This external 16TB desktop hard drive does look a little flimsy. Build quality is fair. If you intend to move the unit every so often, I recommend a more robust solution. I can't comment on reliability but can say that WD hard drives are well regarded.

I have an embarrassingly large number of backup drives. Part of it is as a commercial photographe...

I have an embarrassingly large number of backup drives. Part of it is as a commercial photographer it’s a necessity – at last count I have something approaching a quarter of a million photos in my lifetime file. The other reason is I’ve learned the hard way to back up all of my work, then back it up again, and then make sure to make another backup to take off premises for safety. This is my third WD MyBook. There’s no real reason this product exists, there are cheaper ways to get a backup drive and use it with a computer, but these are convenient, dependable and reasonably priced. I bought this one to do a mega consolidation of everything I have on many different media, except for my photography. WHAT I LIKE The form factor is simple, just a plastic monolith case ... MoreI have an embarrassingly large number of backup drives. Part of it is as a commercial photographer it’s a necessity – at last count I have something approaching a quarter of a million photos in my lifetime file. The other reason is I’ve learned the hard way to back up all of my work, then back it up again, and then make sure to make another backup to take off premises for safety. This is my third WD MyBook. There’s no real reason this product exists, there are cheaper ways to get a backup drive and use it with a computer, but these are convenient, dependable and reasonably priced. I bought this one to do a mega consolidation of everything I have on many different media, except for my photography. WHAT I LIKE The form factor is simple, just a plastic monolith case that can be used either horizontal or vertical. I choose to use it vertical to take up a minimal amount of desk space. I like to keep it right there in front of me as a visual reminder to be sure to do a daily backup. IMPROVEMENTS WD seems to have this product line down pat, it’s old technology that has proven itself and there’s not a lot they can do to make it better. The most positive thing I can say about it is that they wisely don’t load it with a lot of useless bloatware to try to make it look more important to you. There are just two relatively small apps, one for PC and one for Mac for those who like to use backup software. Both files are easily deleted in seconds if you don’t want them. I choose not to use automated backup software, I simply copy entire files and folders from one drive to another so there’s no guessing where they are or what they’re named. OPINION I find it unfortunate that here we are deep into the twenty-first century and there are still reviews about how noisy or slow these drives are. Your’re not saying anything new by bringing that up, yes they are, if that bothers you don’t buy a hard drive with a spinning platter. There are those who will say, and count me in on that, mechanical hard drives continue to be used because they are the safest media we can use, the chances of recovering a corrupt or lost data file is highest with these than any other media. The method being used to use a moving recording head back and forth on a revolving disk is going to cause some noise and it’s also going to be a bit on the slow side. I find that the speed is only a factor when I first get a drive and I’m copying huge amounts of data to it, and yes that can take hours. After that most backups are cumulative and how long they take has never been an issue for me. And like I said, I keep my WD right in front of me on my desk and they’ve reduced the vibration and noise to the point that it is almost imperceptible. Because this product does exactly what I expect it to do and because of my positive experience with the MyBook product line I believe this earns a full five stars.

I have two other My Book units, both 4TB. One was getting dangerously close to filling up so I de...

I have two other My Book units, both 4TB. One was getting dangerously close to filling up so I decided to update it with this 8TB unit. Plugged it in and my Window 7 recognized it immediately. No problem. Spent almost two days copying everything over from the 4TB unit. I got a warning from Windows the new 8TB unit was almost full. How could an 8TB unit get as full as a 4TB unit by copying the files? Well, turns out the 8TB unit was formatted with exFAT, not NTFS. Also, when I rebooted my PC, it failed to boot at all. Unplugged 8TB drive and it booted fine - plugged in back in and my files were there - albeit the drive was still showing as almost full. I checked one folder on the 4TB source against the 8TB destination and both contained the same number of files and ... MoreI have two other My Book units, both 4TB. One was getting dangerously close to filling up so I decided to update it with this 8TB unit. Plugged it in and my Window 7 recognized it immediately. No problem. Spent almost two days copying everything over from the 4TB unit. I got a warning from Windows the new 8TB unit was almost full. How could an 8TB unit get as full as a 4TB unit by copying the files? Well, turns out the 8TB unit was formatted with exFAT, not NTFS. Also, when I rebooted my PC, it failed to boot at all. Unplugged 8TB drive and it booted fine - plugged in back in and my files were there - albeit the drive was still showing as almost full. I checked one folder on the 4TB source against the 8TB destination and both contained the same number of files and were the same size - 305GB. But the size on the disk itself jumped from 305GB on the 4TB drive to 863 GB on the 8TB drive. Finally decided to reformat the 8TB unit to NTFS since (1) I gained no additional storage space and (2) my PC would not boot with the 8TB drive attached. So now I'll spend another day recopying almost 3.8TB of data - again. If you are in a Windows-only environment (i.e., no Macs to share data with), reformat your new drive to NTFS before using.

Inside is WD80EZZX. 5400rpm Helium drive. From my performance benchmarks it looks like a PMR driv...

Inside is WD80EZZX. 5400rpm Helium drive. From my performance benchmarks it looks like a PMR drive rather than SMR one (e.g. Seagate).