WD - easystore 18TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive - Black

I have 10 or more WD EasyStores - sizes from 2TB to 18 TB so far. They are fast, reliable, and affordable. I've never had a single glitch in an EasyStore. This is my go-to backup solution and I stock up when on sale, because you can never have enough backups. As a 40 year IT professional, you need off-line backup so if you are hacked, those backup units will not be accessible. Secondly, you need both on-site and off-site copies so if your dwelling is ever wiped-out or you lose access, you still have a backup of your critical files in a safe location. People who claim the size of the unit does not match what's advertised do not know that they're talking about. There are two different ways to measure storage capacity - one used by the International System of Units is a base-10 prefix (mega, giga, tera) to represent a base-2 number (MiBi, GiBi, TiBi) defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). 1 Megabyte = 1000 Kilobytes while 1 Mebibyte equals 1024 Kibibytes. For the IEC units, each jump in prefix is a multiple of 1024 (2^10) instead of 1000 (10^3). Anytime you hear a number of bytes or bits, you have to consider if they are talking about base 2 or base 10. Hard drive companies typically sell products in base 10 as it makes it sound larger. A 1 Terabyte hard drive will turn out to actually be about 931.3 Gibibytes. That's where uninformed people get confused and write uninformed opinions. Also, Windows and Linux report volume sizes differently, which further confuses the situation. So if an OS reports an 18TB drive as 16.3 TB, don't blame the drive, blame the OS. See the Windows example where 1) is in TB and 2) is in TiBi.

This is a great drive - a huge amount of storage and fast! However, if you are writing large amounts to it, you may need to get a fan. Let me relate to you my experience. When I first got the drive, I set it up to do a full scan of the drive. I did a CrystalDiskInfo before I started (see the picture), and the disk temperature was 31deg C. The scan took 5 hours. At the end of the scan the disk temperature had risen to 50deg C (see the picture). After completing the scan I watched to see how the temperature dropped. After 3 hours it had fallen to 45deg C. The passive cooling acts very slowly, despite the large number of slots in the bottom, top, and back of the drive housing. Next I obtained a dual fan, and set one at the back to push cool air into the drive. I put the second on top of the drive to pull hot air out of the drive. I then wrote files to the drive for 3 hours. The starting temperature of the drive was 30deg C. The temperature at the end of the 3 hours of copying files was just 33 deg (see picture)! I think this shows the effectiveness of having external fans. I also did a speed test of the drive using CrystalDiskMark (see picture). This hard disk drive is fast! I use this drive to archive material on my desktop computer at regular intervals. Large amounts are written to the drive, and I need the fans to maintain the health of the drive. I suspect that others using this drive will be doing something similar, and would benefit by adding fans. Despite this, I think this is a good drive and am happy with its purchase.

I bought Western Digital 18 TB easystore hard drive to check for strict test on my own. It did heat up little bit to hit 50*C and I forced to put two fans (USB power only) on top of Western Digital easystore to beat heat temperature out to fall down to around 34*C - 40*C to help keep cool for longer time to help hard drive life more stable in long running. I find 15 damaged sectors on 18 TB hard drive and it's shocked me! When I use Hard Disk Sentinel program scanned sectors for 27 hours and 27 minutes (painful slow time during testing). I use Hard Disk Sentinel program to scan for bad sectors and finally catch 15 damaged sectors then do quickly repaired 15 damaged sectors into good stable sectors. I think tech workers are too rush at Western Digital company to formatting them and package before shipped. I want Western Digital workers to do very careful to check for damaged and bad sectors on hard drives. If hard drive have damaged sectors and bad sectors should not shipping to any stores. Must be error free and zero damaged sectors and zero bad sectors before shipping to stores for stock up on shelves to avoid any issues or problems. I got model name is WD180EDGZ and look up on internet about hard drive model database said have CMR. I'm very happy for that! I don't trust SMR technology because people report SMR is working too hard than CMR, that's why. I always avoid hard drives which are SMR are not approved means know many problems appear and more failure rate go up. Confirmed, it's working great on Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit SP1! But one crazy said driver is not working pop up message in bottom-right task said driver installed is unsuccessful. What's go on? I went to check hard drive from "Computer" and finally can see 16.3 TB on there. Thank you to Western Digital for to support Windows 7! Please keep support Windows 7 (Don't ignore this Windows 7). That's what I need bigger 18 TB hard drive for Windows 7 to store tons of PC games on it. Because every time when new PC games come out and have bigger files like over 20 GB to 100 GB or more then wow! :-) I let anyone know about Linux Mint. I did test Linux Mint (running under Windows 7) through VMware Workstation can see hard drive but can't mount. Puzzle me. Linux should add this hardware for support, maybe Linux don't have NTFS support build in system. Maybe add NTFS support in Linux maybe work or not. I don't know much deep inside Linux. If someone who are Linux fans maybe know how to fix problem. I did test Windows XP (running under Windows 7) through VMware Workstation program said successful installed driver and can't see 18 TB hard drive. Something wrong with Windows XP maybe limited to 2 TB hard drive. Someone maybe find out to fix Windows XP. I don't know how to fix on my self. I'm big fans of Windows XP on my few DELL computers, I not sell my old computers and just use for playing old PC games on it for myself to enjoy for lifetime. I did test Windows 10 (running under Windows 7) through VMware Workstation program and can see 18 TB hard drive without problems. I not sure about other operating systems maybe work or not work. Anyone can test them to see if work or not. Very important to everyone, when you bought bigger Western Digital hard drives like 12 TB, 14 TB, 16 TB, 18 TB and go on, please use Hard Disk Sentinel program to scan for damaged and bad sectors. If bad sectors are not repaired then return to store for exchange or refund. To Western Digital, please keep making a lot of hard drives (CMR type) for Windows 7 and others. I already know Western Digital made best hard drives quality in around the world. Keep it up! :-)