Western Digital 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

TL;dr – it works great. Treat it with respect, be prepared to toss the cable it comes with (because they fail) and enjoy a huge amount of storage for a reasonable amount of money.You’ve probably read a ton of reviews on external drives and have arrived here. I’ve been in the tech biz over 44 years and was there when 128Kbyte 8” floppy disks were considered advanced. I’ve used a LOT of different drives.Let’s put this drive into perspective: it is NOT a “portable drive”, it’s an external drive that you can choose to move from place to place. AS WITH ALL SUCH DRIVES, it contains precision moving parts; if you drop it, it will likely break. If you move it around when it’s operating, it probably won’t like it. If you drop your laptop, it will likely break. If you want an external drive that you can really move around, get an SSD.I purchased one of these drives for cloud-storage and archival purposes. Simply put, I needed somewhere to dump large data collections for essentially read-only access as well as having a buffer area for cloud storage synchronization purposes (lots of r/w access to the drive). It worked so well I purchased another and might even get a 3rd.Cloud storage is great for frequently accessed data, but for your video collection, your vast music collection or the 130GB of pictures your spouse took last month, you might want off-line storage. This is a great choice.Is it fast? Slower than an SSD but faster than many external hard drives out there. If you want speed, use the local SSD in your device or get an external SSD drive. If you don’t want that expense, this is still a great drive.In operation the drive is whisper quiet and runs slightly warm. You may have read about the “click of death”, well, yeah, it happened to me too. It won’t run on an overloaded unpowered USB hub (click, click due to lack of power). The cable it comes with is frankly troublesome and honestly you should invest in a replacement. Yup, click, click, click because the cable failed (fortunately I had another to hand, doesn’t everyone?). All that will happen with other drives too, so it’s nothing unusual.My system: Win10 Pro and Win10 Home on Lenovo, Surface Books and Surface Pro; works out of the box just fine.For those complaining that the drive doesn’t work with some backup software; that’s not the drives fault. For those complaining about the speed for gaming purposes, that’s not the drives’ fault either, you should have purchased an SSD.Yes, it will work with Onedrive; just create a junction from your Onedrive folder to the required folder in the external drive.mklink /J srcFolder destFolderSince you have a large capacity drive for large data sets, robocopy (part of Windows) will be your friend as well as mklink to create junctions from your main drive to connection points in external drives filesystems.What happens if the drive goes down? As with any other drive, you might have lost your data. The solution is to (gasp) purchase two drives and sync one with the other.Pro’s: 5TB of storage for <$100. Quiet, fast and gets the job done. It’s a disk drive, it’s not there to be exciting.Con’s: I didn’t like the cable; invest $6 on a better one. As with ALL DRIVES, you need to treat it nicely.

First order of business: I ordered this drive (WD Elements 5tb) and received it in about 18 hours. I checked the shipping label, and it is their proprietary delivery service. USPS, take note.The box it came in was pretty regular, no fancy presentation. Which is fine. I don't like paying for felt lining.It has one port on the back, and comes with a USB cable. I plugged it into my laptop and checked it out.Drive capacity actually reads 4.54 Tb. Which isn't unusual for larger volumes. It came formatted as NTFS. Which is great, because FAT32 has a file size limit of 4gb.Next test: I plugged it into a 3.0 Anker USB Data Hub. The drive revved up, then started clicking. I recognized those clicks as motor failures from a power drop, so the USB hub is not going to do it. This beast of a portable drive needs a main-line. It can be used in USB 3.0 or 2.0 But I highly encourage 3 for faster speeds. Especially with a volume this size (You are buying it for a reason, right?)Next test: A phone mount. Similar to a Samsung Dex setup, the device I used is a Baseus USB C mount. It connects my Note10 phone to HDMI, and...for this test...a USB 3.0 port. I wasn't sure if it would work, because the hub charges the phone, and would have to "lend" some power to the 3.0 port to power the drive. It worked. I plugged it in, and my exFAT/NTFS app fired right up. It recognized the drive, mounted it, and was ready to go. For the technical folks out there, this was by powering the phone dock with a samsung travel adapter that came with my phone. It has a variable output, but can pack a whopping 11v-2.25a (24 watts) at its highest. This 24 watts was enough to fast charge my phone, AND have the drive running.Final test: Directly into the note10 . I used a USB C - USB A adapter that came with my phone and connected them together. It worked. My phone was powering the darn thing.So there we have it. This little pocket sized drive (seriously, my wallet is larger) can be plugged into 3.0, 2.0 or directly into my phone. It came formatted NTFS, just the way I prefer.Description: I purchased a black one. As I said, it is wallet-sized. It has one port for the cable, and a small status light. The light appears to stay a solid color for both standby and active. A power failure results in a blinking status light. When the drive is spinning, you can feel a humming purr, barely audible. The casing is plastic, but solid and sleek looking. It has four non-slip dots on the bottom.Pros: Huge storage for the price, powered through USB only, NTFS formatted, small.Cons: None discovered yet.Recommended Uses: This would be a perfect drive for home network storage, office/school/home work. It would also be ideal for gaming consoles even as modern as the XBox One X. Or a handy volume for torrents. Or a handy volume for backing up a system or family photos.Possible Uses: It runs on 3.0. While Pro Gamers might chuckle at the idea, it could be used as a Steam Library. Initial load times might be slower than a built in solid state drive, sure. But so what? This is 5Tb. Portable. For under 120. It could also be used for beginner-level production. Again, it is slower than a dedicated solid state drive, of course. But for a new youtuber, or designer, or developer...this can store a lot of content.

The Western Digital WD 5TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive is a formidable companion for anyone navigating the vast terrain of digital data. Its generous storage allows one to carry an immense archive—documents, photos, videos, and more—without concern for space or compromise. Compact and unassuming, it slips easily into a bag, yet within its case lies the quiet strength of reliability, delivering files with steady precision.What impresses most is its speed and consistency. Transfers are swift, and the drive remains cool and silent under prolonged use, a testament to careful engineering. Its plug-and-play simplicity requires no fuss, making it accessible to both professionals and casual users. For those seeking a secure, high-capacity storage solution that combines durability, performance, and portability, this WD Elements drive is exceptional. Five stars for a device that handles the weight of data with quiet confidence.