/s 512e Base (SE) with Legacy Pin 3 config:W = Western DigitalU = UltrastarH = Helium72 = 7200 RPM14 = Max capacity (14TB)14 = Capacity this model (14TB)A = Generation codeL = 26.1mm z-heightE6 = Interface (512e SATA 6Gb/s)(52 = 512e SAS 12Gb/s)** 512e models can be converted to 4Kn format and vice versay = Power Disable Pin 3 status(0 = Power Disable Pin 3 supportL = Legacy Pin 3 config – No Power Disable Support)z = Data Security Mode1 = SED* : Self-Encryption Drive TCG-Enterprise and Sanitize Crypto Scramble / Erase4 = Base (SE)* : No Encryption, Sanitize Overwrite only5 = SED-FIPS: SED w/ certification (SAS only)”What’s interesting about this is that it looks like a 7200-RPM data center drive that’s been slowed down to 5400-RPM for stuffing into the Best Buy packaging.”Thanks to jitter skater:”The ‘F’ in WD140EMFZ actually reveals that it has 512MB cache, like all WD 14 TB drives have. The smaller models like 12TB or 10TB only have 256MB cache (‘A’).”WD140EMFZ = Easystore / Elements 14TB driveWD140EDFZ = My Book 14TB drive”The only difference is that the My Book support encryption on the hardware level (“D”= enterprise drive) and has a three years warranty, instead of two years.These are all basically Western Digital Ultrastar HC530 drives, slowed down to 5400RPM and hence absolutely comparable to WD Red 14TB drives.”
SignedAdam –
You get two years warranty and it works just like you would expect, the case is plastic and would seem to work great as a usb drive, from what I’ve seen the HDD inside are just like normal sata harddrive, some white, some red, but the white ones are also reds in disguise
david507 –
Perfect as a playstation or xbox’s external hard drive. The games installed on this drive will actually load around 25% faster than the ones on both of the console’s inbuilt hard drives as they run at a faster speed. (the consoles have a 5400rpm drive, compared to this 7200rpm drive)Western digital are well known as an industry leader in hard drives and reliability so it should last a long time.
unknown –