WD 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 drive for plug-and-play storage - WDBWLG0200HBK-NESN

June 22, 2026 (UPDATES): I paid $279.99 for the 20TB drive on May 7, 2025 (on sale from $304.00). This drive is $814.99 as of today. It's been in daily use all this time and it's still as quiet and reliable as it was on day one. (It only makes a soft whirring noise when it wakes up). The 2TB drive that arrived with signs of prior use with the 'ding' chipped out of its side has been running fairly well with daily use, though sometimes when I turn on my mac it takes a minute or two before the drive shows up. (Even the 20TB drive appears right away on this mac, so I don't view that as a good sign in terms of longevity). Anyway, I copied a ton of my videos to the 2TB drive and even the largest media files play without a hitch (so far). (This is the end of my June 2026 update). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I have to edit this review to include a NEW western digital drive I recently ordered (because amazon doesn't let you leave separate reviews for different drives made by the same company. My reviews here are for VERY different products and we should be allowed to review them separately, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEW for the "WD Elements Portable External Hard Drive for Windows, USB 3.2 Gen 1/USB 3.0 for PC & Mac, WDBU6Y0020BBK-WESN": Anyway, the TWO terabyte WD drive I bought on January 1, 2026 for $79.99 had obvious signs of use. There was a small but noticeable 'ding' on the right side of the drive, and the CrystalDiskInfo utility software showed that the drive had been used for 3 hours. That's far more than any drive that's fresh & straight from the factory will have accrued for simple testing. I kept this drive because I needed it immediately, but I'm not happy about it having been USED and the 'ding' chipped off on the side that shows it had been dropped. Even so, it's performing wonderfully (so far) on a new Mac & an old Windows computer, but time will tell the true tale. ------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEW for the "WD 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 drive, WDBWLG0200HBK-NESN" I ordered the WD 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive in early May 2025, wiped it and re-formatted it as NTFS for Windows, and then transferred a ton of backups to it. (A little note: 20 TB drives have an *actual* capacity of 18.19 TB). This WD drive is reliable, sturdy, and a winner by every metric. It's a very quiet drive (I only ever hear a very soft & short 'brrr' when it's waking up, but then it falls silent and remains quiet for the rest of the time that it's active). My drive is on all day, yet I never hear any sounds while it's working. I actually forget that it's on until I need to search it for something! Even with my ancient PC, this WD drive had smooth transfers of up to 180 MB/sec. When that PC died and I connected the WD drive to a new mac laptop, the transfer speed was even faster. This drive has been in use every single day for almost 8 months and it's still just as quick and quiet as the first day I used it. Of course, if you format any drive as NTFS like I did, and then you use that drive with a Mac, you can only copy files FROM the drive while it's connected to the mac device, and you can't can't copy files TO the drive. I thought I'd only use this with my old windows comp and didn't forsee its overdue demise so I used the NTFS format... but since I can access those files, it's no biggie. I'm about to order another WD drive and I'll format it as ExFat so that it'll have full read & write abilities on both mac & windows. This is a great drive and if you're a dual-OS user like me, just format your drive accordingly. It's nice to be able to have the best of both worlds. :)

I needed at least 20 TB quickly, reliably, and of course, very easy to use. I find these drives compatible with pretty much everything, very easy to connect and these are very portable. It’s very quiet, I forget that it’s on. It’s not heavy and it’s very easy to store. Comparable to Seagate and others at the size and price point. I’ve always been very happy with Western Digital, I’ve come to rely on it. If you’re looking for a staggering amount of storage space that only takes a second to set up, this external hard drive is a great choice. Even better when it’s on sale!

I’ve been using this 14TB WD Elements drive primarily for backups and long-term storage, and it’s been excellent. The setup was as simple as plugging it in, and it was recognized immediately. The large capacity is more than enough for photos, videos, documents, and other large files, making it a great choice if you’re running out of space on your computer.

