Western Digital 2TB WD Black Performance Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD2003FZEX

A Western Digital Black SATA drive has been the storage drive on my family's Dell XPS desktop system since 2017. It is where all of my kids' baby photos, videos of first steps, vacations, and other memories are kept. Of course I have backups onto external hard drives, and with a cloud storage service, but it all starts with the WD Black. And the drive has been absolutely perfect for eight long years. There hasn't been so much as a hiccup, read error, corrupted file, or anything in all that time. I'm talking performance reliability of an impossible 100% over all that time.I'm now shopping for a new desktop computer, and wanted to have the same setup with a big secondary drive for storage. While I looked at other brands, I figured why tempt the devil? This time I bought a Western Digital Black with 8 TB of storage. I connected it as a third internal drive on that old XPS system, and copied all of the files to it. Connection was easy, transfer speeds were great, and I have no doubt it will be a trustworthy, safe place to keep family memories for the next eight years.

Arrived quickly, and is in perfect health (Checked it before I started transferring my files)It's receiving 3 TB of files, and it is staying nice and cool and running smooth.

Easy install, works great with decent write speed (transferred 1.4TB from nvme to the hdd in about 1.5hrs). Was exactly as advertised 10/10. Will definitely be buying another when I need it.

I've never had a problem with WD Black 6TB HD's and I have purchased 4 of them so far. 2 of the drives are possibly 5 years old. These drives appear to be very durable. Not one failure on any of these drives for me.

UPDATE 3/26/15:This drive will make audible noises when accessing the data on the drive, but it gives pretty good speed. Even with the third replacement, it makes noises, so I'll just have to deal with it.The speed is pretty great. I wish this wasn't as loud as it is now. It sometimes bothers to hear the drive making access noise whenever I launch Adobe After Effects, but I can live with it.~Simon.UPDATE 3/17/15:I received the replacement drive to find out that it has a similar (ticking sound while accessing data) symptom. I resorted to calling the WD Customer Support.The customer service representative was really helpful. He told me that the problem might be the bad cable. I switched the older SATA cable with a newer SATA cable I happened to have on the computer to find the problem still existing, so I told him about it.The support said he will send me a third replacement drive since both of the hard drives are giving me the same problems. I was a little conflicted because that meant I will have to pay for an extra return label. I voiced my concerns to the support, and the support said he will make me prepaid shipping labels--two labels--for the two (maybe not-so defective) drives I have to return.Also, the "some complicated and strict return instructions" happened to be for the people returning hard drives in a bulk. I'm just an end-user, so the support clarified that I can just return the hard drives in the original packaging.So, people, web replacement support may sound more convenient, but calling the tech support proved to be much better. At least for me and my situation.If any of you have some noisy drives, try switching the SATA cable to a newer one. Apparently, this drive works better and tolerably quieter with a newer SATA cable (thus, the two drives I have to return may not be defective).~SimonEnd of update. Old review below.== Edit Start ==Well, I think I gave a horrible rating at the beginning, but bad start is a bad start, I guess.At least the clicking drive worked. The shipping fee I have to pay for returning is around 7 dollars, which was what threw me off.Also, the billing address have to be the same as replacement shipping address. That also threw me off, deducting one whole star.Anyways, I hope no more problem exists with this new drive they sent me.== Edit End ==This drive works, but it's making abnormally loud clicking noises whenever it is reading off or writing on the disk. It's so much louder than my other (regular) hard drives I don't feel safe using Adobe After Effects with this drive.I submitted a replacement request through WD's website, but the steps there is just horribly laid out. It's not easy navigating through the website for support. Also, you have to pay the shipping fee for replacing the already defective product with WD. Also, WD is practicing some complicated and strict return instructions.I mean, come on! You shipped the clicking drive at the first place!

Always a good hard drive WD

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.