Western Digital 8TB EASYSTORE External HDD (WDBCKA0080HBK-NESN)

I bought the WD 8TB EASYSTORE external HDD to replace a crappy WD 8TB My Book Desktop external drive I had ordered and returned. I kept the My Book Desktop drive for just a couple hours which was long enough to convince me it was low-end junk and going back for a full refund. Amazon was awesome about the refund and the return process was so simple.On the other hand, the 8TB EASYSTORE is super quiet while the 8TB My Book Desktop drive had an annoying low pitched vibration that could be heard and felt as it sat on my desk. In comparison, the EASYSTORE is dead silent and I don't even notice it. The 8TB WD EASYSTORE costs more than the 8TB My Book Desktop HDD but it is well worth it to me . It is rumored that the 8TB EASYSTORE uses the higher quality WD Red NAS disk which is known to be quiet and reliable.

I've had this running continuously on my home network as a media server / share drive for 2 years. No problems. When it's asleep, it takes a few seconds to spin up for a read or write. Its been great for streaming media, with 2 to 3 HD streams at the same time. It's a good deal at the $158 price.

This Western Digital EasyStore external hard disk drive is a specialized piece of computer gear that has one task; automatically and transparently backing up up one or more storage drives (solid state and/or hard disk) on a given computer.This model is one of the Desktop models (WD also makes a portable EasyStore product line), intended to sit on a desktop very close by your desktop or tower computer. It is a small vertical/tower case, about the same size as a typical cable modem, that includes a Western Digital hard disk drive (HDD) and a power supply (although it still needs an external 'wall wart' style power supply). It comes with the power supply and a short USB type 2 cable, perhaps a couple feet long. It also comes bundled with a few WD software applications that are zipped into a single file that is pre-loaded on the internal drive. There are two versions of the software; for Windows and Mac systems.The internal HDD comes pre-formatted for use with Windows computers. If you want to use it on a Mac computer, you will need to reformat the HDD before starting to use it.To use this product, you place it on a surface next to your computer, plug in the AC power supply and plug the included USB cable between this unit and any USB port on the computer. There is no power switch; it is on whenever it is plugged in.On Windows, the internal HDD is immediately recognized as a storage device and it will appear in File Explorer (Windows Explorer) and will be available as a drive to any Windows application, and you can use it just like any USB HDD or big 'thumb drive'.However, the product is primarily designed to provide automatic, scheduled backup. To do this, you need to run the EXE file that comes pre-loaded on the internal HDD, and this installs a Discovery application on your computer. I believe that this program's function is to continually scan your HDD (or any drives) and then build and maintain an index file which resides on the internal HDD. Then, from Discovery, you can install a couple more applications; WD Backup and WD Utilities. The Backup app lets you schedule how the automatic backup will work; how often, when, and which drive(s) to back up. The Utilities provides several maintenance features that you will probably never need.With Backup, operation is simple. First you get to choose which of two storage places to back up to, and this can be either the EasyStore HDD or your DropBox account's 'cloud' storage space (if you have one). One you have selected the EasyStore (assuming you chose that option), then you are shown a list of drives on the computer that are available to be backed up; you choose one or more of them. Then you are asked about three questions regarding when and how often to run the automatic backup. You can also click a screen button to force an immediate unscheduled backup. You might, for example, choose to do one backup every day at 2 AM, or once every Saturday at 10 PM, etc. The EasyStore will immediately get busy searching your drive(s) and building its database, but it will not necessarily start copying files until the first scheduled time.It may seem at first that no backup has taken place, because EasyStore hides all your backed up (copied) files under about five levels of folders on the internal HDD. But once you know where to look, it is easy to view any backed up file(s).Backups occur automatically and transparently. Even if you are at the computer, you probably will not know that the EasyStore Backup app and HDD are quietly going about their business in the background. There is no status except a cryptic LED on the front of the EasyStore. However, the Backup app will show the date and time when the most recent backup took place.Once all files have been initially copied over to the EasyStore, subsequent backups involve only those files that have been added or modified since the previous backup. Because of this, most scheduled backups will not take very long. The Backup app does NOT appear to ever remove or rename files on the EasyStore HDD......if you renamed a file on your computer's drive, it seems that Backup will regard it as a new file, and will copy it over without deleting the old file. And if you delete a file on your computer's drive, it appears that Backup will not delete the backup copy on the EasyStore. Also, Backup will not make any changes to drives on your computer; it only affects the EasyStore drive.I have had a few of these for different computers, and so far they have all worked just fine. Customer service/technical support is pretty easy to get when needed, although they are not open 24/7.I like this product as a means to inexpensively back up my computer without the security concerns of using cloud-based backup schemes.

If you didn't know, the hard drive in this product are Western Digital Red NAS units. By themselves, these drives can run up to $300, so by buying this, you're getting a high-quality HDD in a nondescript external enclosure. People are actually shucking the outer case so that they can remove the HDD and use it as an internal drive. If you do so, you will either see a "Red labeled" or a "White labeled" drive, but they are the same regardless of the color of the label.Anyhow, using this to add storage to an Xbox One S. Working good so far.

If you're looking for a great external hard drive, look no further. I bought this drive because of the outstanding reviews and the more lackluster reviews on it's sister products. What any user needs to do when buying any sort of external hard drive should expect some sort of noise. It isn't an external SSD. So expect some sort of noise. With headphones on, I don't notice the noise on this drive at all when it was performing it's first backups. With headphones off, it is hardly noticeable. I am using this drive to back up all my data across three different computers: an old laptop, a school/work laptop, and the new PC I built. Now, I will be able to access all my data from the new PC I built with plenty of room for future data back ups.I can't speak on durability quite yet. Rest assured, I will certainly update this review significantly if this dies within a year of purchase.Side note:I have been seeing things that this could have a white label or a WD red drive inside. I would prefer not to shuck this out of the casing, so if anyone knows another way to tell, let me know!

No more shuffling wads of files between smaller USB drives. Everything has its own home now on one drive. Been using this for about 3 or 4 months now. No issues. Works great. I have backed up tons of stuff to it without any issues. Easy to set up and get using. I use this on both a MacBook Pro and a Windows laptop. I even do my routine backups to this drive. Was definitely worth it.

Fast shipping and great packaging. This storage device is the best storage device I have ever owned. I backup everything, and I mean everything to this drive. It is fast and very responsive. I have always trusted Western Digital storage and I will continue to do so.