Everybody here is complaining about this drive being bad. While i had one since 2012 and its still working to this day (i bought 2) and both still work properly so..... maybe you guys are just rough with the HDD's.
Jucel Malonga Yeah, imo Western Digital seems to be the best in business. Followed by transcend. Toshiba and seagate drives , not so much. P.s. just bought another mypassport.
I don't care about power or speed, I just wanna use it as a storage brick and am hoping it's durable enough to last a long time, from one section of the comments this product seems to last quite a few years if taken care of properly, but now the question is, how durable is it when it comes to travel?
Hey! I bought the 1TB. I have a Mac. When I open the folder Elements there is nothing there, no subfolders, nothing. I called the customer service who doesn't answer either. Any idea what can I do next! Thanks
Finally a good review, with some read/write speeds. I'm considering buying it. Thanks! I do have a Mac and it says on the website that it's supported after formatting. As is every other hard drive out there. Takes only a minute to reformat using Disk Utility (standard on every Mac). I was also looking at the My Passport Air of which the bottom part is comprised of aluminium and it comes with a hardware encryption chip (which I don't care about). It also is €50 more expensive... considering it might have lower operating temperatures overall, which might have a positive affect on the lifespan of the drive... anyone who thinks it's worth the 50 bucks?
Hi, I attached this device to my computer. It installed and said it’s really to use. I opened it and see 4 files: autorun, WD smarter Pro Free Trial, autorun and Read me. Should I delete them or can I combine them in a separate folder and hide somewhere between my folders? This hard drive is for storage only so I don’t really need these folders on top of my folders. The previous version on WD showed a plain open empty folder once I opened it. Can you advise me if I remove them will they affect the functionality of the WD drive?
@John Len thanks. I'm literally outside the store right now to get a 1tb western digital and a 64 gb sandisk flash drive. Hope they'll last a couple years.
Can you tell me please is WD Elements portable good choice for STORING MOVIES? I don’t which had I have to choose for storing movie then watching it on my Smart Tv.
Hello, So I have a very important question before I purchase the 5 tb version. Can I install programs on it? Can I install games on it? or is it mainly just used for storage? please let me know! thank you.
Technically yes you can install whatever you want but it has to always remain connected for the apps/games to run. It's not recommended for this drive as it's mainly designed for just data storage. Plus you might get bottleneck speeds over the USB cable and it's a platter drive. Better to use an internal SSD.
msharath Manju Depends, some TV's USB ports might not output enough power to turn on the hdd. It also depends on how much content is on it. If there is too many files and folders on the hdd, the TV might not even be able to read all the data. Best to just use a USB stick.
Thanks for the video, I'm considering the 2tb and this video help me a lot. I know it's probably not the same thing. If is there any negative thing that you have seen after doing the video would be nice, I had read an incredible amount of negative reviews of the hard drives (this one, the 2tb and the Passport Ultra) and that's why I'm being so 'curious'. Thanks anyway.
it's been a few years since you have done your review. would you say it's still a good hard drive even though it was made a few years ago? if I were to buy one brand new now
I have one unit from a couple of years after this video was made. That unit has been connected to my Nvidia Shield for a couple of years and I watch content from it everyday so no issues. Remember, with any storage unit, always backup critical data to a secondary drive just in case and/or upload it to a cloud storage service.
I have installed my device, i have the elements drive showing on my disc management, but it does not show up in the back up or utilities folder, am i doing something wrong?
QUESTION!!!! Currently using a 1.5TB external drive, it is a platter drive, USB 3.0 and uses a power brick. I use it to store my VM's, installers, and I game on it. Had it 5 years, starting to show its age. Will the drive in the video suffice for said purposes? The reason I don't get an internal drive is because I take it with me here and there and it's been very convenient to be able to just plug it into the laptop or extended family's PCs etc.. but yea, it's pretty much on all the time, so I wonder if this drive can handle it.
+Izlude Tingel Considering your drive is 5 years old and the one in this review is still available here and there, then yes it should be no problem. However, I highly recommend when gaming that it's always done off the computer internal drive.
hello , i hope this account is still active i formatted the drive but i accidentally got rid of the pre-installed files , i was wondering if you still have them?
just a question I have bought the same hard drive of 2tb and I want to connect it with my tablet and phone running android .. Is it capable of doing that ?
so i have a good laptop but its hard drive broke i got a new Hard Drive that was only 100 gb, i play games alot and i just checked and uh oh i only had 7 gb left and i wanted to download things Does this mean i can download things onto this? And move my steam files and all that to the hard drive? So then ill have basically 1tb and 100gb of storage? Thanks!
