Review: WD Elements 1TB portable external hard drive USB 3.0 WDBPCK0010BBK
High capacity with simplistic design
Visually, the WD Elements drive is simple and clean. A matt black top surface is surrounded by gloss sides. The only obvious functional components are the white LED and micro USB 3.0 connector on the back.
Four small rubber feet on the bottom ensure the drive remains steady, even on slightly sloping flat surfaces.
Nowhere on the drive is any indication of its capacity, apart from the model designation WDBPCK0010BBK.
A matching black 40CM USB 3.0 is supplied with the drive.
Head load/unload
The drive has head load/unload technology, which is more or less widespread on modern portable and laptop drives. This helps prevent head damage when the drive is transported. As a small, portable drive, it will be subjected to dropping more than a laptop, and the extra protection afforded by head unloading should help the drive survive.
Power savings
When no data has been read or written to the drive for several minutes, the drive will enter standby mode and the LED will alternately turn on and off slowly. The heads will be unloaded and the platters stop spinning.
The drive will also enter standby mode if the drive is stopped via Windows' "Safely Remove Hardware" procedure. This means the drive is not spinning when it is about to be unplugged. A disk drive is most vulnerable to damage if it is moved around when still running. Spinning down the disk helps prevent damage. Of course, if the drive is unplugged without first safely removing it in Windows, it will still be spinning and could be subject to damage if the drive is jarred. An ungraceful device removal also causes the emergency head parking mechanism to be invoked, which is less controlled than a normal drive shutdown, and can cause premature damage to the unload mechanism.
Near silent operation
When running, the drive can barely be heard. It also runs cool, becoming only slightly warm to the touch after half an hour of operation.
USB 2.0 and 3.0 compatibility
The connector used is a USB 3.0 Micro USB connector. This connector is similar to a USB 2.0 micro USB connector, except that an additional annex has been added, making the plug wider. The additional USB data lines allows a theoretical maximim of 4.8Gbps, although in practice, the drive is limited to around 1.5Gbps. This is about three times faster than USB 2.0.
The plug and socket is designed to be backwards compatible, and a USB 2.0 Micro USB cable (same type as used by most smartphones) can be used instead if USB 2.0 connectivity is only desired.