With a capacity of 4TB, it can be used for additional storage or for backing up your videos, photos, music, documents, and other files. The Elements drive connects to your computer with a USB 3.0 port, is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and is formatted as NTFS so Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 systems will recognize it right out of the box. For Mac users, the drive can be formatted to work with Mac OS. The Elements drive quickly backs up and retrieves files by utilizing USB 3.0 technology and draws power from a USB bus-powered port on your device, meaning that it requires no other additional external power source. Automatic data backups have also been simplified with free software that lets you create scheduled backup times.
With a capacity of 4TB, it can be used for additional storage or for backing up your videos, photos, music, documents, and other files. The Elements drive connects to your computer with a USB 3.0 port, is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and is formatted as NTFS so Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 systems will recognize it right out of the box. For Mac users, the drive can be formatted to work with Mac OS. The Elements drive quickly backs up and retrieves files by utilizing USB 3.0 technology and draws power from a USB bus-powered port on your device, meaning that it requires no other additional external power source. Automatic data backups have also been simplified with free software that lets you create scheduled backup times.
With a capacity of 4TB, it can be used for additional storage or for backing up your videos, photos, music, documents, and other files. The Elements drive connects to your computer with a USB 3.0 port, is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and is formatted as NTFS so Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 systems will recognize it right out of the box. For Mac users, the drive can be formatted to work with Mac OS. The Elements drive quickly backs up and retrieves files by utilizing USB 3.0 technology and draws power from a USB bus-powered port on your device, meaning that it requires no other additional external power source. Automatic data backups have also been simplified with free software that lets you create scheduled backup times.
With a capacity of 4TB, it can be used for additional storage or for backing up your videos, photos, music, documents, and other files. The Elements drive connects to your computer with a USB 3.0 port, is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and is formatted as NTFS so Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 systems will recognize it right out of the box. For Mac users, the drive can be formatted to work with Mac OS. The Elements drive quickly backs up and retrieves files by utilizing USB 3.0 technology and draws power from a USB bus-powered port on your device, meaning that it requires no other additional external power source. Automatic data backups have also been simplified with free software that lets you create scheduled backup times.
Last updated at 03/21/2026 12:11:52
Western Digital WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5" Portable External Hard Drive - Slim Light Durable Shock Proof Black Plug Play NTFS for Windows 10/8.1/7 |
Western Digital Elements Portable external hard drive 4 TB 2.5" USB 3.2 Gen 1 (3.1 Gen 1) Black
Western Digital WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5' Portable External Hard Drive - Slim Light Durable Shock Proof Black Plug & Play NTFS for Windows 10/8.1/7
Delivery $10
Western Digital WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5' Portable External Hard Drive - Slim Light Durable Shock Proof Black Plug & Play NTFS for Windows 10/8.1/7
Free delivery
WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5" Portable External Hard Drive - Black
Free delivery
originally posted on ebay.com
Yes; - It did its purpose. Just a little chattery which is not overly obvious, but definitely detectable. Quietly please - as you work. Apart from that, all is good. Make sure you know what youre doing when formatting? - Get informed advice if unsure, before you end up bricking it. Set up with patience and lucidity. Though I wish I had gone for the 8TB instead. With that size you can rest back a bit for around 18 months to 2 years. Stretch my feet out - Roomy. Damn it, -!why not go for 12TB - if the item backs-up its price? The option choice - is yours! Enjoy.
originally posted on westerndigital.com
Good hard drive, price is good. Don’t install the software or make an account if you have a Mac. The software has trouble seeing the drive and will also scan other connected drives. Just reformat the drive.Dimensions are nice and small and you don’t need a separate power source.
