Western Digital 4TB WD Black Performance Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 256 MB Cache, 3.5 - WD4005FZBX

I had high expectations when it came to this drive. My solid state was getting a little full and I was no where near done downloading files. I purchased this to more or less take over as the main drive for my files and archives and let the solid state take care of the OS. Now, why did I buy this rather than say the VelociRaptor? Well, for one, I wanted 2TB and the Raptor doesnt provide anything more than 1TB. Two, the Black is only 15% slower. To put that in some perspective, the 1TB black is ~$75 while the Raptor is ~$205; 273% cost increase for 15% more performance doesnt make much sense to me. So, lets talk about that speed. I will post CrystalDiskMark benchmark for those who love looking at those numbers, but I like to use my butt dyno as my test. Coming from the SSD, I could definitely see the difference in load times, program start-ups, image rendering, model rotating, and yata yata. With all that said, I have never felt the need to yell at my computer to hurry up; everything still moves at a quick pace that satisfies what I need. The next thing on the list is noise. I have eight fans in my case that is a foot and a half from my head. The only time I can actually hear the drive working is when I first open a program such as SolidWorks or BeamNG Drive. Even while doing the benchmark it was quiet. So, unless your computer has no fans and is close to your face, you shouldnt hear too much grunting from this guy. At any rate, this is a great drive if you need the space and speed and just cant find the want to fork out the big bucks.

Wonderful HDD. Holds plenty and is quite fast.

It works as intended so its worth in my opinion.

Greetings- I own and operate a one-man computer support company in a small town. Whenever customers hard drives need replacing, WD Caviar and Scorpio (2.5) Black drives are all I use. I dont even give the customer the option, I just order this for them and install, as these have been very dependable and trouble free, and will probably outlast the computer, these days. Quality has been excellent. The only WD drive I have had go bad out of the box was a Caviar Blue (which WD warranted), and that was the last Blue I ordered, staying with the Black. It just works (and, if it doesnt, theres a 5-year warranty). A couple of tips: There are freeware utilities out there (ala Crystal Disk Info) that will read the SMART data from a hard drive and give you a calculated guess as to the health of your drive: Good, Caution, Failing, etc. If I ever get a Caution status, I just replace the drive - I dont fool around with these things. Maybe it runs for a year or two, or is heading south rapidly, you just dont know, so why risk it and wind up in a data recovery situation. Its not a question of if hard drives will fail, but when. They all fail eventually. Ill just grab a WD Black and clone the old to new while I still have a somewhat healthy old drive. Another thing is that crashes and hard shutdowns/restarts can impact a drive negatively, causing it to fail prematurely. So keep that in mind if you have a drive go out sooner than expected. Just send it back and replace it if its under warranty. If you have to order a replacement to get up and running while your old drive is being warranted, theres a bright side to having an extra drive. You can implement a backup scheme where you clone drives and swap them out on a monthly or other schedule, and this way you have a backup drive with all your data that can be taken offsite. This is just one way to put it to use, and there are others. The above accounts are based on my years of real world experience, and your experience may be different. But there you go. Hope this is useful.

Run several stress tests. Good in all

This Western Digital hard drive is a little more expensive but it has superior reliability and performs well. I rarely have problems with Western Digital hard drives. All others seem to crash shortly after the warranty expires. Not Western Digital. They last for at least ten years.

UPDATE 3/26/15: This drive will make audible noises when accessing the data on the drive, but it gives pretty good speed. Even with the third replacement, it makes noises, so Ill just have to deal with it. The speed is pretty great. I wish this wasnt as loud as it is now. It sometimes bothers to hear the drive making access noise whenever I launch Adobe After Effects, but I can live with it. ~Simon. UPDATE 3/17/15: I received the replacement drive to find out that it has a similar (ticking sound while accessing data) symptom. I resorted to calling the WD Customer Support. The customer service representative was really helpful. He told me that the problem might be the bad cable. I switched the older SATA cable with a newer SATA cable I happened to have on the computer to find the problem still existing, so I told him about it. The support said he will send me a third replacement drive since both of the hard drives are giving me the same problems. I was a little conflicted because that meant I will have to pay for an extra return label. I voiced my concerns to the support, and the support said he will make me prepaid shipping labels--two labels--for the two (maybe not-so defective) drives I have to return. Also, the some complicated and strict return instructions happened to be for the people returning hard drives in a bulk. Im just an end-user, so the support clarified that I can just return the hard drives in the original packaging. So, people, web replacement support may sound more convenient, but calling the tech support proved to be much better. At least for me and my situation. If any of you have some noisy drives, try switching the SATA cable to a newer one. Apparently, this drive works better and tolerably quieter with a newer SATA cable (thus, the two drives I have to return may not be defective). ~Simon End of update. Old review below. == Edit Start == Well, I think I gave a horrible rating at the beginning, but bad start is a bad start, I guess. At least the clicking drive worked. The shipping fee I have to pay for returning is around 7 dollars, which was what threw me off. Also, the billing address have to be the same as replacement shipping address. That also threw me off, deducting one whole star. Anyways, I hope no more problem exists with this new drive they sent me. == Edit End == This drive works, but its making abnormally loud clicking noises whenever it is reading off or writing on the disk. Its so much louder than my other (regular) hard drives I dont feel safe using Adobe After Effects with this drive. I submitted a replacement request through WDs website, but the steps there is just horribly laid out. Its not easy navigating through the website for support. Also, you have to pay the shipping fee for replacing the already defective product with WD. Also, WD is practicing some complicated and strict return instructions. I mean, come on! You shipped the clicking drive at the first place!

