TLDR Review: WD 18TB My Book External Hard Drive
Verdict
The WD 18TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive offers a massive storage capacity with reliable hardware quality, but is plagued by significant software inadequacies and performance issues, which might make it a less optimal choice for professional use. If software usability and backup efficiency are critical for your needs, you may want to consider alternative drives, especially if you have prior experience with brand performance or specific requirements for seamless file transfers and temperature management.
- Top pro:
- Strong and reliable hardware quality, characteristic of WD drives.
- Top con:
- Frequent clicking noise and potential defect or design issue.
Pros
- •Strong and reliable hardware quality, characteristic of WD drives.
- •Positive impressions of the product's price and form factor.
- •The drive is designed as a massive storage solution with 18TB capacity.
Cons
- •Frequent clicking noise and potential defect or design issue.
- •Inability to perform automatic backups and issues recognizing recent files.
- •WD Discovery software is no longer supported, complicating backups.
- •Software for managing locks is outdated and not user-friendly, allowing auto-unlock for only one computer.
- •Inefficient handling of large file transfers, with the device hanging on certain files.
- •Higher operating temperature compared to other drives, raising reliability concerns.
- •Failed after 2.5 years, with unexpected errors and incorrect capacity reporting.
- •Some units shipped with the 'write-protect' feature, preventing storage.
- •Lack of clear instructions, adding to setup difficulties.
- •Frustrating overall experience with potential necessity for expensive data recovery.
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How we researched this
About this review: it summarizes the professional reviews and customer ratings ShopSavvy collected for this product, alongside prices from 1 retailer in ShopSavvy's price data, most recently seen Jan 2, 2025.
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