Western Digital WD Elements 3 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

I purchased the 1tb Elements (WDBAAU0010HBK-NESN) for use with a Dish DVR 622.

Installation was was truly "plug and play". I simply took it out of the box, plugged it in, and it was immediately recognized by the DVR. I have since transferred about 200gb of content to/from it, and have watched content directly from the drive. So far, it is working perfectly. It automatically spins down after a few minutes of non-use, as well as when the DVR is powered off. It also spins back up automatically (less than 10 seconds) when the DVR accesses it.

One thing some people might not like: The case is designed to sit flat (as pictured), not on its side. There are four small non-skid pads on the bottom corners, but none on either side. There is no indication on the box, in the documentation, or on Western Digital's web site as to whether the drive will work properly on edge. As a general rule, WD drives are designed to operate sideways or even upside down (any... Read more

I work for Computing support at Arizona State University, and I have enough technical knowledge to be certified as a TECH JUNKIE :).

I am a photographer too, so I have tons of Photos (about 160GB), Videos, Software, Movies and Documentaries. I was looking for a simple external hard drive without any backup software included, I am smart enough to do manual incremental backups with file tree structure intact (I use GOODSYNC to backup, its very simple and easy to use and free).

I have looked at many many external HDDs and narrowed down to two models "Samsung Story 1TB - very good one too" and this one (I wanted it to be cheap too - got this for $85 on [...]). I did not go with other WD models because of their annoying Backup Software.

Coming to the WD Elements 1TB: Its much smaller than I expected. It is dead silent, I had to touch it to convince myself that it was running, when I first turned it on. Its not too heavy either. The... Read more

I bought 3 of these drives for $99 each around Black Friday. The value cannot be beat and I always prefer Western Digital due to their Advance Replacement policy.
One of the drives had issues. I always check all new drives I buy with the Western Digital Life Diagnostics program which is available for free from Western Digital. All drives passed the test without issues. The test will take at least 12 hours to complete on such a large drive. One of the drives was dropping the transfer rate after copying 500 GB to it for no reason and I had to replace it. What is really disappointing is that the drive passed the test so I have no confidence in the diagnostic program anymore.

The moment you receive the drive check your warranty online at the Western Digital website. The warranty for this model is only 1 year which I consider absolutely insufficient for a drive. The bad thing about it is that Western Digital starts counting from the manufacturing date and by the time... Read more