It's best to do all that by having the SSD in the computer and have it running your operating system and games. External drives are best for storing data, not running games.
I would never recommend that for any external drive. For best performance always install the game on a storage drive inside the computer. SSD would be best.
Mine failed after some 100-200 hours of combined occasional backup service; only a clicking noise and could not be recognised by Windows. Trying different USB ports, cables, computer etc made no difference. Will never buy their 2.5" drives again 👎 Having said that though, I have found WD's 3.5" HDD range (both SATA-connected as well as their desktop drives that internally use 3.5" HDD's) to be extremely reliable; my daily-used computer's WD 3.5" internal drive is still going strong after 5+ years! 👍
Do we have any password recovery options for the WD Elements , I am locked out and i am not getting any recovery screen and it doesnt have a reset pin too like the other Hard Drives
+Paul Stewart sir my pc wont startup while my new wd 1tb hdd is connected, but as soon as i disconnect my hdd pc starts normally, what is the worng with my pc
+yasir hamid it may be your boot device order is set to boot from usb first and this is causing the issue, try changing this in your boot/bios settings to boot from sata hdd device or whatever your c drive is first
+oldskoolhead0 ps you will need to change this back if you ever want to reinstall an o/s from a pen drive or change it to cd/dvd if you want to reinstall from disc
i got all blue color including USB cord to the 3.0 version. I got it to just use to use connected to a smart tv. If needed I can get one two for the PlayStation 4, great drives for that. Seagates failed since they bought maxtor out. Western digital drives so far are top unless you get tO buy toschiba or Hitachi.
Haven't used the Hitachi HDD, sorry. It probably doesn't matter much anyway, WD bought the Hitachi HDD division, but the HDDs are still named Hitachi. A lot of external HDDs from WD were revealed to actually contain Hitachi HDDs.
Can you use it to game? Like on games like Rainbow Six Siege? Or games like Minecraft? I want to know if I can store about 500Gb if games into it like my Xbox, but on my computer.
Can i be able to burn cd's with a hard drive to a cell phone android connected to a external cd burner. Computers has a hard drive I thinks that's why pc's are able to burn cd's but androids probably not and the apps I downloaded did no good to burn cd's with the android. Can some 1 confirm to let me know will a cell phone hard drive allow me to burn cd's with a android ????
+SERAFIN ESQUIVEL go to disk utility you can use spotlight search to find it. make sure you drag all of your files currently on the hard drive on to you desktop or into a folder. go to partition and change it to 1 if your only using it for mac os. then change the format to mac os extended (journeyed). then click options and make sure its on guid partition table. then hit apply. after its done drag everything that you had on your hard drive before back onto it
Beware with the WD Elements hard drive. They break down and you can lose your data. I had one broken and in the process of finding a repair shop to retrieve my files.
Warning: Be very careful getting these Portable Hard drives. These Drives do not have a standard SATA interface. It uses a proprietary USB 3 board with encryption created by Western Digital.
Everybody here is complaining about this drive being bad. While i had one since 2012 and its still working to this day (i bought 2) and both still work properly so..... maybe you guys are just rough with the HDD's.
Erik
Mine does. 2TB elements, bought around the tail end of 2012.
Not a single issue.
Calvin Laarakkers I have had one since 2011 and it never failed me once. And we’re almost in 2019.....it’s still going strong 💪
Jucel Malonga
Yeah, imo Western Digital seems to be the best in business. Followed by transcend. Toshiba and seagate drives , not so much.
P.s. just bought another mypassport.
Dilexson Kanthasamy I agree with you. That’s exactly what I think. I’m also planning on buying a new one (4tb) next month. Great minds 😉
Dilexson Kanthasamy I’ve had my Seagate since 2013 and it’s still working fine to this day. I will give this brand a try though 😄
I don't care about power or speed, I just wanna use it as a storage brick and am hoping it's durable enough to last a long time, from one section of the comments this product seems to last quite a few years if taken care of properly, but now the question is, how durable is it when it comes to travel?
I purchased a 2 TB 4 years ago and it still works perfectly.
May i ask for what? Games?
Great video. Watched it yesterday and watching it now again. Great work
Hey! I bought the 1TB. I have a Mac. When I open the folder Elements there is nothing there, no subfolders, nothing. I called the customer service who doesn't answer either. Any idea what can I do next! Thanks
Yes, it does work with Macs
Finally a good review, with some read/write speeds. I'm considering buying it. Thanks!
