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

The main reasons I bought this: IT was NOT an SMR drive. I needed space. I bought this as a replacement for a Seagate 3TB drive as I had run out of room. The drive runs hot though. So far Ive only run it in an USB interface in a docking station but the drive got as hot as 48C before copying 3.8TB of data to it. I shut it down to allow it to cool down several times just to be cautious. I still think that this number is well within the range of max. temps. In a case with fans I hope not to expect to see those numbers. Fast. Evening using the USB 3.0 interface I didnt see throughput drop below 60MB/s but mostly it was around the 160MB/s which is about 30MB/s than my WD 4TB red drive. 7200RPM vs 5?00RPM. It matters. The 5 year warranty puts my mind at rest on how long this will last. While Ive been working with PCs since 1983 I have only had 2 drives fail before replacing them for larger drives. Those failed within the first year or less. Im confident that the WD Black wont be do that after filling it already with 3.8TB of data.

I bought this as a second hard drive. I got the black version because I use it for audio storage so I want extra reliability. Its been great. 9 months of daily use and no problems. Nothing to report - it seems fast enough as far as platters go, and it just works. Installation was a breeze. I did need a hard drive kit for a cable so make sure you have that. And make sure you have mounting brackets ready -- my case already had them, I just needed the cable.

You cant beat Western Digital hdds in my opinion. So far this hdd for gaming has lived up to beyond what i expected.

Some people might find it stupid to buy a drive like this just for storage but after trying a couple of other brands and dealing with crap like SMR and loud and flat out defective drives from other brands its worth it in my opinion. This drive is pretty loud when seeking but is silent otherwise and I can deal with that. Im happy I was able to finally get a decent drive.

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!

Ordered this drive to expand the storage of my computer. It wasnt prime shipping, but it arrived much faster than estimated (delivered in 2 days!). The shipping packaging was very good, they used proper hard drive packaging. The drive was in a special holder and inside a separate box as well. It also came with an SATA cable, which was very nice. Install was just plugging in the power and data and running disk management. Everything running great.

First one was defective and returned, second one works with no issues so far.

Working good after 1500 hours so far: smartctrl -a /dev/sdd: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 175 174 021 Pre-fail Always - 2250 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 246 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1446 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 106 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 247 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 111 103 000 Old_age Always - 32 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 user:~# sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdd /dev/sdd: Timing cached reads: 7414 MB in 2.00 seconds = 3708.38 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 514 MB in 3.01 seconds = 171.04 MB/sec user:~#

Run several stress tests. Good in all

It works as intended so its worth in my opinion.