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

Great looking hard disk, strong materials. Easy to install and so much faster than the one I had before.

This is definitely CMR and not SMR (curse those who invented the latter). Id have preferred a 2.5 format, but this was the one on sale. And Im unclear that theres any difference between this and the WD 1TB _Red_ CMR HDD, but that the black is 7200_RPM, and the red 5400; as Im not noticing any excessive heat (I used an _unnecessary_ heatsink thats not worth the trouble to return), and my application doesnt care about the speed boost of 7200/5400, Im entirely satisfied.

I have my OS on an SSD and files (media, docs, music) on an HDD. This solution allows fast boot times, keeps my costs low, and allows me to work on OS and data separately - whether it is to clean reinstall Windows every year or so, or to replace the HDD with a larger one. Was running out of space on a 1.8 TB Seagate, and decided to jump on this WD Black 6TB. Replacement was relatively easy. I had run out of SATA cables / power cables on my setup. Opened up the ones connected to the DVD drive and plugged this drive in. The first one seemed to be a DoA - did not spin up. Amazon was great as usual and shipped the replacement super quick. The second one worked great. Since this is greater than 2TB, it was not recognized readily by Windows 10. I had to go into My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management, set up the volume, and make it online. I installed Clonezilla on USB, rebooted using the USB, and followed through with the instructions to clone my existing HDD into the new one. After cloning with CloneZilla, it is important to unplug the old drive before rebooting - since it will copy the same drive ID to the new drive, and the OS will get confused seeing 2 drives with the same ID. That done, reboot was complete. Since CloneZilla clones like for like, I could only see 1.8 TB of the drive. Another visit to the same My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management, clicking on Actions -> Rescan disks, and I was able to see the rest of the 6TB as unallocated. It was easy to extend the online volume over the entire disk to get to see the entire 6TB. Performance numbers from Crystal Disk Mark are attached as a screenshot. Please note that I reduced the test to 100MB instead of 1GB.

This drive replaces the older WD model: WD6002FZWX. I attempted to buy the older model as a brand new item on eBay, since that is the model I was replacing, and I wanted to replace it with the same make/model. However, the seller sent to me a used item instead. I had to do a return, and then wait around for a refund. Then I went to Amazon to buy the newer model WD6004FZWX - and Im happy with this purchase. The drive from Amazon has zero hours of use, and only 1 turn-on - as checked by my hard disk diagnostic software - so the drive is definitely new. The one from Amazon is quiet, fast, and reliable - and comes with a five year factory warranty, which I verified by going to the Western Digital website, and checking the serial number of my drive with their warranty lookup service. This is a good hard drive for the money - and I should have gone to Amazon first - instead of wasting my time elsewhere, trying to find an older/discontinued drive model as a new item.

While looking for the best storage options I could shy away from western digital. Bye for the black series has proven time and time again that they are reliable in terms of your ability fast in terms of right speed and quiet. I use this storage device as a secondary Storage for my gaming set up. Although just 4 TB at least for now this is more than enough for my daily needs.

I bought this drive before I moved into my new home. My PC is used for work, gaming, and anything else. Its been on 24/7 since I moved, with few exceptions. My WD Black drive is still going strong.