I use these as back-up storage drives for my Sample libraries. I use them in pairs using the second drive to manually back-things up as needed. I like the large storage capacity and the price point. I have a couple dozen external drives including SSD. The speed of these via USB 3 gets the job done. The security factor, knowing if something happens my work is safe & backed-up, is worth the price of admission. That said in the last 15 years I haven't a single external drive fail. I'd like to think it's because I take of my equipment and don't move these around. I use SD cards when I need to transport my Beats, Samplea and DAW sessions. But it's more likely down to chance. I got thumb drive that was DOA once (irrelevant) Anyway, I make/produce music for a living, if something happens to my files there's no insurance that will make-up for the 1000s of hours I spend chopping/flipping and editing Samples or stacking/layering and Sound designing. Latet the files are used during beat creation. I have a system that depends on having reliable drives I also have over 100K Rare Vinyl LPs digitized on other drives. WD is my go-to for externals but I've used multiple different brands over the years. Okay let's run through the tags. These are not portable drives. I guess you could put them in a case but nah. Power source is an adapter with a barrel that plugs into the drive. My project studio at home is all Win/PC but I also use Mac's at a commercial studio. Compatibility depends on how you format the drives. The Mac computers at my commercial studio are connected to Lacie & Glyph drives for the most part. When I transfer files back & forth, I use an SD card reader/writer and my Akai MPC Files are universal. If you use these with a Mac format the drive for Mac OS. Using a PC format the drive for Windows. These aren't backwards compatible. You can't plug one into a Mac, eject the drive and plug the same drive into a Windows PC. It's one or the other. Is it technically possible with dual boot and all that, probably but you should format the drive for the system you're using it with. Format accordingly. Drive size 12TB or 24TB it's up to you. I like the lego style drive design, those are the coolest drives I have style wise. These are fingerprint magnets. But they look fine. See included photos. Hopefully that covers the tags, The drives are good I'll continue to grab these as needed. Good luck.

For the amount of storage you're getting, the WD Elements Desktop takes up surprisingly little real estate on the desk. It sits quietly out of the way and does its job without demanding much attention — which is exactly what you want from a backup and storage drive. I got this for $249 (from Amazon) around a year ago, so beware the inflated cost due to memory shortages... The plug-and-play USB 3.0 setup is as simple as it gets. No software required, no complicated configuration — plug it in and it shows up ready to use. Transfer speeds are solid for a spinning disk drive and more than adequate for general backup and archiving needs. The one caveat worth flagging is the noise. When the drive is actively being accessed — large file transfers, backups running in the background — it gets noticeably loud. The classic spinning drive hum and seek noise is there, and depending on where you have it positioned relative to your workspace it can be distracting. If your desk setup is quiet and you're doing a lot of active transfers, you'll hear it. For a drive that sits mostly idle and backs up overnight, it's a non-issue. 16TB is a significant chunk of storage at a reasonable price per terabyte, and WD's reliability track record with the Elements line is well established. A solid choice for anyone who needs serious bulk storage without spending serious money.

