5.0 out of 5 stars
Loud as hell, but pretty good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 January 2020
So I got mine (4tb) back in early 2018, and at time of writing (early 2020), I have to say I've had 0 issues with it.
The short summary:
Pros:
-Big
-Cheap for what it is
-No real noticeable lag. It's a little slower than my laptop's SSD, but you'd be getting an SSD 4x smaller for the same
-installation is bog standard HDD installation
price
Cons:
-Rattles a bit when in a lot of use (not something that bothers me)
-Some people have reported problems (can't speak for them, 2 years, no issues)
-Sticker doesn't match my PC's internal colour scheme (mileage may vary)
Here is what I think:
When it says "for professionals", that's probably one of the key things you want to consider. Ultimately, this drive is loud as hell as far as drives go. When idling, it doesn't really make a lot of noise, but do anything with it, and it's like someone's tinkering with an old lawnmower (it's a switched off lawn mower, but very echoey and in a garage next door). Now. Being an hardcore e🅱️ic gamer, much of the time, I have my speakers on (or headphones if you're a headphone person). So when I'm using this, it's because I'm playing a game, and as such, I can't hear it once the game has started, due to other noises going on. You've got to square this away yourself really. I find computer noises relaxing, so a little rattling from under my desk doesn't rattle me, but if you're honestly bothered by that, then it's not for you. Reviews I read before purchasing appeared to suggest it was mainly built as a budget dedicated server option, and considering many people I know don't in fact want 300+ games installed at a time, that seems about right. So just remember. You're getting good performance, and big size out of a fairly cheap drive (as far as relatively high speed drives go). The concession is a little noise occasionally, or a lot if you're a habitual ctrl+s person, and you're working with blender or something, then a little noise a lot. I use a different drive for my art stuff though, and word documents and code go to the cloud, so these are not use cases I can really report back about.
It was easy to install, it's literally just a bog standard hard drive installation. I can't remember if I had to format it, but it's not my OS drive, and if it was, it still wouldn't matter, because ultimately, when you set up from scratch, the installation wizard gives you an option to do it as far as I can remember. The main take away here though, is that the installation process was problem free enough that after 2 years, my main stick out memory of buying this was thinking I got a good deal on 4tb, and now I return, because I only have 25ish gb left. Should I uninstall some games? Hell no. Get back in the bin with your terrible advice.
I can't speak for the 1 star reviews. Ultimately, if the drives are failing after months or a year in those cases, then that sucks, and that's a legitimate complaint. However, I can't speak for them because of the fact that mine has lasted 2 years now with not a single issue and a higher than average amount of moving my desktop from place to place. With any product you buy, you're rolling the dice, and there's a certain probability you will get a dud, but I honestly cannot recommend this enough. Especially considering that I use this probably about 8-9 hours a day at the best times. I've really put this through its paces, and mucked about with partitioning, and it's been pretty solid.
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