I do have a Mac and it says on the website that it's supported after formatting. As is every other hard drive out there. Takes only a minute to reformat using Disk Utility (standard on every Mac).
I was also looking at the My Passport Air of which the bottom part is comprised of aluminium and it comes with a hardware encryption chip (which I don't care about). It also is €50 more expensive... considering it might have lower operating temperatures overall, which might have a positive affect on the lifespan of the drive... anyone who thinks it's worth the 50 bucks?
hey did you really buy?
I just bought 2 on amazon thanks for the review
does this work to this day? You bought it years ago. I'm planning to buy one tomorrow. Thanks in advance!
Yes, but bare in mind I don't plug this in for use often. Hence why it's lasting so long.
@@Babblingboolean Does this have a Password on it?
Hi, I attached this device to my computer. It installed and said it’s really to use. I opened it and see 4 files: autorun, WD smarter Pro Free Trial, autorun and Read me. Should I delete them or can I combine them in a separate folder and hide somewhere between my folders? This hard drive is for storage only so I don’t really need these folders on top of my folders. The previous version on WD showed a plain open empty folder once I opened it. Can you advise me if I remove them will they affect the functionality of the WD drive?
Babbling Boolean
I have purchased a new WD Elements harddisk.
Can i set the password for my hard disk like the other WD Passport hardisk ???
no
How is it doing after 6 years? I'm thinking about buying this instead of the toshiba or WD passport ones.
@John Len thanks. I'm literally outside the store right now to get a 1tb western digital and a 64 gb sandisk flash drive. Hope they'll last a couple years.
Can you tell me please is WD Elements portable good choice for STORING MOVIES? I don’t which had I have to choose for storing movie then watching it on my Smart Tv.
Hello, So I have a very important question before I purchase the 5 tb version. Can I install programs on it? Can I install games on it? or is it mainly just used for storage? please let me know! thank you.
Technically yes you can install whatever you want but it has to always remain connected for the apps/games to run. It's not recommended for this drive as it's mainly designed for just data storage. Plus you might get bottleneck speeds over the USB cable and it's a platter drive. Better to use an internal SSD.
@@Babblingboolean thx
Will WD Elements Portable 1TB USB 3.0 detect and recognized in TV's..??
msharath Manju Depends, some TV's USB ports might not output enough power to turn on the hdd. It also depends on how much content is on it. If there is too many files and folders on the hdd, the TV might not even be able to read all the data. Best to just use a USB stick.
Most smart TVs yeah aslong as it's formatted fat32
Thanks for the video, I'm considering the 2tb and this video help me a lot. I know it's probably not the same thing. If is there any negative thing that you have seen after doing the video would be nice, I had read an incredible amount of negative reviews of the hard drives (this one, the 2tb and the Passport Ultra) and that's why I'm being so 'curious'. Thanks anyway.
Can we encrypt this wd elements ? Coz I just got one and wen I try to google only wd passport can be encrypted (it shows). Please help
it's been a few years since you have done your review. would you say it's still a good hard drive even though it was made a few years ago? if I were to buy one brand new now
I have one unit from a couple of years after this video was made. That unit has been connected to my Nvidia Shield for a couple of years and I watch content from it everyday so no issues. Remember, with any storage unit, always backup critical data to a secondary drive just in case and/or upload it to a cloud storage service.
Great review! Very helpful! Thanks!
I have installed my device, i have the elements drive showing on my disc management, but it does not show up in the back up or utilities folder, am i doing something wrong?
QUESTION!!!! Currently using a 1.5TB external drive, it is a platter drive, USB 3.0 and uses a power brick. I use it to store my VM's, installers, and I game on it. Had it 5 years, starting to show its age. Will the drive in the video suffice for said purposes? The reason I don't get an internal drive is because I take it with me here and there and it's been very convenient to be able to just plug it into the laptop or extended family's PCs etc.. but yea, it's pretty much on all the time, so I wonder if this drive can handle it.
+Izlude Tingel Considering your drive is 5 years old and the one in this review is still available here and there, then yes it should be no problem. However, I highly recommend when gaming that it's always done off the computer internal drive.
I've just bought one last week and I'm really enthusiastic. It works perfectly! :D
Ana Korošec as of right now does it still work ? I'm thinking of buying one for my Xbox.
hello , i hope this account is still active i formatted the drive but i accidentally got rid of the pre-installed files , i was wondering if you still have them?