Bought for storage in a new build. No complaints.

Had a 2G SSD and 2G SATA in my Dell XPS 8940. My second drive was constantly getting full from Backup. This is a nice drive pretty fast and good price. It is a bit loud when my Diskkeeper program is running on the drive but normal operation is fine.

I am using this hard drive to play FLAC and WAV files on a KDlinks A400 media player. I consider myself to be something of an audiophile and I love good quality audio. The hard drive that I had been using prior to purchasing this WD Black was the Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM006 (A 2TB hard drive). The Seagate was solid and reliable for roughly two years and I had no complaints. The reason I decided to upgrade to the WD Black 6TB hard was because it was specifically made for multimedia and I wanted to ensure I was futureproof with regards to available hard drive space, so I decided to splurge on the WD Black. When I initially installed the hard drive in my A400, I was disappointed, because the sound was bright and shrill sounding. However, I heard all sorts of detail in my music that I never heard before and overall, the volume was louder as opposed to how the Seagate sounded, so I was a bit conflicted. I had to change the settings on my receiver (Pioneer SC-79) to try to remove that bright and shrill sound. There were a few factory settings on the receiver (Upsampling, Hi-bit32 are what I remember) that I had to turn off or to the lowest setting because they were processing the sound and making it sound artificial along with it sounding bright and shrill. These changes made it sound better, but it was still bright and shrill. I was really disappointed in the WD Black, but I remembered that some electronics require a break in (especially for audio purposes), so instead of giving up and returning the hard drive I figured Id keep it and hope that it would break in. After about 90 days (not 90 days straight without shutting it off, but just playing it whenever I had time to listen to music or wanted music playing in the background), I noticed a magical thing. One morning, I sat down and turned it on and I noticed for a few hours that I did not get up because my music was sounding especially good. My music was extremely clear, the music had excellent detail (far more than the Seagate) and the volume was louder than the Seagate. The sound coming out of my speakers was something I was not prepared for (in a good way). I figured maybe I was just in some sort of a good mood and wanted to listen to music. Well, I made it a point to turn on my system for the next few days as time permitted and it sounded so much better (as opposed to Day 1) to the point of not wanting to get up and move on with my day. Another observation I noticed after the break-in is that the music has a darker background. its hard to describe what I mean but think about it like this. If you know what white noise is in the background, this hard drive seems to deliver less of that sort of sound. You hear more of the artist and instrumentation. It even made the difference between FLAC files and WAV files less pronounced. What I mean by this is that some albums I have ripped in both FLAC and WAV. WAV is the absolute best sound (between the two), but FLAC is close. it was far more noticeable on the Seagate drive, but less noticeable on this WD Black. In closing this review, if anyone is buying this for audio purposes, I suggest exercising some patience with the break in and if you are using a receiver, turn off anything that is processing the sound (similar to what I mentioned above). The audio output from this hard drive is pure. Read the owners manual and find any audio processing settings that are turned on as a default. There may be some things you leave on and you may also have to do some EQ adjustments, bass, treble, etc. but the result is well worth it. Exercise some patience with your receiver and you will be rewarded. As for my A400, there are some settings on that for optimal audio output that Ill be covering in my updated review on that whenever I get around to it. It is seriously a good piece for music. I did NOT expect anything special from a higher end hard drive other than available storage space, but I have been pleasantly surprised and I no longer regret my purchase as I did on Day 1. I highly recommend this hard drive for audio purposes. in fact, I cannot recommend it enough. Hope this helps with your purchase decision.