originally posted on westerndigital.com
Great drives that are light, portable and deliver fast speeds.I've just bought a second one for backups!I am a happy WD product user. The quality is good and these drives look & feel modern.These drives are very portable due to their small size.Thanks to USB 3.0 you don't need an external power supply as they can operate from just a single cable. On the older USB 2.0 you will not get the speed benefits of USB 3.0 but when connected to USB 3.0 they can transfer data fast.The USB cable length is perfect. Not too lengthy which would get in the way and not too short making it difficult to connect. It's about 30cm (1 ft) I believe.They are decently priced as well. Prices have risen recently but I've bought the 5TB version at a reasonable price still.These ... MoreGreat drives that are light, portable and deliver fast speeds.I've just bought a second one for backups!I am a happy WD product user. The quality is good and these drives look & feel modern.These drives are very portable due to their small size.Thanks to USB 3.0 you don't need an external power supply as they can operate from just a single cable. On the older USB 2.0 you will not get the speed benefits of USB 3.0 but when connected to USB 3.0 they can transfer data fast.The USB cable length is perfect. Not too lengthy which would get in the way and not too short making it difficult to connect. It's about 30cm (1 ft) I believe.They are decently priced as well. Prices have risen recently but I've bought the 5TB version at a reasonable price still.These drives are Plug & Play (at least on Windows machines). Just connect the drive and start using it.I highly recommend connecting your drive to a USB port either directly on the motherboard (back of computer) or from your PC case (front/top panel).I connected one of these drives to a USB hub and the drive started making a scary clicking noise.Turns out my USB hub is dodgy and doesn't always provide the correct power! So be careful using USB hubs for data transfer.AFAIK, the 5TB drive is not an SSD (where the others are I believe) but a HDD which makes it a bit more vulnerable. You can hear/feel the spinning drive inside the case. It's not loud though.Something to keep in mind.In 2011 I experienced severe data loss, using 1.5TB hard drives from another brand. Since then I switched to WD and have never looked back!I own many internal and external WD drives and haven't had one fail on me yet. This tells me WD drives are good quality and reliable.Nonetheless, drives can (and ultimately will) fail so always make sure you have a backup of your data. I keep 1:1 exact data copies/clones (and even that is technically not safe enough).These drives are great for that purpose.
| General | |
| Device Type | Hard drive - external (portable) |
| Capacity | 4 TB |
| Interface | USB 3.0 |
| Features | NTFS formatted |
Western Digital WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5" Portable External Hard Drive - Slim Light Durable Shock Proof Black Plug Play NTFS for Windows 10/8.1/7 |
Western Digital Elements Portable external hard drive 4 TB 2.5" USB 3.2 Gen 1 (3.1 Gen 1) Black
Western Digital WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5' Portable External Hard Drive - Slim Light Durable Shock Proof Black Plug & Play NTFS for Windows 10/8.1/7
Delivery $10
Western Digital WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5' Portable External Hard Drive - Slim Light Durable Shock Proof Black Plug & Play NTFS for Windows 10/8.1/7
Free delivery
WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 2.5" Portable External Hard Drive - Black
Free delivery
Yes; - It did its purpose. Just a little chattery which is not overly obvious, but definitely detectable. Quietly please - as you work. Apart from that, all is good. Make sure you know what youre doing when formatting? - Get informed advice if unsure, before you end up bricking it. Set up with patience and lucidity. Though I wish I had gone for the 8TB instead. With that size you can rest back a bit for around 18 months to 2 years. Stretch my feet out - Roomy. Damn it, -!why not go for 12TB - if the item backs-up its price? The option choice - is yours! Enjoy.
Good hard drive, price is good. Don’t install the software or make an account if you have a Mac. The software has trouble seeing the drive and will also scan other connected drives. Just reformat the drive.Dimensions are nice and small and you don’t need a separate power source.
