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Review Summary
2025-07-09T20:00:00
Fast Boot up. I do sense it is of a different quality.
Private_name
2025-03-26T20:00:00
I bought four 12TB disks to use in my home server. Configured as RAID10. After 2 years of service one disk is now dead. RMA takes a lot of time (ground shipping to and from service center in CA), so I had to buy a replacement since I cannot afford to loose data if a second one fails too. Warranty is 5 years in these disks and I did not expect one of 4 to fail in just 3 years.
AVP1
2025-01-03T19:00:00
Reliable, well packed, and shipped without damage.
old_goat
2024-10-16T20:00:00
Bought a 22TB Gold model. Used in NAS data center application. It failed at 12,960 hours in service; a mere fraction of published MTBF of 2,500,000 hours. it cost over $20 in postal and return shipping fees to use the Limited Warranty. The replacement drive then failed at only 168 hours in service, and requires another $20 in postal costs and return shipping fees to obtain a replacement. The sunken costs in warranty costs are now 7% of the product purchase cost. Had I not sunken $600 into buying this product, I'd throw it away. Competitor products of the same storage capacity are still in service more than three years after installation. The products I received are unfit for for "Enterprise Class" applications.
GNMA
2024-10-01T20:00:00
Excellent product. Extremely solid. I ordered the 16TB and upon formatting to NTFS it was down to 14TB. Which is a loss of 2TB. Though this happens to nearly all hard drives (external or internal) due to formatting and system files required to run the beast. I haven't had it too long (maybe 2-3 months). Using it and had no problems. Very quick and its not even noisy. I do hear few clicks upon booting it up. But that's all. And I use it as a workstation close by (not stored away in the closet somewhere) and its very tolerable. Meaning it doesn't disturb me noise wise. Hoping this is rock solid drives from Western Digital (shoutout to all you hard workers here that make these) that if goes long and strong (I'm betting) I'm only using Western Digital upon my next needs (upgrades or replacements). I have always used Western Digital in the past. Starting from their Blue lineups and even those remained working years on end. Highly impressed by WD. Thanks! Anyone thinking of buying, don't hesitate. Look up your needed specs and you're fully covered by WD. Thanks again! Quick note: I was always curious as to why the stock photo looked so nice with the big covered gold sticker on the HDD. However, it does not look like the stock photos upon opening the package. It has a smaller gold sticker (unlike the stock photo). I'm guessing for lesser heat dissipation. But still looks good.:)
jesres
2024-09-13T20:00:00
Crash after 11 months. Used in not so hard enviroment. Too mani vibrations in work
Paja
2024-06-24T20:00:00
Installed drive works no problems. Installed 2, 16 TB drives in my Dell XPS8930
Tesla99
2024-05-24T20:00:00
Excellent Hard drive and good performance. No dead on arrival
Tazman
2024-03-20T20:00:00
Wow, I've bought a few WD and lots of Hitachi/HGST drives - didn't know that WD who bought the name of a superior drive (Hitachi) was now putting out such crap, like Seagate used to be! When 25% of the reviews complain about seriously defective drives, there is ample cause for fear! This is always what happens when an American (Ashkenazi-run company) buys a successful brand - they milk it for all they can, all the while now putting out a cheaper, inferior product while selling the name/reputation. I'll have to seriously look at other drive manufacturers now as I don't want to be part of the 25%+ that experience drive failure and lose data (in addition to the hassle/stress!).
bod1
2024-03-19T20:00:00
Was not enough space to hold call of duty cold War and mw3 at the Same time
Fjdnso
2023-12-30T19:00:00
Great disks. Very fast in RAID10 setup. They do not make much noise. I just hope they will serve enough time before I decide to replace the whole set.
AP1
2023-12-11T19:00:00
First drive was lost, then second drive took forever to arrive. The drive itself is good but the customer service is international some where in India probably and it's HORRENDOUS, unless you have a coupon get it from Bestbuy or Amazon.
FirstTimeGoldDriveOwner
2023-12-03T19:00:00
Fragile, fragile, I bought 5 items (16 and 20 TB) 18 months ago and 3 have already been out of use. Worrying for a product oriented for business and server work
LRDP
2023-11-13T19:00:00
Been buying these since 2017. They are solid and have good performance
rtpguy
2023-05-17T20:00:00
Hello, can I somewhere download and install a new FirmWare for the WD Gold WD 18TB, WD181KRYZ ?? I bought it, but my NAS (Qnap TS-1232XU-RP-4G) is probably incompatible with them. It is unfortunatelly freezing with this drive 18TB connected.. Or what do you recommend to me? What is doing the Jumper on the disk? Is it usable for me, for some eg. some capacity/speed limitation?? Thank you.
Tomas P.
2023-03-13T20:00:00
Its fine. High speeds, quiet, reliable. No issues of note. However, the price you pay is and will always be significantly more than some other drives, like the WD Black or Red series. As the name suggests, this product is indeed for enterprise applications.
0a33908
2023-02-24T19:00:00
I bought a WD 16TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive in 2022. While it initially was easy to set up, it would hibernate after not being accessed for a while and I would have to restart the laptop to access it again. Eventually, even restarting didn't get it to show back up, even though windows would recognize the usb being unplugged and plugged back in.