Account is still active but I don't have this drive anymore. Try the Western Digital website or their support.
just a question I have bought the same hard drive of 2tb and I want to connect it with my tablet and phone running android .. Is it capable of doing that ?
same question
Hello, will this work on a new chromebook?
I bought 1TB of these hard drives but I accidentally lost the software inside. where can I possibly download it? it's not available on wd websites
Can you please tell me what the model of the hard drive inside the casing is?
Can I use this to see high bit rate 4k movies? How many bit rates can this drive read/play?
Hello this works to save music and if I want to burn cd I will get songs on the computer???
Does this work on Xbox one?
Jonathan Banda yes
I have one
Jonathan Banda I'm using 500gb on Xbox one ..games load bit faster
i bought this in a physical store instead online because it is cheaper(but authentic!). worth my money to store my work files!
im confuse between wd my book and wd my passport ultra do you recommend me wich one is the best so i can decide
For those 4+ yo comments... Are your drives still working?
does it have password protection feature?which one should I buy element or ultra?
so i have a good laptop but its hard drive broke i got a new Hard Drive that was only 100 gb, i play games alot and i just checked and uh oh i only had 7 gb left and i wanted to download things Does this mean i can download things onto this? And move my steam files and all that to the hard drive? So then ill have basically 1tb and 100gb of storage? Thanks!
Can I back up from iPhone XS without any application? Direct from iPhone?
it's ok for recording tv programs? using tv function . i have lg smart tv too
Which one do you suggest? WD Elements or WD My Passport Ultra?
Can't say, I never used the Passport Ultra.
Do you know if I can connect this any way to a samsung tab 4? I can't get the tablet to recognize it. Thank you.
Which is better HDD or external drive?
i bought wd hhd 3.0
is hhd good for usage as installing and playing games from desktop pc or ssd external hard drive?
It's best to do all that by having the SSD in the computer and have it running your operating system and games. External drives are best for storing data, not running games.
I have a 1tb harddrive it's my first drive so that's why we got it but when it runs out with all my steam stuff I will get a 2tb
It hold up games good right
@@lis05h lol i left that comment when i was like 13. Im 16 now. It held games well, yes, but now i use a Seagate hard drive.
Hey thanks for the review, I couldn't get a hold of my computer guy so I watched this to find out how to work it. It was very helpful.
Do you recommend use this hard drive to install and play games?
I would never recommend that for any external drive. For best performance always install the game on a storage drive inside the computer. SSD would be best.
Mine failed after some 100-200 hours of combined occasional backup service; only a clicking noise and could not be recognised by Windows. Trying different USB ports, cables, computer etc made no difference. Will never buy their 2.5" drives again 👎
Having said that though, I have found WD's 3.5" HDD range (both SATA-connected as well as their desktop drives that internally use 3.5" HDD's) to be extremely reliable; my daily-used computer's WD 3.5" internal drive is still going strong after 5+ years! 👍
Does it still work?
Yes
Yes
yees
Can you open it up and use it as a internal hard drive
Took the blue pill. Thumbs up. Purchased online cant beat the price.
what kind of material it is made up of? Plastic? can it take a drop?
Does it suport to LED TV as media player (plug n play) ?
Do we have any password recovery options for the WD Elements , I am locked out and i am not getting any recovery screen and it doesnt have a reset pin too like the other Hard Drives
You can set a password with this one?
Is it password protected once launched on pc
#WD Elements 1TB Portable HDD Unboxing and Review: th-cam.com/video/IA7eSiC0L0c/w-d-xo.html #hdd #portablehdd #elements #wdelements
Babbling Boolean You can get external HDD pouches and longer cords very cheap on eBay.
+Paul Stewart
sir my pc wont startup while my new wd 1tb hdd is connected, but as soon as i disconnect my hdd pc starts normally, what is the worng with my pc
+yasir hamid it may be your boot device order is set to boot from usb first and this is causing the issue, try changing this in your boot/bios settings to boot from sata hdd device or whatever your c drive is first
+oldskoolhead0 ps you will need to change this back if you ever want to reinstall an o/s from a pen drive or change it to cd/dvd if you want to reinstall from disc
Will this Portable Hard Drive work with Windows 10.
does this thing work with sony smart TV ...?????
Yes, I would like to know that as well.
Loved the intro ❤️
Very informative video. Thank you for making it!
are those things real mechanical hard drives or solid state?