Great drives that are light, portable and deliver fast speeds.I've just bought a second one for backups!I am a happy WD product user. The quality is good and these drives look & feel modern.These drives are very portable due to their small size.Thanks to USB 3.0 you don't need an external power supply as they can operate from just a single cable. On the older USB 2.0 you will not get the speed benefits of USB 3.0 but when connected to USB 3.0 they can transfer data fast.The USB cable length is perfect. Not too lengthy which would get in the way and not too short making it difficult to connect. It's about 30cm (1 ft) I believe.They are decently priced as well. Prices have risen recently but I've bought the 5TB version at a reasonable price still.These ... MoreGreat drives that are light, portable and deliver fast speeds.I've just bought a second one for backups!I am a happy WD product user. The quality is good and these drives look & feel modern.These drives are very portable due to their small size.Thanks to USB 3.0 you don't need an external power supply as they can operate from just a single cable. On the older USB 2.0 you will not get the speed benefits of USB 3.0 but when connected to USB 3.0 they can transfer data fast.The USB cable length is perfect. Not too lengthy which would get in the way and not too short making it difficult to connect. It's about 30cm (1 ft) I believe.They are decently priced as well. Prices have risen recently but I've bought the 5TB version at a reasonable price still.These drives are Plug & Play (at least on Windows machines). Just connect the drive and start using it.I highly recommend connecting your drive to a USB port either directly on the motherboard (back of computer) or from your PC case (front/top panel).I connected one of these drives to a USB hub and the drive started making a scary clicking noise.Turns out my USB hub is dodgy and doesn't always provide the correct power! So be careful using USB hubs for data transfer.AFAIK, the 5TB drive is not an SSD (where the others are I believe) but a HDD which makes it a bit more vulnerable. You can hear/feel the spinning drive inside the case. It's not loud though.Something to keep in mind.In 2011 I experienced severe data loss, using 1.5TB hard drives from another brand. Since then I switched to WD and have never looked back!I own many internal and external WD drives and haven't had one fail on me yet. This tells me WD drives are good quality and reliable.Nonetheless, drives can (and ultimately will) fail so always make sure you have a backup of your data. I keep 1:1 exact data copies/clones (and even that is technically not safe enough).These drives are great for that purpose.
Extremely disappointed. I had an old WD element that is still working. I decided to buy a larger one, 5TB. As I used a 2010 Samsung laptop, I though its hard drive would be failing. I was wrong, the Samsung is still running while I cannot access WD element. /Too many bad sectors, though the disk was always treated carefully. I tried the Victoria software, it worked a full week on a modern laptop, processing only 1% of data. I am not sure how to recover all my photos and movies and I will have to go to a specialist, costing me much more the price of that garbage disk.
I bought the first one to back up everything on my laptop. As it turned out, I plugged that first one into my DishNet receiver just to see if it worked with my Dish DVR. It DID so it's still there. I have already stored a ton of movies and programs on it, thereby clearing space on the limited DVR. Works like a charm! I bought the second one directly from WD (which I recommend you do as well) and have safely loaded literally decades of photos and writings upon it from my laptop with a HUGE amount of space left over. Quality product from a quality company. THANKS WD!!!
I bought this one in 2020 thinking I could use it later when my current external hard drive is full, and haven’t touched it since. Two days ago I decided use it and it has been a HORRIBLY CONFUSING HARD DRIVE. Literally spent the last 48 hours scavenging the internet for solutions. Immediately got in touch with customer service. The issue: I have a mac and windows computer, it will not initialize or reformat on either platforms. Like I have zerod the thing out, I have tried using first aid, I have tried reformatting/erasing it and on top of that, IT WILL NOT LET MY COMPUTER BOOT UP WHEN ITS PLUGGED IN?! Not a user friendly experience at all, because of it I learned how to use disk utility, terminal, windows commands and disk management so I guess that’s a plus. ... MoreI bought this one in 2020 thinking I could use it later when my current external hard drive is full, and haven’t touched it since. Two days ago I decided use it and it has been a HORRIBLY CONFUSING HARD DRIVE. Literally spent the last 48 hours scavenging the internet for solutions. Immediately got in touch with customer service. The issue: I have a mac and windows computer, it will not initialize or reformat on either platforms. Like I have zerod the thing out, I have tried using first aid, I have tried reformatting/erasing it and on top of that, IT WILL NOT LET MY COMPUTER BOOT UP WHEN ITS PLUGGED IN?! Not a user friendly experience at all, because of it I learned how to use disk utility, terminal, windows commands and disk management so I guess that’s a plus. literally if you want a device that can just plug in and keep data on it, this is not it, it’s not my choice. And customer service said that my device was out of warranty and that it’s non-functional so there’s that. $100 down the drain just like that.