works well WD IS AN EXCELLANT PRODUCT

First order of business: I ordered this drive (WD Elements 5tb) and received it in about 18 hours. I checked the shipping label, and it is their proprietary delivery service. USPS, take note. The box it came in was pretty regular, no fancy presentation. Which is fine. I don't like paying for felt lining. It has one port on the back, and comes with a USB cable. I plugged it into my laptop and checked it out. Drive capacity actually reads 4.54 Tb. Which isn't unusual for larger volumes. It came formatted as NTFS. Which is great, because FAT32 has a file size limit of 4gb. Next test: I plugged it into a 3.0 Anker USB Data Hub. The drive revved up, then started clicking. I recognized those clicks as motor failures from a power drop, so the USB hub is not going to do it. This beast of a portable drive needs a main-line. It can be used in USB 3.0 or 2.0 But I highly encourage 3 for faster speeds. Especially with a volume this size (You are buying it for a reason, right?) Next test: A phone mount. Similar to a Samsung Dex setup, the device I used is a Baseus USB C mount. It connects my Note10+ phone to HDMI, and...for this test...a USB 3.0 port. I wasn't sure if it would work, because the hub charges the phone, and would have to "lend" some power to the 3.0 port to power the drive. It worked. I plugged it in, and my exFAT/NTFS app fired right up. It recognized the drive, mounted it, and was ready to go. For the technical folks out there, this was by powering the phone dock with a samsung travel adapter that came with my phone. It has a variable output, but can pack a whopping 11v-2.25a (24 watts) at its highest. This 24 watts was enough to fast charge my phone, AND have the drive running. Final test: Directly into the note10+. I used a USB C - USB A adapter that came with my phone and connected them together. It worked. My phone was powering the darn thing. So there we have it. This little pocket sized drive (seriously, my wallet is larger) can be plugged into 3.0, 2.0 or directly into my phone. It came formatted NTFS, just the way I prefer. Description: I purchased a black one. As I said, it is wallet-sized. It has one port for the cable, and a small status light. The light appears to stay a solid color for both standby and active. A power failure results in a blinking status light. When the drive is spinning, you can feel a humming purr, barely audible. The casing is plastic, but solid and sleek looking. It has four non-slip dots on the bottom. Pros: Huge storage for the price, powered through USB only, NTFS formatted, small. Cons: None discovered yet. Recommended Uses: This would be a perfect drive for home network storage, office/school/home work. It would also be ideal for gaming consoles even as modern as the XBox One X. Or a handy volume for torrents. Or a handy volume for backing up a system or family photos. Possible Uses: It runs on 3.0. While Pro Gamers might chuckle at the idea, it could be used as a Steam Library. Initial load times might be slower than a built in solid state drive, sure. But so what? This is 5Tb. Portable. For under 120. It could also be used for beginner-level production. Again, it is slower than a dedicated solid state drive, of course. But for a new youtuber, or designer, or developer...this can store a lot of content.

I work with hundreds of hard drives per year. I also recover data from hard drives, so I have a decent idea of what we're dealing with here. To put it bluntly, all consumer level hard drives are not great, but WD (Which bought out Hitachi Storage) is simply the best. It's why they cost more, and it's worth every cent. I've had brand new Seagate drives dead, right out of the 20-count boxes we get. Speed wise, I am not really sure how fast these are compared to other brands, but with SSDs, I view hard drives as a cheap/slow storage space. And 1 TB is a LOT of data if you think about it. I'm writing this on the 14TB drive, but that can be hundreds of thousands of pictures for example. So the real question is "What would you do if you lost them all?" Take it from me, it is always "When" is it going to die and not "if". The drive will fail, no matter what. So you should always have a backup drive. If this is your backup drive, then you're all set. If this is your "main" drive, then consider buying a second, even if the second one is a Seagate - point being you are covered when the main one breaks. I have taken these apart before (Not the more modern very large ones) and those drives did work as internal drives, but I would hesitate to do that simply because you're probably going to trash your warrantee when you try and return a case that has a bunch of broken tabs (The cases for these elements drives are terrible and fall apart when you try to take them apart). My drive shipped with a rather small power brick, which was a nice touch. I think the cable length was something like 5 feet, so it's not a super short cord. Used the USB to connect to a Windows 11 laptop and it found the drive right away without any issues at all. If you use this as a permanent drive, e.g. a home network share, then you can go into Windows Device Manager and switch the drive type to include caching which speeds up the drive a bit (At the expense of data loss if you do not eject the drive before you yank the plug). If data integrity is essential, then for consumers, I would recommend the Red series drives as they are made for home network storage units. For corporate, the Enterprise drives (Which are usually SAS and not SATA) are the way to go. Of course none of those are USB drives, but I'm throwing this out there in case you have the option of going with an internal drive. At the end of the day though, like I started with, data integrity is the most important thing for me, and it doesn't get better than Western Digital.

Gran capacidad y calidad 100% recomendado

excelente producto, mejora aun mas con sus herramientas y aplicaciones de su sitio web de soporte

Functions super!

Works well

Items arrived per schedule and works. This 20TB unit is 7200rpm class product.