- WD Western Digital 8TB WD_Black Performance Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 256 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD8002FZBX

Sometimes you gotta sacrifice silence for performance. This being a spinning disk it makes a bit of noise when reading/writing, however it's okay and fully functional. Great speed and useful for new builds.

The Black series of drives have never failed on me, I stick with that. Tons of space and fast!

I've been using this hard drive for several weeks now, and it has truly exceeded my expectations. If you work with large files like video projects, renders, or game libraries, this hard drive is an excellent investment. Loading and transfer times are fast for an HDD, and the 256MB cache makes a huge difference when moving large folders. It's a SATA drive, so don't expect the speed of an SSD, but within its category, it performs very well. I have it mounted in a tower for video editing and storing old projects, and so far, I've had zero annoying noises or overheating. It stays cool and stable. Something to keep in mind: this model is more expensive than a regular hard drive, but it's clearly built to last. If your workflow is demanding or you want a robust drive for your game or media library, the price is justifiable.

UPDATE #3: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND NOT PURCHASE THIS DRIVE. It has been three months and I still don't have a working drive. See Update #2 below about "PRIME INVENTORY." On March 18th, they sent an email saying that they would notify me when my replacement drive was ready for delivery. Today, April 20, I still don't have it. This should be deemed a deceptive trade practice. Seriously . . . STAY AWAY FROM WESTERN DIGITAL. They are not the same company we grew up with. At this point, I feel like they are doing everything in their power to make me go away, effectively stealing (by neglect) my $250. I feel like posting all the emails, just to prove this is not the rant of some lunatic. They are that bad. (UPDATE #3A: Literally on chat with WD Customer Service right now and here's a quote: "Now , as a token of apology WD team have created another Advance RMA - XXXXXXXX on 04/19/2025 under which we will be shipping our Prime drive first to you." Notice the term "Prime drive." What a horrible disregard for their customers. ORIGINAL REVIEW:I purchased this in November 2024, but did not install it until January, 2025. When I did, it did not work. Recognized as 0MB and would not initialize. Tried three different computers and three operating systems (W11, W10, and Linux). Too late to return to Amazon, so I dealt with WD's awful customer service and it took almost two weeks to get a replacement. When I got it, it, too, didn't work--tried again on three different computers and operating systems--my brand new Dell would not allow me to initialize the drive. Still haven't heard back from WD customer service--it's been five days. In the meantime, I purchased two Toshiba drives, and both of them are working flawlessly and were initialized immediately. I'm done with WD. I can accept a defective product, but I cannot accept their horribly broken customer service channel. I will never buy from WD again. UPDATE 1: Wrote them on Feb 28, 2025. As of 5 p.m. on March 6, still have not heard from them. Wrote again, today. UPDATE 2: WD says I have to return the first defective drive before they can send me the THIRD drive (at which time I will have to return the second defective drive). Oddly enough, WD said "Now, to resolve this issue, I will help you with an another replacement drive but this time I'll make sure that the drive will be provided to you via the prime inventory." Prime inventory? That sounds like a rather poor trade practice if they have different classes of inventory for ostensibly the same product. Have they been shipping "non-prime" inventory? What a joke. So far, this has consumed two months of my life. I wonder if they are thinking that if they make it just hard enough to deal with them, then I'll just say to heck with it and eat the $200+ I spent on this stupid drive. Really: shame on Western Digital.

It has good storage and is reliable.

I need to retract my previous comments and I decided to upgrade this from 1 star to 4 stars. This thing made a racket when I first got it. It sounded like marbles rattling around in a tin can. But now that I have used it for a few days, it seems to have quieted down a bit. Maybe the mechanical parts needed to wear in a little. I really don’t know. But the noise is now down to a tolerable level. It’s still a little louder than I would like, but I can live with it. In fact I’m going to order another one for a second machine that needs a hard drive replacement. I have been using WD drives exclusively for the last 15 to 20 years and I have to admit that they are reliable. I can usually get a full 5 years out of them before they start to flake out. In the end, my data is more important to me than a quiet work environment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have been using WD Black drives for many years now and have never had problems with any of them. And they have always been very quiet drives. But this thing is LOUD!!! It was quiet when I used Clonezilla to make a duplicate of the old drive because it was just doing a sequential sector by sector copy. But when it has to do random access reads and writes it is ridiculously loud! Did I get a lemon? Is this an indication that the drive is going to fail? I might have to buy a drive from a different manufacturer and then use this one as a backup drive. I WISH I HAD NEVER BOUGHT THIS THING!!!

Bought this as a storage drive inside my PC and having 10TB of internal storage is awesome! It's fast, it was easy to connect and it adds a ton of storage for my photos. One possible downside is that when the disk is being accessed, it can be a little noisy. Maybe I'm just used to SSDs?

Western Digital hard drives are my choice when I pick a new hard drive. I used to live near their California HQ and was a former head of a large PC user group and learned WD has good quality. This drive is more expensive than others because i researched which one was good for handling heavy graphic read and write's when using video editing software and the file was on an external drive. This is a SATA drive and runs the faster 7200 RPM with a large cache. You have to either install this an internal drive, or buy an external drive case for this, with cables, etc. This is a do it yourself product and not for novice users. This drive is NOT a consumer product. You have to go to the website to get the instructions on how to format this drive, etc. That is what they mean by Bulk/OEM labels - it lacks any extras included with consumer hard drives in a box. You have to order the cables you need, and download the configuration software from the WD website, which is fairly easy to do. If you don't want to configure a drive like this, find a consumer external drive with the CD, cable, etc. and buy it instead. You need to know if your PC will handle large partitions, ie. 2 TB, or you have to format it with several partitions due to older operating systems. I did not buy a separate external drive box, but bought an Anker external open case with power supply and capability to connect to both USB 3.0 AND eSata connections. I did that because using the eSata port on my old laptop was much faster than 2.0 USB. But, I can move the box and drive to my desktop which has a USB 3.0 add in card. Both eSata and USB 3.0 are much faster transfer speeds than USB 2.0 and this drive can handle it. I have included pictures of the drive working fine in the Anker case so you can see both in use. Note: Hard drives have standard connections to the case or internal slot for power and data transfer. The ability to provide USB 3.0 or eSata connections is built into the case, not the hard drive. Both USB 2.0 and eSata require special cables, so don't forget to get them if you do this. In my case, since I used the external "open" Anker docking station, I didn't need cables. I just slid the drive into the docking slot and the connection for data and power was made. The Anker unit also has an on off switch. Of course, if you use this drive internally in your system, that is a different process and involves other tasks if you make it your primary drive with an operating system. I did not do that, so mine is used primarily for a video data file drive and has not been setup with booting capability. You can't go wrong with Western Digital. (Unless they sell out to someone,then watch what changes in quality). You can get this drive in 1 TB, 2 TB or 3 TB versions. I got the 2 TB version and it cost about 30% more than WD drives with lower speeds and features.