Western Digital Elements

Do not buy it! – I will never buy WD again. It's just stopped working for no reason. It was also not working on Mac. But it does say it works on Mac if you see the descriptions! Never again. Show details

expensive piece of crap! – From first usage it was slow and unreliable.It was intended as a backup and movie collection HDD. Formatted as 2 big partitions . Crashed numerous times while saving data to other PCs. Recovered most of data 2 times with EASEus and now it has bad sectors and unrecognizable half of HDD. Lost all data and movies of-course. This old 2.0 models had… Read more

serious issues with electronics and drivers but only noticeable when HDD is full. It took years in my case. When on the other hand I have several Maxtor clicking HDDs, 15 years old and still live and kicking. No more WDs for me ,ever!

Very Poor Quality, terrible experience – If I can leave a 0 star I would. I owned a number of different brands of storage hardware and western digital has got to be the worst. Very unreliable and you ended up probably worse off with unretrievable important data. The first one of an older model - 50GB which requires you to plug it into the power point to start went dead in about a year,… Read more

all my computers were not able to read from the hardisk thereafter and I could not retrieve some important data on it. There

were no mishandling or accidents, it just went dead like that. The second one which is a 500GB small portable unit bought some 10 years later was operating alright at the start but months later when I was moving files, it kept either

disconnecting occasionally or connection error messages popped out, sometimes I have to start over again and wasting lot of unnecessary time. It became more frequent and I decided to shelf it. Months later today, it went dead as well. This is such a horror stories especially if you trust it with important data. So if you want a reliable storage hardware, do not choose WD. Some of my other brands bought earlier even outlasted both my WD hardisks.

The worse external hard drive I've ever purchased – I purchased one a 5TB model. I was told to reformat so I could use it would be Mac compatible. After reformatting, it worked fine for a month or 2. Inexplicably I was unable to upload files onto the drive. Later I was unable to read some of the files. I received error messages saying there was a problem with the drive. I emailed then phoned WD… Read more

support. No one was of any help. The support staff had no idea about the product, and their suggested fixes were rudimental. In the end they suggested I reformat the drive again, meaning I had to shift 4TB of data onto another drive, or onto the cloud.

Worse experience with a product ever. DO NOT BUY WD products.

FAULTY product. Never this brand again! – Brand new 2TB storage, barely three months and hardly any use, and now it's faulty. I lost all my data. This was my first time using WD brand. Never again! Show details

Don't buy, failed after 24 months, drive not replaceable – Purchased one of these usb3 external harddrives, and it has now failed with windows reporting multiple hardware failures. Thought I would buy a new harddrive and replace it, Bad news, these drives are a special design and you can't just replace it with a new drive. Show details

No more Western Digital for me – I purchased my Wester Digital Elements Hard Drive from Harvey Norman a few years ago. I cared for it and always kept it in a safe to avoid and knocks and bumps. I only used it about ten times when it failed causing me to lose all my precious data. Now I have decided to replace all my Western Digital hard drives with something of better quality. I will advoid all WD products in the future. Show details

Horrible – Software and setup not well designed. Not user friendly. While the drive is detected by the computer its own software does not detect it - instead software prompts me to backup to Dropbox. On the other hand the WD diagnostic software detects it and sees no problems. Very frustrating and on top of that direct phone contact with WD made as hard to reach as possible. Will not us WD again.  Show details

RIP – WD Elements 1TB external drive had all my precious data. Hard drive died by itself. WD Elements 1TB external drive had all my precious data. Hard drive died by itself. I am not surprised why WD discontinued this piece of crap. I am not surprised why WD discontinued this piece of crap.  Show details

Totally failed with hardly any use after 7 months – Unfortunately this has been the worst portable drive I have ever bought. As the title suggests, I experienced a total failure of the drive after 7 months of very little use and good care. I would be very wary of the brand now and research it thoroughly before buying again.  Show details

WD screwed themselves – You had a good reputation but you screwed it. Two drives failed. All my music LOST ! NEVER AGAIN ! I hate WD now. A reputation takes years to build and seconds to destroy! A reputation takes years to build and seconds to destroy! A reputation takes years to build and seconds to destroy!  Show details

Good while it lasted – Worked well for about 4 1/2 years. Used to back up iMac. No issues until external hard drive failed after 4 1/2 years and needed replacement. Unable to recover data or reformat disc after failure despite multiple attempts. Probably expect longer life and try other brand next time. Fairly solid and compact.  Show details

western digital elements 2tb hard drive Review – Got this western digital elements 2tb hard drive for my data storage and to back up PlayStation and computer and movies on it and to take it anywhere I go and to store my data files at school

