Question 1

Hi, can I get that hard drive  out  and use it as an internal hard drive or put it in another enclosure that has mini or micro USB interface?

Accepted Answer

Drives like the WD Elements are not intended to be mounted internally in an enclosure. Heat is the biggest enemy of hard drives, these drives are not intended for 24/7 operation. There primary use is for backup, run for short periods of time and then disconnected.

Question 2

I'm aiming to dump most of my DVD collection onto an external drive for streaming onto my new-ish Samsung TV through it's USB port.  Do I need to be concerned about this external drive not having a power supply, or have those issues become irrelevant?  I've been able to stream movie files just fine through a basic thumb drive, but need much more space for my DVD collection.

Accepted Answer

No - most external cases come with a power supply - I have several and they work fine - and can be used if you have a problem with this WD drive (I have several) but that is not the question you are asking (I just wanted to give you an alternative in case you have a problem) ... this drive uses a USB port (3.0) and derives its power from that.  I have about 10 of these (have put our Family videos onto them and given them to family members) and have never had any problems with any of their systems not being able to handle the power requirements of this drive.  It comes with a USB 3.0 cable (crimp on the WD drive side so it is keyed), and the other end can be plugged into a 2.0 or 3.0 USB port.  Hope this hels.

Question 3

Does this work well for a mirror image of my computer?

Accepted Answer

yes - it is just an external hard drive - I don't make mirror images because I come from the days when the drives had to match exactly in size etc so I just copy all of the directories onto the backup drive  - but as long as your master drive's contents do not exceed the 2TB you should be OK

Question 4

Does it come with bloatware/spamware backup software that can be completely deleted?  I hate those drives that AutoMount some crappy backup software that I don't want to use, but then make it impossible to remove from the drive!  Your answers are much appreciated!

Accepted Answer

My memory of it is that I was able to clean the drive...
Have had no problems with this after a year...

Question 5

How well does this work with Linux systems?

Accepted Answer

As a hard drive with a USB connection - it should act as any external drive would - even though I work in Windows only - I don't see that there would be a problem.

Question 6

Can this be moved between two computers and used as a backup device for them both?

Accepted Answer

I don't see why not. I can see a couple of ways: It's an NTFS formatted drive, so it should be able to be partitioned just like any other drive; I'd set a separate partition for each computer. There is backup software on it BUT it's just a trial - you have to pay for it after so many days. You could reformat, partition, and then use your backup software of choice and direct the backup from each computer to its own partition (simply to avoid any confusion). My idea of backing up, though, is simply creating a directory to house the files I want to keep and creating subdirectories within it - I do my backups manually (simple copy/move). So you could create two main directories (computer 1, computer 2) and do the same. It's standard USB so it will be recognized by any relatively modern computer instantly.

Question 7

How many bytes/sector does this drive have?

Accepted Answer

As far as I know it very much depends upon the format impressed upon the drive and the OS you will connect it to. In windows 7 or10 , using NTFS format results in 4096 block size by default.  If I recall correctly, one may change the individual parameters  during the format process with almost any value. That being said you had better be an expert when changing the parameters, since it would effect the performance and possibly the stability of the resultant drive. I hope this helps.

Question 8

It looks pretty thick on the picture.. any idea why? is it safety cushion?

Accepted Answer

It is definitely thick. We have a lot of the 1 TB drives and they are a little over 1/2 inch thick while these 2 TB drives are a little over 3/4 inch thick, so about 1/4 thicker than the 1 TB drives. There is definitely NO safety cushion on the outside, just a hard shell like the 1 TB drives, but I can't tell you what's inside. I assume they needed to make it thicker to add the extra 1 TB, but I don't know. I'm not sure how it compares to other 2 TB drives, but I've always liked these drives so I have stuck with them.

Question 9

Can anyone confirm that this can be opened up and put into a PlayStation 4 (PS4) ?  thanks!!

Accepted Answer

I have not opened this one, but I've opened other USB drives and recently they are not SATA compatible. The USB is built right into the drive itself. Hope this helps.

Question 10

Does it really work with Win XP (one review says it doesn't)?

Accepted Answer

It works with win xp

Questions & Answers