Customer Ratings & Reviews

After using the WD Easystore 8TB External Hard Drive as my primary backup and media storage solution for over two years, I can confidently say this is one of the most reliable and cost-effective data storage investments I’ve made. Performance and Reliability (Still Going Strong) Longevity: After more than two years of consistent use—including routine backups and acting as a local media hub—the drive is still working perfectly. It has shown no signs of corruption or failure. Speed: As a 3.5-inch desktop HDD using USB 3.0, the transfer speeds are excellent for its capacity, often hitting around 200MB/s sequential read/write. While not as fast as an SSD, it is perfect for archiving, media streaming, and mass file storage. Reliability: WD has a solid reputation here, and this model often contains high-quality WD Red NAS drives inside, which are built for higher durability. Usage Experience Set Up: It is truly "plug-and-play." It came formatted for Windows (NTFS), which made it immediately ready to use out of the box. Mac users will need to reformat, but it's a quick process. Operation: The unit is quiet during operation and rarely generates excessive heat, even after long backup sessions. Storage Capacity: 8TB is massive. I’ve filled it with thousands of high-resolution photos, 4K videos, and my entire music library, with plenty of room still left. Pros Excellent Value: Offers one of the best price-per-terabyte ratios on the market, especially during Black Friday sales. Massive Capacity: Perfect for long-term archiving and Plex media servers. Reliable Hardware: Proven to last over 2 years (and likely much longer). Robust Enclosure: The sleek black casing is compact, sits nicely on a desk, and keeps the drive cool. Cons Non-Portable: It requires a separate power adapter (AC outlet), so it's strictly for desktop use. No USB-C: It uses a traditional USB-A 3.0 cable, which is fine, but newer drives are starting to move toward Type-C. If you are looking for a trustworthy, high-capacity drive to back up your entire system, store vast media libraries, or use as a cheap, high-capacity drive for your game console (Xbox/PS), the WD Easystore 8TB is a fantastic choice. The fact that it is still running smoothly after 2+ years speaks to its quality. Highly Recommended.

The new WD easystore 8TB version changed the case front and drive inside. 7.27 TB actual usable space. Made in Thailand. The box it came in was not shrink wrapped. The old, discontinued 8TB version contained a helium filled drive, while these new ones are air filled WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0. The new drive runs hot and loud. Older helium 8TB easystore idles around mid-30C and mid-40C under load. This new version reaches 59C under heavy use. Even though it reports itself as a 5400rpm drive, it might actually be 7200rpm, which explains the heat and loudness. Benchmarks via USB 3.0: 205 MB/s sequential read and 206 MB/s sequential write when empty. Great speeds for a hard drive, but worried about longevity due to excess heat.

Excellent HD. I works as advertised. I have three of these 8TBs and three 5TB drives that hold my ebook and audiobook collections. 8TB sounds like a lot of space per drive, but it fills up quickly when mp3s, m4as and others are added routinely. It does make some noise, but thats to be expected for this type of drive.

These are great for backup storage or keeping excess files off your internal drive. However, pretty much all of these large external HDDs require a chunky plug for power and are speed-limited by whatever USB you plug it into, or its own USB format, but that is a typical limitation of this product category, not this specific product, so no points off for that. Very plug-and-play, a good brand behind it, and one of the few types of digital storage that doesn't seem to let me down every 3 or so years.

I got this drive because I needed a bigger and faster drive to do backups but it might get shucked for a NAS in the future. So shuckers may want to take note. This drive is purchased and tested in February 2021. Some say that the WD80EDAZ inside this enclosure is actually spinning at 7200 rpm, which it might be since the sequential performance of this drive closely matches that of my Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ikk0rv/psa_multiple_wd_5400rpm_drives_are_actually/ On one hand this is WD and their screwed up, misleading marketing (See: SMR drives sold as CMR drives). The other comments complaining that the drives run hot and loud are warranted. This drive is air "filled" instead of helium filled like the old ones which adds to the heat this generates. 59 C under heavy load in a 21 C ambient is HOT. It also gets even louder once the head starts moving. On the other hand, I can live with its compromises for a drive that only needs to run around once a week. The 200 MBps sequential dramatically increased the speed of my backups. But the high temperatures this generates is still a concern. 60 C is usually the maximum operating temperature for mechanical hard drives so if you plan to run this under extended periods of time like in a NAS, it may need active cooling. If you're keeping this drive in its enclosure, keep it vertical so it can passively exhaust its heat through the top vents.

