Western Digital Dashboard. Twice the processing power to maximize performance. USB 3.0 port insures fast transfer speeds for larger files. You wouldn’t want to lug around one of WD’s heftier desktop external hard drives unless you had to, but they make up for their bulk by featuring sizable storage capacities of up to 20TB. For denser, higher-capacity applications WD also has the WD Red Pro designed with 8-bay or larger NAS environments in mind. WD Red NAS hard drives are specifically designed with RAID error recovery control to help reduce failures within the NAS system. WD Blue SSHDs are compatible with most typical computer configurations, including PC and Mac. In this respect, WD has an edge over the competition in the sense that while Seagate is a relatively-known brand, its not a recognized brand when it comes to specific solutions and that it mostly rides in the consumer space from its branding alone. WD Purple drives have been engineered specifically for surveillance, so they’re able to withstand the extreme heat fluctuations and equipment vibrations within an DVR environment. It comes with high capacity, fast sequential write and read speed, and is affordable. When it comes to the best hard drives, the Toshiba X300 is a high-capacity, high-performance champ worth taking a look at. We purchase every product we review with our own funds — we never accept anything from product manufacturers. LaCie Mobile Drive. Small footprint and size for easy transportation. That being said, WD’s goal to clearly define its product line is more in-tune to the need to educate its own customers that continue to use products in the least optimal manner e.g. Connect the device to an alternate USB port. WD Red Pro is designed to handle an increase in workload. … The Western Digital My Passport Ultra is among the best external hard drives out there. Free shipping . Think of WD Gold as having the performance advantage of the WD Blacks, the resilience of WD Purples and the robustness of WD Reds all rolled into one. While it’s strange that the 3TB version of My Passport X is only compatible with the Xbox One, yet its 2TB variant works perfectly with both the Xbox One and Xbox 360, this lightweight external hard drive is an excellent way to store a ton of game data on your favorite Xbox console. Bearing that in mind, Western Digital now introduces the new WD hard drive product lineup featuring the new categories: WD Blue, WD Black, WD Red, WD Purple and the recently announced WD Gold. Since video game downloads can be fairly large, we recommend buying at least a 2TB external hard drive for storing game data for your home console. These connection types may include USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1, Thunderbolt, Wi-Fi, or any combination thereof. There are several different WD options — Blue for budget, Red for NAS, Black for performance, Purple for surveillance — but the 10,000rpm VelociRaptor is the king among hard disk … Prioritized write-operations for maximized surveillance performance. Optimized for Windows 10, My Passport Ultra is a USB-C-ready external hard drive that includes a USB 3.0 adapter, simple-to-implement password protection, and 256-bit hardware encryption features. Quick USB 3.0 connect offers fast data transfer speeds. Larger size of the hard drive makes it difficult to carry around or to use with laptops. Unix and Linux operating systems are not supported by Western Digital. LaCie Mobile Drive is a stylish external hard disk that offers an automatic … Comes with automatic backup and hardware encryption software. While its not a problem for us enthusiasts to familiarize ourselves with these products, WD understands the challenges of getting consumers to get acquainted with the product lineup to answer the basic question of the what’s the proper, right or best WD hard drive for a certain task. WD Blue hard drives offer capacities ideal for general usage. Need a backup option -- or just more space? Did You Upgrade Your PC Over the Holidays? Built-in encryption software is easy to use. We use our Dell PowerEdge R730 with a Windows S2012 R2 VM as an FIO load generator. WD Red hard drives are made with NAS-usage in mind and this involves multiple drives working in conjunction with each other in a single chassis. For your convenience, our preferred WD external hard drives are listed here, and we can’t recommend them highly enough. an office PC with a WD Purple drive or a NAS with WD Blacks. If you’re more on light usage or prefer better power and thermals, the 5400RPM model is the preferred choice. WD Black hard drives are available up to 6TB capacities and will 8TB variants is in the foreseeable future. Which operating systems are WD external hard drives compatible with? WD has recently revamped its lineup of hard drives to aid the company in making its product port folio more approachable to consumers. WD Gold hard drives feature support for dense storage arrays for any data-center application requiring high-capacity, availability and performance. GoodSync for WD. This is where it gets really intricate as we get into the more specific applications for WD hard drives, in this case the WD Red drives. WD Black hard drives combine a high performance 7200 RPM spin speed, 16 MB cache and SATA 6 Gb/s interface for the ultimate in power computing for notebooks. Red NASware increases drives’ compatibility with devices such as TV, stereo and more. Why settle for the default when you can get a device in your favorite color instead? While there may be a few WD external hard drives that seem like they’d be a good fit at first glance, choosing the best one for you may come down to something as simple as locating a specific model with a connection port compatible with