What rubbish – Only just over 12 months old and totally failed -extensive research to fix what appeared to be a simple issue resulted in finding out the disk had failed. Too expensive to recover data.. very disappointing and wont by this brand again.. Dont store or BACK UP ASAP anything important!! Would have expected this to last way beyond this time given its a supposed decent storage device. Failed to deliver.  Show details

Wished I read the review before buying it - No more WD Products at all! – Very slow and unstable. Installed WD Utilities to Troubleshoot (What a joke: did not even recognise its own brand). Crashed on me and could no longer access without formatting. Formatting (even Quick) takes for ever. Support is another joke. You go to their website and it is like a puzzle to locate what you want. I lost the data but luckily had… Read more

a copy on an another non WD external drive. Even after formatting, takes for ever to copy files onto (despite browsing the net and making changes to improve performance). I will not longer buy anything from WD.

Worst hard drive ever no support – My hard drive only ever sat in my draw of my bedside table. I went on holidays for 3 months (did not take my hard drive) and put all my photos on my hard drive and deleted them off my computer (very silly, but they did not fit on my computer). The next time I go to use it, it crashes and doesn't work. I try it on a number of computers and change… Read more

the chord (as that had previously broken) and still didn't work. Took it to get fixed and is now costing $1100. WD will not help pay for this. I tried to get in contact with them 2 months ago and they did not respond. Finally get in contact today and they say they can do a free data recovery but won't pay for the data recovery that has already taken place. Absolute crap. Never purchasing from this company again!!!

UNRELIABLE LEMON!!! Heartbroken my memories have been lost – I had it sitting on my desk for the uploading of cherished photos only. Never moved from it's position at all. I had over 6000 photos on there and when I went to upload more, it had died. Flashing light and no response. I tried a number of different computers but to no avail. THIS SYSTEM HAD FAILED ME and taken all my memories with it. No… Read more

chance of recovering any data from this hard drive and I had also taken it to computer specialists to look at it and NOTHING!!!

Would never purchase a Western Digital Elements product again. I have lost years of photos

Cheap storage, but too many problems – Please Note: The picture shown for this WDBWLG0050HBK, 5 TeraByte drive is incorrect - it is in a vertical case similar to a MyBook type and still available as at late October 2015. At the AU$218.00 I paid, this drive is cheap storage at less than half a cent per Megabyte and cheaper than the equivalent Seagate model. But, and it's a big but,… Read more

the performance and usability of this drive leaves a lot to be desired and I think it explains the low purchase price.

The biggest ongoing problem I am facing daily is that the drive shuts down after a few minutes of inactivity. The next big problem is that it takes a long time to wake up, I estimate about 8 to 10 seconds. As a result of this behavior which is more akin to a 10MB hard drive from the 1990's, my applications keep throwing up very alarming "terminal hardware failure" error messages. I then have to cancel out of "save" mode and wait for the drive to get itself together before I can try again. This stupid behavior makes using this drive very unpleasant and inefficient. Unfortunately, it is not possible to prevent the drive from shutting down by changing Windows 8.1's power options to "never sleep".

Another issue I have become aware of is that the drive is formatted with a non-standard MBR boot sector for 32 bit support. I understand that capacities over 2TB need to have a 64 bit GPT boot sector. I was unable to get a satisfactory explanation from WD's support department, or any practical suggestion as to how I could rectify this situation and I am very disappointed that they would treat trusting users with such disdain.

Yet another issue I had with this drive was when I added the second one I had bought before I had hooked up the first one (yes, yes, I know... sigh). The "Unique disk ID" (e.g. 000222F2) seems to be the same on all these drives thus not unique at all. When another one is plugged into the same computer it causes a "signature collision" that causes Windows to see both drives as the same drive, potentially a very serious anomaly. This disables access to the second one and makes a situation where all the data on the first drive can be lost in a millisecond if the user panics and tries to sort the problem without researching what will happen if approached in the wrong way. Finding a reliable fix for this stupidity cost me a lot of time.

Finally, both of these 5TB drives are very noticeably slower when saving files than the 2TB Seagate drives they replaced. My online research seems to indicate that this is a result of the 32 bit MBR kludge.

