Question 1

does this hd have a power (on/off) switch?

Accepted Answer

No it doesn't, just a plugin for the power converter(included), a security slot and a single USB3 port(cable included) on the back of the unit. It has one white LED on the front. Somewhat austere but functional. It seems like the drive spins down and sleeps after a period of inactivity. I've had it in use for less than a week with approx 36hrs worth of stress testing prior to transferring any data to it. So far no bad blocks or problems of any sort.

Question 2

Does it shut off when PC is turned off? And is it USB powered?

Accepted Answer

A: It will time out and spin down if you don't access it for a while. Though not truly 100% off (it consumes ~1 watt in this state), the device is off for all practical purposes.

B: NO. This class of external drive (3.5" externally enclosed) is NEVER USB powered. If you are looking for something USB powered, you should look at a 2.5" externally enclosed drive. Bear in mind that at this time (December 2014) 4TB 2.5" drives generally require 2 USB connections due to their power draw. If you're looking for something fully powered from a single USB cable, you're going to be hard pressed to find anything larger than 3TB.

Question 3

Are there physically two internal 2tb drives that make up this 4tb external package or is it actually a single 4tb internal drive?

Accepted Answer

While I can't say with 100% certainty whether it's one drive or two, I'd say I'm 98+% certain it's a single drive.  Two physical drives would add cost and complexity to this unit, plus the packaging is not really big enough to comfortably hold two half thickness hard drives anyway.  I think it's a sure bet it's a single 4 or 5 platter 3.5" full size hard drive inside this enclosure.  The real question is whether they are just repackaging an existing model SATA drive and putting it in an enclosure or if they are using a drive with some special physical connector inside, to discourage people from buying this and ripping out the drive for use as a standard hard drive.  I'm guessing it's probably standard SATA.

Question 4

Does this work with windows 7?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it works fine with windows 7., However Microsoft has not yet leaned how to properly report disk space and shows the size as 3.63 TB instead of 4 TB. Most issues related to large disk are related the hardware drivers. I have never with an issue with an USB drive. but could be an issue with a very old USB port. I use USB 3.0 ports and have no problems. I have 3 of these drives on 2 different Windows 7 64 bit systems.

Question 5

Is this for all computers?  I saw a review for a MAC, but I don't have a MAC.  Thanks.

Accepted Answer

I just purchased this drive last week and have been using it for a few days now on a PC running Windows 7 64-bit. The drive works great and the transfer speeds are very good as well when using a USB 3.0 port. As soon as I hooked it up I copied about 1.5 TB of HD video to the drive. It said it would take about 3 hours, but I did not watch it the whole time as I let it run during the night. I did watch it for several minutes and the transfer speed stayed at about 85-90 MB/s constant, and again this was while copying about 300 video files all at once each ranging in size from 700 MB to 15+ GB. When I first hooked it up the drive was immediately recognized by Windows and did not require any type of driver download or any further procedures to get it running. I would recommend this drive if you need this kind of storage in an easy to use solution. I was debating whether to get an internal 4TB drive, but decided to go with this because of the price and USB 3.0 compatibility. I have no regrets. I'm sure it would work fine in Windows 8 as well if that is what you are running.

Question 6

I need one of these with either a CAT 5 cable or a network connection. Can't tell...does this have one of those?.

Accepted Answer

No, this has a USB 3.0 connection only.  However if you have a router with a USB port, it will plug into that and you can use for all pooters on the network.

Question 7

I was told I need a "non network" external drive. Will this one work for me? Is it "non network"? If not do you have a external drive from WD that is "non network"?

Accepted Answer

Yes. This drive would be considered non-network in that it is not inherently network aware. It connects via USB 3.0 directly to a computer. You won't "see it"  on your network unless you share it via an os like Windows or unless you hook it up to a device like a router that exposes an external drive such as this using a file sharing protocol such as Samba -  although I have not yet tested it this way. Long story short it should be fine as a non-network drive so to speak

Question 8

Does it store system files?

Accepted Answer

Hi,

It does show up as a bootable device on both of my machines, and if you are using USB 3.0 it should be fast enough to run your windows system from, however, you will always get the best performance from an internal SATA drive for speed and latency. I'm not quite sure if this is what you meant by does it store system files or not. You can also use it to run Games & other programs while booting off of an internal drive for the main Operating System.  I use mine for data and some of my programs and games that are too large to fit on my internal drive.

I hope this clarifies this for you.  This product has been reliable and in daily use for me since my purchase a year ago.

Happy Holidays!

Question 9

If I load files, music, etc. from a Windows PC onto this drive, will it compatible with Mac computers?

Accepted Answer

Windows and Mac use different file systems by default for each OS. Windows uses a file system called NTFS and Mac uses HFS+. Mac's have the ability to read NTFS disks natively and there is an "un-official" way to enable writing. If you intend to transfer your data to Mac permanently I would recommend you copy your data to your Mac, format the drive using Disk Utility using HFS+, and then copy your data back. Windows does not recognize HFS+ partitions. In addition there are 3rd party tools that are availible that can help facilitate mounting HFS+ partitions to a Windows box.

Question 10

What color is the activity LED?

Accepted Answer

The LED on mine is white. I've never seen it change to a different color, though I don't watch it much since it sits in another room.

Questions & Answers