I have seven drives, 2TB, and and rest 4 TB. Of those, 3 became corrupt. That happens while under warranty and they do honor it. However, I have to recover the images from them and that is costly. The one that is corrupt now I am trying to do it myself. I bought the software, and I have to buy another HD to copy the disk image to, and then another to recover it to. So that is about $300 and my time totaling a $800 loss by doing it myself and if it works I am looking into cloud storage now. I am not sure if these hard drives are made for everyday use.
I bought four 5TB WD Elements drives in one year. One drive failed in three months. Another failed in less than a month. The pattern was identical. First, they overheat. Second, they start disconnecting and reconnecting after periods of intensive use (copying large files/many files). Third, the timespans between the disconnects get shorter and shorter. Then the drives fail altogether. The only reason I did not lose valuable data this summer was that everything was backed on at least two drives and the two drives that failed were not from the same pair. I never had this issue with 4TB and 3TB WD drives (and I own several of those). Therefore, I assume that it has something to do with design or a batch manufacturing flaw.
4TB and 5TB had unstable temperature when copying many GB for a backup (for example a transfer that takes about 30 minutes). I pause the transfer in Windows 11 to cool down.I added an entire roll of aluminum foil both on top and below the hard disk enclosures. The foil must be as flat as possible, or small pockets of air heat up too much. I have tested all this. Max temperature on 4TB version was about 39 degrees Celsius for a transfer of hundreds of GB, which is stable enough. But 5TB version still heats up too much internally to about 43 degrees Celsius max. This is a little too much heat for durability probably.Temperature can be displayed by various free programs. I implore WD to spend a little more on internal heat sink. This is really poor design if the ... More4TB and 5TB had unstable temperature when copying many GB for a backup (for example a transfer that takes about 30 minutes). I pause the transfer in Windows 11 to cool down.I added an entire roll of aluminum foil both on top and below the hard disk enclosures. The foil must be as flat as possible, or small pockets of air heat up too much. I have tested all this. Max temperature on 4TB version was about 39 degrees Celsius for a transfer of hundreds of GB, which is stable enough. But 5TB version still heats up too much internally to about 43 degrees Celsius max. This is a little too much heat for durability probably.Temperature can be displayed by various free programs. I implore WD to spend a little more on internal heat sink. This is really poor design if the temperature causes malfunction.
I have only possitive feedback regarding this model of Portable Memory/harddrive unit.I have a earlyer model Wd passport Ultra Blue (1 Tb ) and had this since 5 years back now and still works perfect,no issues what so ever..as long you do the corect way to save information and when you remove the unit from Computer or Laptop. Now soon its time to upgrade my WD unit to bigger model maybe a 4 Gb and hope it will also work as his preaccessor that I have. I use the WD unit to massstore as backup and save Music in WAV sound format and tha takes huge amount of space same when I save my Youtube music Videos in MP4. Many people might say Why save in WAV formatinstaed of MP4 or MP3 that takes less space?? that of personal reasons and about sound 100% undistorted quality,! ... MoreI have only possitive feedback regarding this model of Portable Memory/harddrive unit.I have a earlyer model Wd passport Ultra Blue (1 Tb ) and had this since 5 years back now and still works perfect,no issues what so ever..as long you do the corect way to save information and when you remove the unit from Computer or Laptop. Now soon its time to upgrade my WD unit to bigger model maybe a 4 Gb and hope it will also work as his preaccessor that I have. I use the WD unit to massstore as backup and save Music in WAV sound format and tha takes huge amount of space same when I save my Youtube music Videos in MP4. Many people might say Why save in WAV formatinstaed of MP4 or MP3 that takes less space?? that of personal reasons and about sound 100% undistorted quality,! you dont get that with MP3 or MP4..and for this You need large ammount of storage capacity.!
| General | |
| Device Type | Hard drive - external (portable) |
| Capacity | 4 TB |
| Interface | USB 3.0 |
| Features | NTFS formatted |