WD 5TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive for Windows, USB 3.2 Gen 1/USB 3.0 for PC & Mac, Plug and Play Ready - WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN

I use these as back-up storage drives for my Sample libraries. I use them in pairs using the second drive to manually back-things up as needed. I like the large storage capacity and the price point. I have a couple dozen external drives including SSD. The speed of these via USB 3 gets the job done. The security factor, knowing if something happens my work is safe & backed-up, is worth the price of admission. That said in the last 15 years I haven't a single external drive fail. I'd like to think it's because I take of my equipment and don't move these around. I use SD cards when I need to transport my Beats, Samplea and DAW sessions. But it's more likely down to chance. I got thumb drive that was DOA once (irrelevant) Anyway, I make/produce music for a living, if something happens to my files there's no insurance that will make-up for the 1000s of hours I spend chopping/flipping and editing Samples or stacking/layering and Sound designing. Latet the files are used during beat creation. I have a system that depends on having reliable drives I also have over 100K Rare Vinyl LPs digitized on other drives. WD is my go-to for externals but I've used multiple different brands over the years. Okay let's run through the tags. These are not portable drives. I guess you could put them in a case but nah. Power source is an adapter with a barrel that plugs into the drive. My project studio at home is all Win/PC but I also use Mac's at a commercial studio. Compatibility depends on how you format the drives. The Mac computers at my commercial studio are connected to Lacie & Glyph drives for the most part. When I transfer files back & forth, I use an SD card reader/writer and my Akai MPC Files are universal. If you use these with a Mac format the drive for Mac OS. Using a PC format the drive for Windows. These aren't backwards compatible. You can't plug one into a Mac, eject the drive and plug the same drive into a Windows PC. It's one or the other. Is it technically possible with dual boot and all that, probably but you should format the drive for the system you're using it with. Format accordingly. Drive size 12TB or 24TB it's up to you. I like the lego style drive design, those are the coolest drives I have style wise. These are fingerprint magnets. But they look fine. See included photos. Hopefully that covers the tags, The drives are good I'll continue to grab these as needed. Good luck.

My desktop is Linux Mint (Ubuntu). As with most USB-based, external/peripheral products now including my WD 8T Elements drive (this product) and also Blu-ray players and others I have bought in the past, this just works. Plug it into a USB 3 port and it will just mount, no need to format or worry about it.My through-put was typically on the order of 50M/second during copies. I'm only using this drive to back up massive copies of media.Note that the WD 8T Elements drive doesn't run off USB-provided power like some of the smaller drives, but needs the accompanying wall wart/power adapter. That's only a very minor inconvenience.

I had a problem with another company so now I am all in with Western Digital. Haven't had any problems after a few years of use. I've bumped into it a few times and even dropped it from about a foot and a half and the little guy works great. Unfortunately 2TB isn't enough for information nowadays. I have had another company's external drive die on me after a few months, but WD has yet to let me down.

This is perfect for streamers or influencers who have just a ton of files or clips that they don’t need but like to have. Takes a load off your pc’s hard drive, and saves so much room. I’ll be using this for years before I fill it, and they even offer higher TB versions. Such an easy set up, and easy to use as well

Excellent product so far, came working out of box without a problem, included all cables. Runs quietly. Only downer is that the real available storage on here is 7.2TB. Kind of terrible that more than half a TB is just in system files that are untouchable. The software included seems alright, no problems with it. Drive pulls up quickly on the computer, but transferring files to the drive is sloooooow. Not sure I would want to run programs directly off this. Or maybe just use the USB-C to USB-C connection, not USB C to A, even if it is 3.2.

I've been using this drive for quite a while. And, although I do not use it all the time, I do use it to backup photos and documents, maybe four times a year. It works well for me, but it is a little slower than my SSD drive. Still, it's sturdy.

My computer was running out of space with all my family videos and pictures. When you get to the end of a hard drive capacity, it slows your computer.I attached this external hard drive with huge capacity and redirected the file destination for video, pictures, and documents to this drive.Freeing up space on the internal hard drive revive the life of my computer. Things no longer crawl when I click on something.It was a pretty easy installation and it’s pretty straightforward. There’s nothing to it other than plugging in a USB cord to your computer..I have mine sitting on the side of my computer tower it’s sleek and looks good.Definitely worth the value of hard drive capacity that you get. I have it running on Windows 10 and it is Windows 11 compatible as well.