In the hard drive world, one of the most talked about and recommended makes has consistently been Western Digital Hard Drives. And there are many reasons for this – Excellent quality, great value for money and very reliable. The model in this review is the Western Digital Elements 2TB External Hard drive and this hard drive was released two years after Western Digital released their hugely popular Western Digital 1TB external hard drive version.
Two terabytes is a huge amount of storage, and it will take even the most hardcore movie nut a while before he fills this bad boy up – and for the price this drive is being sold, to say we were super excited to get hold of one of these drives would be an understatement.
Jump to:
– Design and Build
– Size and Weight
– Connectivity
– Speed/Benchmarks
– What’s inside the Box
– What other buyers are saying
– Specifications
– Accessories
– Conclusion
Design and Build
As we have come to expect from Western Digital Hard Drives, the design is minimalist and elegant. The protective plastic casing that protects the hard drive is the made out of the classic Western Digital black plastic – the top and bottom faces use matte plastic and a small Western Digital logo can be found on the top face. The sides however, are made of glossy black plastic, which means anyone who dares touch your hard drive shall not get away with it. Have a good look at the pictures, we hope you agree with us when we say the drive looks very sleek and sexy.
There is only one light on the Western Digital Elements 2TB External Hard Drive, and it is located on the back of the drive – an excellent decision, as this enables us to be able to enjoy watching movies on your home cinema + huge external hard drive, without any distracting and irritating flickering lights.
Size and Weight
The hard drive weighs around 1kg/2.2pounds, which is in the middle range of external hard drives in terms of weight.12.4cm/4.9inches wide, 20cm/8inches long and 3.6cm/1.4inches tall, which again puts it around the middle range in terms of dimensions. The hard drive is definitely portable, but it is certainly not the lightest portable hard drive.
Connectivity
The drive uses two cables – 1 x USB cable that uses a Micro USB end to go into the rear of the hard drive and 1 x cable for power. The image below shows the location of these cables and the single LED light that shows activity.
Speed/Benchmarks
The drive uses USB 2.0 – Serial Bus Transfer Rate (USB 2.0) and has a maximum transfer speed of 480 Mb/s (4megabytes per second), and after some testing, we were able to transfer around 300 gigabytes of files to the hard drive in roughly 170 minutes (Just under three hours) – which is fairly standard in USB 2.0 speeds.
What comes inside the box?
Inside the small packaging you will find everything very neat thanks to a greatly space-efficient design. There is barely any waste – With everything inside it all weighs 1.2kgs and when you open the box you will find:
1x Western Digital Elements 2TB External Hard drive USB 2.0
1x USB 2.0 Cable
1x Power Supply
1x Manuals
1x Warranty
Specifications
Hard disk drive capacity: 2000 GB
Internal: N
Hard disk rotational speed: 7200 RPM
Hard disk interface: USB 2.0
Hard disk size: 8.89 cm (3.5 “)
WD quality inside and out
Plug-and-play simplicity
Designed to save power
Earth-friendly packaging
Preformatted for PCs
Technical Details
Environmental Specifications
Temperature (English)
Operating 41° F to 95° F
Non-operating -4° F to 149° F
Temperature (Metric)
Operating 5° C to 35° C
Non-operating -20° C to 65° C
Physical Specifications
Capacity 2 TB
Interface USB 2.0
Power Dissipation
AC Input Voltage 100-240 VAC
AC Input Frequency 50-60 Hz
Accessories
If you want to give your Western Digital Elements 2TB External Hard Drive the best possible protection when you go on your travels, we thoroughly recommend getting a protective case for it, and the stand out one is definitely Case Logic Compact Portable Hard Drive:
Conclusion
Pros
- Very competitive recommended retail price.
- Easy to use – as simple as plug and play.
- Quiet when in use.
- Nice minimalist and slim design.
- Uses standard USB cable.
- Hard drives come completely clean – No irritating software pre-installed.
- Power-saving technology when the computer is switched off.
Cons
- Lack of Kensington lock (most hard drives don’t have one, but it would’ve still been a nice extra)
- It doesn’t have a physical On/Off button – it is switched off by unplugging or turning the pc off.
