We purchased the WD Blue 4TB Hard Drive so that our expert reviewer could thoroughly test and review it. Read on for our full product review.

Western Digital is a fairly well-known name in the hard drive world, having been in the business for five decades. This longevity makes the manufacturer a common choice for those looking to add some extra storage to their computer. Since the Blue series is so common, we’re going to take a closer look at it and compare it to the more expensive Black series to determine which is the best choice for you. Specifically, we’re going to be looking at the WD Blue 3.5-inch version, which comes with 4TB of storage and 64MB of cache (also at 5,400 RPM). There are quite a few variations, but all of the SATA-based hard drives within the Blue series are comparable in terms of specs and performance.

Hard drives like this go into a computer where you’ll never really see them for the most part, so the stripped-down style and design of the Blue series isn’t really that shocking. It has a small label on the top with information about your specific HDD, a metal casing, and the SATA 3 connector on the base for connection.

As we mentioned, there are many variations of the drive, and since we’re looking at the 3.5-inch, this size is best suited for a desktop computer due to its sheer size. Now, you could pop this into an external enclosure for use with a laptop or even a gaming console, but 3.5-inch drives require a lot of juice to operate, meaning you’ll need to plug it directly into a power outlet (in addition to the USB port). The 2.5-inch version is much more suited to notebooks and laptops with its smaller form factor. And since it can only be powered via USB, it’s a better choice for a portable hard drive enclosure.