+floopy312 It's a platter mechanical.
floopy312 I
I have bought this with a capacity of 2TB and I have used it for a few months and it works like a charm :)
Is it working properly till now?
does it only work on windows or can you use it on, for example, google chrome os,
+oscar markham Chrome OS is a Linux Software so it should.
Yeah i know
But when i first bought one it did not work until i formatted it ...
awesome review mahn !
i got all blue color including USB cord to the 3.0 version. I got it to just use to use connected to a smart tv. If needed I can get one two for the PlayStation 4, great drives for that. Seagates failed since they bought maxtor out. Western digital drives so far are top unless you get tO buy toschiba or Hitachi.
this or hitachi touro mobile 1TB,which one is better in quality and performance?
Haven't used the Hitachi HDD, sorry. It probably doesn't matter much anyway, WD bought the Hitachi HDD division, but the HDDs are still named Hitachi. A lot of external HDDs from WD were revealed to actually contain Hitachi HDDs.
thanks for your reply guys,but I already bought other HDD,maybe next time if I need more storage I'll choose WD
Can you use it for games on your pc?
mikro70 yes
i have same hard disk but it is password protected. i forget this hard disk password please suggest me how to remove it
press more details for more details about the speed and estimated time?
Can you use it to game? Like on games like Rainbow Six Siege? Or games like Minecraft? I want to know if I can store about 500Gb if games into it like my Xbox, but on my computer.
yes
Would this work to download steam and play steam games such as CSGO?? Not wanting to upgrade my hard drive for my PC so thats why I'm asking.
yes i have gta 4 and csgo
What is a backup-program for this?
can i just keep in my pc and just keepit runnig ?
I wonder too
Can i be able to burn cd's with a hard drive to a cell phone android connected to a external cd burner. Computers has a hard drive I thinks that's why pc's are able to burn cd's but androids probably not and the apps I downloaded did no good to burn cd's with the android. Can some 1 confirm to let me know will a cell phone hard drive allow me to burn cd's with a android ????
Does work on windows 10?? @Babbling Boolean
Content in my hard disk ....doesn't show on tv screen ...what shld i do
can you do a speed test , please?thanks.
Can be use for phone and tv?
Can I download the game and play it? (the size of the game is about 20GB)
yea lol
could you make this an internal hardisk??
Clicking 'More details' will have shown what the estimated time left was. It should do anyway.
im having a hard time reformatting hard drive to be used in my mac ....please help
+SERAFIN ESQUIVEL go to disk utility you can use spotlight search to find it. make sure you drag all of your files currently on the hard drive on to you desktop or into a folder. go to partition and change it to 1 if your only using it for mac os. then change the format to mac os extended (journeyed). then click options and make sure its on guid partition table. then hit apply. after its done drag everything that you had on your hard drive before back onto it
U accent is good
hey bro how to recover data from wd elements ?? plz bro fast my 298 gb is stuck and i cannot copy anything
Does it work on ps4
Soviet Ninja yes
Can I use this to back up my PS4? I've tried it but it doesn't work can anyone help me
Hey thanks for the reply, but I already done it now and my PS4 works with 2TB. But thanks again for replying :)
@@xiiMerciless how did u do it?
if you re format the drive to fat32 it will work on your phone TV and media player.
i have New wd 1tb hdd but only showing 633 gb why can you help me
i have same tv but it sucks while casting youtube videos through smartphone
is the hard disk compatible with windows 10 ?
Yes, it's just a simple drive.
Is this only for mac?
can i use it with my LED TV ? it supports USBs .
You'll have to research if you TV can handle it, all are different.
i can use it with Panasonic TV. just plug it in and enjoy.
Beware with the WD Elements hard drive. They break down and you can lose your data.
I had one broken and in the process of finding a repair shop to retrieve my files.
so this doesn't have cloud program?
Back when I reviewed it, no.
Warning: Be very careful getting these Portable Hard drives. These Drives do not have a standard SATA interface. It uses a proprietary USB 3 board with encryption created by Western Digital.
Can i just unplug this from my tv, it seems unsafe. Its still reading the files, and I just unplug from tv
Turn off the tv and then unplug it. The tv can't read files if its off.
Can I use this on my PS4?
Yup
Mathew Akad hopefully works i just buy 1 on Amazon it will come on Tuesday
This looks like the old WD My Passport minus the softwares included
What Is The Weight Of This Hard Drive ?
I had one of these that I purchased in 2015...that piece of junk lasted no longer than a few months!!
Great video!
Does note 8 will read it?
Does it work with console?
Sir can i connet this hard drive on realme 4k tv