From a. NewEgg review of HDD, that’s been widely Discount (w/ OVERHEATING the likely cause):
“Pros:
Good price for 8TB
Quality WD Red 5400 RPM helium-filled drives, type WD80EZZX
Not weird shingle technology as with the Seagate competition
Cons:
Drives overheat immediately
No power LED (!!)
Other Thoughts:
As so often with both Western Digital and Seagate, it's incredible that a company can build these technical marvels but can't design a plastic box to hold them. WD did better on last year's MyBook 8TB line, with vents top, bottom, and rear (and a power LED). Now we just get vents top and bottom.
On an open desktop in a room at 27 degC, I began using this new drive. With combined writing and reading, its SMART-reported temperature began rising about 2 degC every five minutes. After an hour it was crossing 52 degC, with no sign of slowing. That's too hot, and would soon be approaching the warranty limitation.
So I laid a USB-driven fan on top to pull air through. That brought the temperatures back to 40 degC. This is completely clunky, adds noise, takes extra space, and wrecks the looks. This wasn't as necessary with last year's model AND when I did use it the fan could sit properly on the desk and blow into the rear of the drive housing. Not any more.
How can packaging engineers be so continually stupid - year after year? It's almost beyond belief. Guys - top secret flash here - PUT MORE HOLES IN THE CASE. TOP, BOTTOM, AND SIDES. And put a light on it!
Manufacturer Response:
Hi there New Egg Customer,
We thank you for taking the time to bring your feedback and concerns to our attention.
The WD My Book has been designed considering the latest advancements in performance and reliability. For best practices, we recommend placing the drive upright with at least an inch or more of space to the sides to prevent it from overheating. As a troubleshooting step, we recommend testing the hard drive’s health using WD Drive Utilities, which can help you monitor your unit.
“Setting up and using WD Security and WD Drive Utilities:” https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=10408
“Placing a WD My Book or My Cloud drive on its side or flat on its feet”: https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=1186
If the test is unfortunately inconclusive and you just purchased the drive then you should be able to return it to the place of purchase. However, if you are past their return policy, you can create an RMA through WD and replace the drive under warranty if necessary.
"How to get an RMA to replace a defective product, or obtain a power supply or USB cable for a WD product": https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=8
We would appreciate the opportunity to help troubleshoot your hard drive and discover the cause of its abnormal behavior. Please be so kind to contact us and reference the case number below for dedicated assistance.
Case Number: 041017-11953094
Need Help? Please contact us at 1 (800) 275-4932”
I'd LOVE to answer the Q: "So, WHAT HDD does this refer to?"
But:
Idiot NewEgg's web app (for this page) makes it impossible to Copy the Reviewer's Title & NewEgg's WD model number (which were highlighted but not in the Paste, which we included Above)
Id..t OzBargain's web app Fails to enable even 1 photo to be included by a Forum post creator, in this case, photo I took (in an attempt to save typing-time & cut typo-risk) of the portion of NewEgg's web page, that show drive Model details, etc.: ie, the missing elements (Point 1), eg: Reviewer's title, etc.
OK so here's the model number (hand-typed; at this hour, typo's are likely):
"WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN Black" (for the 8TB model)
[ 3 eggs (of max 5 egg) ] Reviewer's title:
"Good drives but run hot - idiotic ventilation"
Hey Mod's, pass to OzB's dev'r team: Add a Photo option to Comments.
Storage is cheap, Valuable Human time is being wasted when we try to
add details that vendors make hard to copy from the web pages.