Getting better – New models are much better than older models. Few years ago I bought a 500GGB of Western digital element hdd, and most of time, I had issues with its cable and usb3 ports . But now, it's Okay, I've connected it to my router and it is working perfectly, no cable issue, performance is pretty good. Besides, it is smaller than my phone, I don't… Read more

understand why people pay more to buy smaller size models like ultra one. It's a good choice if you can buy it for a good price.

the music has died – worked fine for a period then just died - tried on other than my computer and not a sign of an "on" light very disappointing and a good thing the computer stays on track and delivers - will have to buy another external hard drive and it won't be WD worked it died

Avoid WD or Loose Your Data Its That Simple – I have lost 2 of these WD Ekements external drives. Both just stopped being recognised. All data gone. What a total waste of money & time. Absolutely useless. For a company that is all about these things you could not understand how they are so bad at it. My advice just spend a few extra dollars on a quality drive. The lesson here is there is no… Read more

such thing as cheap storage. You see these heavily discounted at times. Must be because everyone but me knows not to buy them. Not anymore. Works when new. Accepts your files no problems Stops working without warning and your data is history, it is just a doorstop

Dangerous product and terrible support – I bought this product mainly because of the price. At first it worked fine, but then my PC would not recognise it. As I was taking the 12V cable out of the back of the unit, I got an electric shock and the house lost power. Once I had recovered from this (and unplugged the HDD), I noticed that my digital camera was no longer operational (it was… Read more

plugged into the same USB hub).

The Western Digital customer service was then terrible. The guy I spoke to was very hard to hear and did not really understand what I meant for a long time. I understood that replacing the camera was not realistic, but I would have thought that they might do something to cover the fact that the device had shocked me (e.g. like cover my insurance excess). Or perhaps refund my money. But no, the best they could do was replace the drive with another one.

After an annoying experience with FedEx trying to get them to pick up the parcel, and waiting a few weeks, my replacement arrived. It was a completely different model and had a US power adapter. So much for that. I would not buy another drive from this company after that experience. Cheap Dangerous, unreliable, very poor customer service.

Words cant describe my disapointment – This would have to be the worst purchase I have made in years, because at least most things work for a while even if they do suck. This harddrive didn't - bottom line if it looses power whilst in the middle of transferring data... dead.. I goggled everything & others have the same problem.. dead - time to buy a new one after 3 hours of purchase! Nothing - oh wait, the packaging was fun to open. Everything, its dead...

I have the WD 1tb portable hd and the extended hd – I have both the 1TB (larger) extended hard drive and the smaller portable 1TB drive. From my experience, I have no problems with the (larger) 1TB WD Harddrive. Of course I would back up my data on a different medium, but I haven't encountered any problems so far - I have had this drive for about 9 months now. I keep the power running (as it… Read more

goes to power conservation when not in use) and I keep it plugged into my PC.

I have recently bought the smaller version, a portable 1TB Harddrive so I can transfer files on the fly between work and home. And I haven't had any problems for the past month :)

I can say that they're both stylish, and the portable version is quite cute and aesthetically pleasing.

The portable 1TB HD has also USB 3.0 (which is 2.0 compatible). Although you won't be able to see the full speed potential due to current bottlenecks in current (computer) systems.

The USB cables are sufficiently long and including the power cable (for the Large 1TB Harddrive). Stylish, reliable and sturdy I only saw one colour (black) available in stores

Beware - Problem with USB port – USB port play up after 6 months. Very easy to loose connection. Slight nudge of the cable will turn it off. After 5 minutes, connection plays up. Doesn't want to save data anymore. Had to plug it out, re-start computer. Terrible product. Faster download than my old portable hard drive Bad USB port design

Excellent – I have found my Western Digital Elements 500 GB Hard Drive to be faultlessly reliable, generously large, stylish and compact. I only wish I could afford to have a couple more lying around as data is a funny thing the more you can store the more you use! I have seen the 500 GB models for $80 recently, what a steal!! Love the big 500 Gig size in… Read more ·  2

such a small sized drive. Got a great deal on my mine for only $99 and it just plugs straight in, no messy power supply to worry about. No cons except that I'd like to have a few more of them!

Excellent – I love my WD Hard drive and am so pleased i went with it out of the heaps of different hard drives that were around. I have brought a few over the years from different makers with out a lot of success. This hard drive performs and i am use mine everyday. I have also dropped it from not a great height but i plugged it in and it has kept going. I… Read more

have used this on a few computers and never had a problem. Great easy to use hard drive. have been using mine for a long time and no problems. None, great product.

Cheap and unreliable. Avoid if you love your data – Buyer beware. There are thousands of unhappy customers out there (incl me. The common problem is the flimsy USB micro port. Drive stopped working, I bought a new cable. Light came on with the new cable, but Windows won't recognise dive, Ie USB port became faulty. The second WD hard drive to fail for me in a month (the other inside my laptop).… Read more

Worse still, because of the non-standard hardware interface, any lost data cannot be recovered from this drive! A quick google will verify this. And WD support does not want to know us. Now I am looking for a more reliable brand. Cheap, light Unreliable, bad support service.