I'm in Canada. The reason I say this is because I know of so many people in USA who are very pleased with Western Digital mechanical hard drives. The only Western Digital mechanical hard drives that impress me are my 15 year old Velociraptor drives that never produce SMART errors and just keep on running like they did the day I got them. Western Digital doesn't make them anymore.
I've been building PCs for going on two decades and repairing PCs for other people nearly as long. I've seen hundreds and hundreds of hard drives fail and I can honestly say that in my own personal experience Western Digital takes the lead when it comes to failed mechanical hard drives. I have often pondered why this is the case as the old Caviar Blacks and the Velociraptors (that Western Digital no longer make) rarely seem to share this misfortune. Despite this, if my customer wanted a Western Digital hard drive in their PC I would still buy one for them until one day Western Digital taught me a valuable lesson: I purchased a brand new, WD Caviar Black 1TB hard drive and it began clicking two days after I received it. I called the company for a replacement and I literally had to haggle with the guy on the phone for about 20 minutes before he agreed to replace it. I will always remember what he said to me: "Okay, but just this once." Well, that man must have been psychic because the replacement I received also started clicking about a month later and I've never purchased a brand new mechanical hard drive from Western Digital ever since this experience.
I believe part of the reason Western Digital mechanical hard drives fail so much is because most of these budget targeted hard drives are SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) as opposed to CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording). That doesn't explain why Seagate SMR drives seem to last longer. I don't buy SMR drives anymore. I don't care who makes them. My advice is to save your rubles and get CMR drives only if you insist on using mechanical hard drives. Hybrid mechanical hard drives are also notorious for issues and I've had a few of those too. Seagate SMR drives also tend to fail but for me, not nearly at the same frequency as Western Digital mechanical drives. Perhaps it's due to all the bumping and thumping the drives have to go through before they make it this far North. I really don't know the reason.
I've had three WD "My Books" crater on me so I don't think Western Digital is a good choice for external mechanical hard drives either. Later on I found out that there were indeed bridge issues with these and perhaps that's why I had those failures. Perhaps the issue has been dealt with since. Either way it matters not to me because Western Digital's customer dis-service is my final reason for never buying mechanical hard drives from them again. To be honest, I've never had a Seagate mechanical drive fail on me while still under warranty although I've seen many fail. Every one was an SMR drive. So what would I recommend?
Seagate EXOS, Seagate Enterprise drives (preferably CMR), HGST (Helium filled), Toshiba CMR drives such as the N300 or X300, or Seagate's award winning Iron Wolf. Save your pennies, get a good enclosure, and pop one of these in and you'll have an external drive that you can count on for years and years. Now I've heard that Western Digital just bought HGST so you might be better off getting an HGST HUH refurb because I can't vouch for Western Digital anymore when it comes to mechanical hard drives.
I know that some here might disagree with my views but I know for a fact they can't disagree with my experience. It is what it is.
I hope this helps.
Apple 13" Macbook Pro 2020 (m1)
