Western Digital - WD Elements 2TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

This 2TB external drive works great. You just plug it in and it automatically gets recognized and shows up as a drive letter under "my computer." It's already pre-formatted and everything for you. I love the fact that it doesn't come preloaded with bloated software and makes me install it for it to work. You can use whatever backup software you want (I use SyncBack Free, it's free ha ha). It's tons of space for a nice small price. Right now I just use it to back up all my files and will eventually migrate all of them to my new computer. Eventually, I will probably have this hooked up to a router with usb and have it backing up all my networked devices. This is WD's Green drive, so don't expect supreme performance from it, that's not what it's for and not what it's sold as. This is a backup drive or a drive for extra storage space that you don't want on your main drive. It's not meant to scream like an SSD.

Out of the box this hard drive was read-only when I hooked up to my iMac. Instructions included didn't address how to fix. Had to go online to manufacturer website to troubleshoot. Not incredibly difficult, but someone unfamiliar with technology would probably have some trouble. After it was writable, smooth sailing. fast transfer speeds and no problems. 2tb of space should last me for a while.

This external hard drive is a great buy. I needed an external hard drive to back up all of my data and this hard drive works like a champ. Sometimes, I wish it was just powered by the USB connection, because of all of the cables (Power cable and USB cable) laying around, but other than this minor issue, the external hard drive works great. I did notice the hard drive is formatted out of the box as NTFS. This may be a problem with a MAC user because OS-X can read NTFS but it can not write to NTFS. OS-X can write to partitions that are formatted as HFS+ or FAT-32. This may be a problem if the MAC user uses Time Capsule as a backup. The MAC user would just need to re-format a portion of the hard drive as FAT-32 before using the hard drive.

Purchased this about 3 months ago. Liked the WD brands and wanted something with large storage capacity and reliable reputation. Read the reviews on this drive and other WD drives above 500gb capacity regarding the cable length and fit. Wasn't planning on moving this drive too much so I took a chance. Yes the cable is short, but it is stationary so this is not a concern. Also no problems with the cable fit. Haven't experienced any lose of connection or data. Drive just keeps on going. I have it plugged in and on 100% of the time and have it raised off the desk slightly to aid in any heating problems. Like the automatic back-up. In Windows 7 it does it unnoticed and doesn't effect computer overall speed or operation. At initial system start-up it does take a brief moment to "wake-up" and display all files and directories. Transfer is slow to a flashdrive, but I can wait the additiional minute or so as long as I get the data I require. Waiting for it to go on sale again.

Laptop recognized drive right away. No obnoxious built-in software to mess with. Was able to copy over w/ NTFS format very quickly... FAT32 copying was a bit slower, but still fine. Hooked up to PS3 to store movies. PS3 had no problems recognizing drive (only catch... when you select the drive to look for files w/in the PS3 interface, highlight the drive icon, click the "Triangle" button, and choose "Display All Content"... then you will be good to go). Nice price for the amount of storage. Design is compact, although may be hard to place on a cramped desk due to "lay flat" style. I may try the Acronis True Image backup software... will update review down the road to discuss performance.

After searching on the internet about expanding the capacity of my Dish Network ViP 612 Satellite Receiver I decided to purchas this WD Elements 2TB unit. It has worked flawlessly and was very simple to install. It has two connections, one for power and one for USB 2.0. I connected the unit to my ViP 612 receivers USB connection after connecting it to power. I then followed Dish Networks instructions & called the 800 number for activation of an external HD. After less than half an hour I was able to format the HD, which did take several hours. After this was completed I had a capacity of 1861.7 GB (DIsh Network has increased the usable capacity of the external HD's). I then "archived" many recorded movies and shows to the external HD. I then wondered how they would play back from the external unit & was surprised to see them play flawlessly! So far I have been very happy with the unit. It is so quiet that I can't hear it running. I did install the unit backwards on the shelf so that I could see the one & only LED. Great unit for my purpose!

The 2TB backup drive was a good price. It needs an external power source to operate, which was different from my old drive. It wasn't available in my local store, so I had to order it. I'm so glad I got it for the price that the 1TB drive was at because it was on sale. There's nothing like getting 2TB for the price of 1! It's a little bulkier than the 1TB or my old external hard drive, so I choose not to take it around as much with my laptop. I keep it at home and I mostly keep my music on it, since that's what takes up most of my internal drive.

I did research before picking out this one, and have had seen no problems with it as the ones that have been reported from other companies like Seagate. I have been running this Hard Drive non-stop for almost 2 months now, and it always runs cool even under heavy usage. I have transferred all of my files to it that are important, and also have my system back-up on there. Freed up TONS of room on my computers hard disk. I highly recommend this, but if you have get a good deal on 2 of the 1TB ones, you might want to get that and keep backup on one and hard drive stuff on the other. No particular reason for that though, I don't see this hard drive crashing any time soon, but that is just what I had though about doing afterwards.