Does a WD Elements drive go into sleep or hibernation?

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

What’s the power-on plan for WD Element drives?

I’m thinking of getting one to plug into the NAS to do backups to. Will it run 24/7 if plugged into the NAS? Or does it wake upon accessing it?

Thanks for any help.

2

Hello Matt1106,

The drive receives power from the USB port of the NAS device and if there is read and write operation on the drive then this activity increases.

3

I have serveral WD Elements Desktop drives … a mix of 3TB and 4TB’s

Plugged into USB3.0 ports on my PC, yes they do go to sleep … and take several seconds to ‘wake up’

And from memory i had a small 1TB WD Elements SE Portable drive plugged into my WD My Cloud, and that went to sleep as well.

I used a Portable as it’s USB powered Vs a Desktop drive which uses A/C Power
Adaptor (which would be on 24/7)

If you don’t need much storage space ie. ie between 2TB~4TB then i’d recommend a Portable Elements which will go to sleep and consume less power.

4

Thanks for replying.

The WD Elements Desktop is A/C powered, not USB powered. If it’s dual powered, I haven’t seen that mentioned.

5

Joey Smyth

Thanks for letting me know about the A/C power. I was thinking about getting a WD Elements 10TB drive and plug it into my QNAP NAS. The Elements drive would be used to do regular backups of the laptops and tablets.

The next NAS will be a 4-bay (6-bay if I can wait till a good sale) and large enough to dedicate some drives to for the backups. And if a large WD desktop drive that is A/C powered is not feasible for the time being, The new NAS will be coming sooner rather than later.

6

dual powered ? i think you misunderstood me

Portable Drives are USB Powered

Desktop Drives are A/C Powered

all i was trying to say is that using a USB Powered drive won’t use as much power because the NAS is powering it.

But, since you’re after a 10TB drive, the A/C Powered is your only choice … and that’s ok

7

I understood your answer and appreciate the help.

Neo33 said it was USB powered, which is incorrect for many large drives. I only know of 2.5" drives and SSDs being USB powered. My 4tb 3.5" USB desktop drive is A/C powered, so I know larger ones will also be.

I’m not so much concerned about power consumption as I am about a drive that is running 24/7 that doesn’t go to sleep when not at work.

Again, thanks for your help. I’ll either get the 8-10tb and plug it in 2 days/ wk for backups or go with a new, 4 or 6-bay NAS so I can dedicate 2 HDDs (in raid) to backups. Adding a USB desktop drive is an attempt to consolidate the multiple 1 and 2tb USB-powered drives I use for backups now. But a larger NAS is the eventual goal for easy organizing and consolidation.