your device. Transcend is one of the most premium brands in data storage devices, whether it is sd card, card reader, or hard disks. More than 10-year of corporate IT experience as well as consumer IT journalism. Loosing one would take hours upon hours (or days) to recover data when (hot) swapped. WD Blue is a kind of PC hard drive. No DataCenter admin in their right mind would use high-cap drives in their place of work. Free shipping . WD Purple drives are optimized to support up to 32 HD cameras. Performance-wise, WD Black hard drives are the fastest in terms of read, write and access speeds. It has up to 4TB of memory and is available in your choice of silver or blue. An external hard drive is an excellent way to keep your priceless data safe, and Western Digital (WD) has been in the business of making top-tier external storage devices since 2006. Add value to your business by enabling your employees to quickly share their files and back up folders reliably with WD Red Pro NAS hard drives in your NAS solution. BestReviews wants to be better. Compatible with Western Digital's online backup software. Buying guide for best wd external hard drives, WD 5TB My Passport Portable External Hard Drive, WD 3TB My Passport Wireless External Hard Drive, Black 2TB P50 Game Drive Portable External SSD, 2TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive, WD 28TB My Book Duo Raid External Hard Drive, WD 6TB My Book Duo RAID External Hard Drive, Easystore 10TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive. Tuned for write-intensive, low bit-rate, high stream-count applications typical to most surveillance applications. If you have a CCTV surveillance installation, WD Purple is your top choice for maximum surveillance performance. WD Blue hard drives deliver solid performance and reliability while providing you with all the space you need to hold an enormous amount of photos, video, and files. Owner and lead reviewer for Back2Gaming. High performance, high capacity, high reliability, and cutting-edge technology make up WD Black, the ideal drive for those who demand only the best. Of course, you’ll want to ensure that the device that you are considering shares the same connection types as your computer. WD Purple hard drives are intended for systems supporting up to 8 hard drives and 32 cameras. Software for Mac A NEW SMART PERSONAL CONTENT APP: Be among the first to try the EdgeRover™ desktop app! WD makes it naming campaign more pronounced with a slogan for each line as follows: Whatever application you may have, the key thing that WD wants you to know is that they have a storage solution for every situation. He’s been with you since dial-up and the ISA slot. If you have a NAS device at home or a storage server in the office that require multiple drives to operate simultaneous serving up data to users, then the WD Red hard drive is for you. Once you have ejected the device, it will be safe to remove its connection cable from your computer. While they may be functional, performance can still be more ideal. BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing, and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. We’ve diligently researched a number of external hard drives from Western Digital, so we know exactly how to find the best ones for storing your most valuable data. In this review, we look at the drives in a RAID6 configuration inside our QNAP TS-1685 NASfor testing and comparing the data to the Seagate IronWolf 14TB HDDs in the same configuration. NAS Optimized – WD RED. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. You can name your external hard drive by navigating to the My PC window, right-clicking your device, and clicking Rename. WD Purple NV hard drives offer premium protection in harsh environments where surveillance systems are commonly installed including outdoor cabinets where moisture and other natural elements may be present. That said, while a hard drive by its very function will remain as a storage solution by all accounts, the performance and quality of the hard drive will still be dependent in the nature of the application. WD Black hard drives also benefit content creation and multimedia professionals who need to work with large files such as high-resolution photos or 4K UltraHD videos. WD 1TB 3.5" Desktop Hard Disk Drive WD10EZEX 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB HDD HD. What should I do if I cannot access the data on an external hard drive from my computer? On the other hand, while these compact external hard drives are easy to carry, they rarely have the capacity of an external hard drive made for your desktop computer. WD Blue offers the features and entry-level capacities that are ideal for your computing needs. Cables may warp, bend, and disconnect from their connectors over time, so try an alternate connection method if you can. The list of major considerations for buying a new WD external hard drive includes portability, data security, and most importantly, storage capacity. WD Black hard drives come with a 5-year warranty. Some of WD’s external hard drives are available in a range of designer colors, including yellow, red, blue, and orange. Learn about the products you’re wondering if you should buy and get advice on using your latest purchases. With an MTBF of up to 1 million hours, the WD Red drive with NASware 3.0 is designed for the 24×7 environment. Surveillance has become a key security tool in this world and every second, every frame is important. Connect the external hard drive to another computer. In recent years, WD has had numerous new lineups join its existing WD Green, WD Blue and WD Black consumer portfolio of hard drive products with the release of the WD Red and WD Purple hard drives.