Because it took five months to buy all the parts I needed for my new computer, and I bought this hard drive first, I did not know that this was a dead hard drive until a few days ago. And of course, Amazon.com only gives customers 30 days to return items, not five months. So now I am stuck going through the WD support site to get a replacement drive. When, and if, I get a working replacement HDD, I will either update this post, or give a new review of this product. MACJR Update: The replacement drive arrived a few days ago, from WD. The HDD itself is very nice, and by itself, would rate 5 stars. The reason I only give this drive 3 stars is because of WD support. The anger and irritation I am feeling at WD right now should have this drive rated at one star, but as I said, the drive is actually very nice. Warning: If you are a Windows 10 user, and you buy a brand new WD drive (although I hear Seagate has, or had, this same issue), the TrueImage software found at the WD support site WILL NOT clone a good copy of Windows 10 to the new drive! The software maker is more than happy to sell you their own full version of the software, with all kinds of extras (that I did not want of need) for a rather steep price for a program an average user would seldom need. That software is priced out of my range right now. I just spent a small fortune, on my budget, building a new PC, there is no extra to throw away on a software package that only has one feature I needed. Warning 2: Be careful about the low cost and freeware options you will find in a search for HDD drive cloning software. Most of it is pure junk, that will not even work, for one reason, or another (and may get you on a SPAM list in some cases, if you give them your e-mail address). On the second day of searching, I finally found software that offered a free version of their software that would allow me to clone a Windows 10 HDD. Search for DriveClone, if you find yourself in the same situation as I was in. It worked. I am still angry at WD, even more so after trying to tell them I found a solution, only to have their support form not work for me today. I just wanted to tell them the I finally got the blasted drive up and running with a cloned copy of Windows 10, from my old drive, and that I did not need the RMA they sent me, that I did not ask for. I am also still angry at Acronis, the makers of the OEM versions of the software that WD and Seagate offer at their support sites. The full version of their software is too expensive for the average person to justify, and most of us would only rarely need it. Acronis does offer a free trial version, but the catch is that the cloning tool is disabled in the trial version. Bleep, bleepity, bleep,,, and so on. Done ranting now. MACJR

5/23/14 This WD Black 1TB is used as my primary data drive. I use a Kingston SSD as my O.S. / application drive. Win7 volume creation and format went without a hitch. The xfer of ~500GB data from my WD Red drive to this new WD Black drive went smoothly. This new Black drive has much faster read speed and very respectable write speed compared to other 7200rpm SATA drives I have used thus far. I also noticed that when I booted to win7 from it (I loaded a backup boot partition in case my SSD failed) the speed was impressive. No, not nearly as fast as my SSD but much faster than my backup WDSE and WDRed NAS drives which are also 7200RPM SATA3. Ive had Seagate 7200 RPM SATA3 drives which are not quite as nimble. Alas, it was all too good to be true:( My super speedy Black drive started clicking & chunking after appx. 2.5 mos. Hey ... This happens sometimes with hard drives ... ok, no big deal, the drive came with a 3yr. Wd warranty. This is where the fun started: Went to WD website and spent appx. 1/2hr. in RMA process. Very easy. Sent my RMA drive back via UPS label I printed from WD website (very convenient). After appx. 7 days I checked the RMA status on the WD website. WHAT??? The model# I sent them does not match the model# they are sending me. I looked up the model# they were sending me and it was the slower / cheaper Blue hdd with only 1yr warranty. I called WD to confirm. They answered the call after a few min of going thru the phone tree. The person I spoke to was very polite and spoke with no language accent issues. He said they didnt have any Black drives to send so they sent the Blue. I tactfully let him know this was not acceptable and requested a WD Red or SE drive as a replacement. You would think I was asking the United States Congress to agree on something. I have talked to 3 different reps on 3 separate phone calls with no resolution. I have had numerous business dealings with WD in the past. I was in network I.T. for over 20yrs. I have never gone through this much trouble with WD. Politely offering no resolution after hours of my time does not cut it with me. All this over a $90 hdd. Ill update when the issue is finally resolved. UPDATE 5/28/14 I called the corporate WD cust. svc. line this morning. The operator was very helpful and made sure I was connected to a live person, not voice mail. The Customer Service rep was very polite and sympathetic, but most important he resolved the issue within 30 min. The only reason it took even that long was because we were searching for an appropriate replacement drive I would be happy with since they had no (Black) drives to send me. I couldnt believe he actually offered a very generous upgrade for my time and inconvenience, which I of course accepted. I have always thought very highly of WD products. My faith in WD service is restored. I cannot upgrade the stars on my review because I am not receiving a (Black) hdd. I will give WD as a company a very favorable rating and will not hesitate to purchase from WD in the future. Update 5/29/14 My replacement drive arrived today, ahead of schedule. The drive is installed as my primary data drive and is loading as I write this. The drive is everything WD promised. I am a happy camper:) Update 11/25/14 Since my initial review I have added the following Western Digital hard drives to my systems: (2) 4TB SE NAS enterprise class 7200rpm (1) 4TB Green 5400rpm (2) 1TB Velociraptors 10,000 rpm All my W.D. drives are performing well 24x7. I run full Lifeguard diags on them once per week and have had no issues. The point is: Western Digital hard drives, as a whole, perform very well under very demanding conditions. I am chalking up the initial issue I had with the Western Digital service department as a one time fluke. They really did go out of their way to make it right. UPDATE 6/16/16 Since there are quite a few hits / comments on this review I thought I would supply a quick update All my WD drives from 2014 are still running great:) 24 x 7. UPDATE 4/6/18 Since there are quite a few hits / comments on this review I thought I would supply a quick update Green drive failed last month. WD sent replacement with no hassles and quick ship processing All other WD drives from 2014 are still running great:) 24 x 7. Thank you all for your comments. I am happy to have been helpful:)