Ryan654698
2023-01-16T19:00:00
Western Digital Gold drives are what you buy when you expect 24/7 service. All the Gold drives in my environment have been running non-stop 365 days a year without failure!
v8mvt3zf
2022-12-26T19:00:00
I purchased 3 of the 4-TB Gold hard drives a few weeks ago and have not had any problems with them. The 7200 rpm feature makes the read/write function really fast. The main thing that I want to mention is that these drives are quiet - no click-clacks resulting from drive head seeking motions. Only time will reveal to me how reliable they are.
JustFax
2022-12-11T19:00:00
I have installed and used many of these drives. Not 1 has been DOA and several have been going over a decade (Including Black HDD). Only problem is that both times I got a warranty replacement (failing smart-but still working) they replaced them with lesser drives. Granted they were close to the end of warranty, but a blue drive is NOT a replacement for an enterprise drive. I haven't had problems with the RMA process and turn around was fast, just not equal replacements.
Spacednow
2022-10-04T20:00:00
I bought this drive because I was very mad about my lack in storage in my server, this was the best purchase that I have ever made. The drive is very reliable and has been through quite a few power outages and brownouts before I got a UPS and it's still trucking along like nothing ever happened. The performance of this drive is very quick as long as you have the system it is put into configured correctly. The only slight issue I have is the drive is quite loud while it is doing a SMART test, but I don't see that big of a problem with that because it is a standard thing that makes sure the drive is functioning correctly.
Floofie_boi
2022-07-20T20:00:00
Replacing a slower 4TB drive on which my 70K photo collection resides
D G.
2022-06-28T20:00:00
Being a server-class HDD, this drive is a bit heavier than what usually comes standard with most desktop computers. I had no trouble installing and it fired right up. It's quite fast and has the extra storage capacity that I need. Highly recommended.
fast586
2022-05-13T20:00:00
I really appreciate being able to buy directly; this is a large plus. The drive was shipped quickly and was well packaged. The 2TB version is quiet, which is important for my use case as the array is in my office. The write speeds when tested with HD Tune prior to adding it to the RAID array was 190 maximum, and 156 average, which is close to the published max read value. I will be buying more of these to expand the storage in the future.
KE=MV2
2022-03-07T19:00:00
Really like these drives. Very quiet and fast, and they hold up. I have an old Mac 'trashcan' with Thunderbolt2 enclosures that do a lousy job of cooling the drives, and lots of 3.5in drives can't survive because they get too hot. These work in that environment, and stand up to heavy use.
hardlyb
2022-02-20T19:00:00
its fast and can store alot of data whats not to love?
2022-02-06T19:00:00
Perfect for PLEX movie server. Used in 8 @ 4TB drive RAID50 Mediasonic external enclosure. Connected USB-A (3.1 mode); transfer rate always exceeds 100MBytes/sec. This setup previously used similar WD lower-capacity drives that worked continuously and flawlessly for many years.
KayPeeGee
2021-09-30T20:00:00
WD Gold is one of the best hard drives out there. But, It seems to make a little rattle from time to time and I don't see a 256MB cache feel. Great drive though.
freesky
2021-09-29T20:00:00
Bought the top of the WD line, but the drive came dead. Had to return.
kw999
2021-09-22T20:00:00
I've used Western Digital hard drives for well over 20 years and never have been disappointed. WD Black drives for desktop and Gold for server use. I have a RAID10 with 12 WD Gold 6TB drives to store movie collections for my home server. They perform flawlessly for years of 24/7 operation. And very high sequential file transfer speed to 500MB/s to 1100MB/s in 12 drive RAID over a 12Gb/s interface external RAID enclosure.
AndyK1812
14TB
3.5"
Helium
SATA 6 Gb/s
512e
No
No
Yes
262 MB/s (max sustained)
7200
512MB
Operational: 6.5W
Idle: 5.6W
Power efficiency index: 0.4 (W/TB, idle)
2,500,000 hours (projected)
0.35% (AFR)
41 Degree F to 140 Degree F (5 Degree C to 60 Degree C)
-40 Degree F to 158 Degree F (-40 Degree C to 70 Degree C)
Read / Write: 50G / 50G (half-sine wave, 2ms)
250G (half-sine wave, 2ms)
20 dBA
36 dBA
1.02 x 5.78 x 4" (26.1 x 147 x 101.6mm)
Approx. 1.52 lbs (690g)
192223287365
Very happy with buying experience and with drives.
By Brian R.
Great for my purposes. Much less noise than some other comments. Works great in my Synology DS212J... yes it's 9 years old, and still going strong. Why buy through Amazon from questionable sellers, when company-direct for verified-new is same price with much more trust.
Amazing purchase
By Floofie_boi
I bought this drive because I was very mad about my lack in storage in my server, this was the best purchase that I have ever made. The drive is very reliable and has been through quite a few power outages and brownouts before I got a UPS and it's still trucking along like nothing ever happened. The performance of this drive is very quick as long as you have the system it is put into configured correctly. The only slight issue I have is the drive is quite loud while it is doing a SMART test, ...
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Your Data Is Gold
WD Gold HDDs incorporate our latest innovations to handle heavy, continuous read-write workloads in the toughest of enterprise and commercial system environments. WD Gold drives provide the utmost in HDD storage performance, reliability, durability, and capacity-point flexibility to small and medium businesses and design professionals whose mission-critical data and creative output are essential to their success.
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Enhanced Reliability
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Robustness for Tough Environments
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Flexibility and Peace of Mind
WD Gold has undergone extensive testing and validation in a variety of host bus adapters, servers, and enterprise storage solutions employing RAID and other data resiliency configurations.
Ideal for
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Storing A.I. training data sets and hyperparameter tuning data