Great amount of storage and very easy to install. Nice size

Love this HDD although if you’re getting it for any newer device make sure to grab a type c adapter Other than that it works like a charm easy to install, as a photographer me being able to just massively dump random landscape shots on this is amazing and just what I wanted in a external, maybe one day in a few years I’ll upgrade to a massive SSD when the price goes down.

Great storage. This tower does not take up much space. Easy to use. Great for backing up files.

I purchased this hard drive looking to add extra storage space for a media collection. The reliability of WD and sale price made it a no brainer. Works great with Nvidia Shield pro 2019

This is a great plug in and use external drive perfect for large video and film projects. I just loaded a 93GB file from a PC to the WD-easystore 8TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive and it zoomed the files into the drive in minutes. And the price is low and a good quality buy.

im so glad i got this i can put all my music and game s on it and use it as my main hard drive and keep stuff off of my pc i would like to say pplease backu[p important stuff to an extra hardrive just in case somethign happens with this one oh and dont mind the pic i took that with the plastic still on it lol

It works when you plug it into your pdtsonal computer and stuff.

Legit worth getting be honest why would you limit your access to what you can and can’t play and yes it work on ps4 and ps5 if it work on both these I’m sure it will for Xbox and it look like mini WiFi router

Great storage of photos and documents. Put all my mp3, jpg pictues. My mobiez and videos accesable. Will recomend.

Good quality hard drive, I was able to back up all my files for work and dropbox. This is the 3rd WD hard drive I have purchased over the last 10 years and thus far when I take them down from the shelf and use them they have done their job.

I just purchased this tonuse qith my xbox. I own 2 8Tb already and they have served me well the store a lot of game in my case and they use to be performing well until the New SPEED of gaming consoles increase. So if you notnin to 4k or high speed requirements it works great. I can still use it for my older game which is great i womt have to use up space on the new one. I had to turn it back in when it told my games requirements would not run this storage.

works the way I thought it would and the way it's supposed to. Load times are pretty quick (depending on the game) and it makes almost no noise (not that I can tell since I wear a headset, although compared to my PS4 it might as well make no noise. I've got 65 games downloaded and still have a little more than 5 TB left. It's easy to use, just plug in the power supply then connect it to your PS4 via USB, format as extended storage and you're ready to go. (Controller is for size reference)

A bit slow for nowadays thought the capacity is the contemporary one. It's not the 7200 rpm certainly. Forget it. It's the 5700 rpm one(still not the fastest experienced in this class writing speed). The primary reason I deducted stars from the rating however is due to the units poor heat management. This drive runs much hotter than other units I have previously used and consistently sits at or above 50C even when idol, and well over 60C when writing any medium to large data transfer or tasking which if not addressed has been found to directly lead to higher instances of drive failure as well as significantly reduced drive. Personally I addressed this by 3D printing a custom fan shroud which fits an 80mm computer fan to the top of the unit , fully circulating air throughout the drive as pictured below. Overall great functionality and aesthetic compared to others I have previously used & would plan on purchasing more in the future/ recommending to a friend for increased storage needs.

Not a good choice if you have a Synology NAS that you want to backup once a day. I bought it with the expectation that I would use the "Hibernation" function to spin up/down the WD drive, rather then let it needlessly run 24/7. With Snology's Hyper Backup program, the process is easy to set up. However, WD does NOT provide any tools or configuration tips to manage the easystore with a NAS running a Linux OS. Instead, I'm using a Cable Matters USB HDD/SSD drive adapter attached and configured on the NAS. A 6TB WD Red HDD is installed and works GREAT. The drive spins down after 20 minutes of no activity, then spins up when the scheduled Hyper Backup kicks off. The backups are saved flawlessly every day. Now, I will say that the easystore does work fine for those backups IF and ONLY IF the drive is formatted for Linux and left spinning 24/7. Unfortunately, for me, that just won't do. A single USB drive that is constantly running outside of a raid, seems foolish to me and makes the easystore a bad choice for my NAS's data protection needs. See the attached photo of the Cable Matters USB adapter with a WD Red drive. This is my working solution for my backups of the NAS.

This is exactly what I needed for my home computer - very easy to use and end-user friendly