This review is for the 6 TB black hard drive. I have owned several different brands of hard drives and several different versions of WD’s hard drives over the years, including the greens, reds and purples. I have only have had one failure in that time, which happened to be worked hard, operating on a security camera server for a few years before failing. This is my first black as I wanted a reliable drive for backing up my desktop. These hard drives have a great 5-year warranty, which is one of the big reasons, I purchased this. I connected this drive to my Windows 10 computer with no issues. It took less than a minute to get setup and going. It was pre-formatted, so it was quick to a drive letter and get going. File transfer speeds are fairly speedy for a large size drive. I do think the drives are a bit pricey, but have come down in price over the last couple years. Overall, other than being slightly pricey, these are great hard drives with good speeds and good warranty that I expect to be reliable over the long term. 4.5 stars

I bought this WD 6 TB Black drive to store videos. It appears to be fast although I am not sure I saw a big difference compared to the cheaper 5400 rpm WD drives I have owned in the past. My PC has a Samsung SSD with my operating system on it (C: Drive) and another WD HD plus this 6 TB WD Black HD. I have bought many WD drives in the past and they have been very reliable. But, this drive is very noisy. It makes an annoying humming sound that is very audible if you work in a quiet office. Someone said it is like a humming refrigerator noise and I think that is an apt description. That is unfortunate. The hum could possibly be heard over audio if you record for YouTube or something like that. I still have the drive in my PC but I plan to remove it and either use a 4 TB WD Black which I heard is quieter, or a WD Blue or just invest in a smaller and faster 4 TB SSD instead even if a 4 TB Samsung SSD is now more than twice as expensive than this 6 TB WD Black. I may use this 6 TB drive as an external backup in a USB case, i.e., docking station. The second thing I learned through this install is that transferring my old desktop internal PC drive into an external USB 3.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station did not go as smoothly as I hoped. It took some research but it turns out you cannot take your old internal HD with the data on it, put that HD in an external USB case and easily access the same data in the portable USB Hard Drive Docking Station ( I used a Sabrent USB 3.0 Sata Hard Drive Flat Docking Station). Apparently Win10 now prevents data access from a previous PC SATA internal drive that has been installed in a portable USB docking station unless you first reformat the drive in the USB case, which of course, erases your drive. So I had to put the old drive back into my PC and copy the data to my regular Passport WD Portable Drive. Then re-install and format the new WD 6 TB Drive in my Desktop PC and then transfer the data from my WD Passport to the new WD 6 TB drive. I suppose I could have tried to clone the new drive with Acronis or similar software but that would have taken installing new software. So, with Windows10, you cannot just remove your old PC SATA Desktop Drive with the data on it and put it in a USB Docking station and have access to the same data in the external USB docking station to use or to copy to your newly installed PC Internal SATA Hard Drive. Back to this WD Black 6 TB Drive. If you dont mind the humming noise, it is a nice fast drive (7200 rpm - WD Black is obviously faster than 5400 rpm - WD Blue). If, like me, you are likely to find the humming sound annoying, then get another drive. I should have listened to the other reviewers who mentioned the noise. I still like Western Digital and so unless I get a Samsung SSD, I will likely buy another WD Drive - just not this one.