Western Digital - 1Tb 7200 Rpm 16Mb Ext Hdd
by Western Digital
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List Price: Our Price: $69.95 You Save: $200.04 (74%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital - 1Tb 7200 Rpm 16Mb Ext Hdd
Customer Review: Very Satisfied
Summary: 5 Stars
Hello!
Okay. I've had this external drive for 6-7 months. I have had absolutely no problems with it. What needs to be addressed is responses to the negative reviews:
This is NOT a primary drive, external or not. It is a backup drive. If a consumer uses an external drive as their primary storage, they are asking for problems. Primary storage should be on your internal drives -- everything important should be on your computer, not an external drive. If your computer's HDD isn't big enough to hold all your data, your first step needs to be to buy a bigger HDD, or a second HDD, for your computer. All of your files, pictures, videos, etc. should be stored on your computer.
Then buy this 1TB drive and use it to back up your computer. Not your files, but your entire computer. Do not use the provided software ... rather, purchase a third-party backup program. Then back up your entire system to the external drive, and set it to back-up regularly.
For example: My system has 750GB of hard drive space (with two hard drives). EVERYTHING is on my system. Every night at 12:01AM, my system backs up to the external drive. I use Acronis True Image software for this. I must repeat, do NOT use the external drive as a primary storage system; all external drives should be considered to be secondary (i.e., backup).
Now, witness: one of the primary hard drives in my computer failed. I bought a new hard drive, and installed it. Then I performed a full system restore from the external drive. System was then fully functional with not a single file lost. They key here is that your computer and its drives are the primary storage. The external drive is for full / incremental / differential backup. This is called redundancy, which is critical to data preservation.
This drive saved me and all my data.
Just some words to the wise.
Customer Review: Best bang for the buck drive in the 1TB category
Summary: 4 Stars
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1 TB External Hard Drive
My setup: IMac (w/Intel processor).
I bought this drive about a week back and hooked it up to my computer and right off the bat it found it and I could go ahead and read and write to it. So in that regard, WD did keep their word, this definitely was a plug-and-play thing with the Mac. In addition, the user manual is just a single page - so for all those Mac users (who hate manuals) this embraces the same philosophy.
The first thing I did after buying this was formatting it to HFS (for my Mac) from the default which is Fat32. This is not something that you *need* to do if you have a Mac, but I'd imagine Mac's would work better with HFS than Fat32. Doing this formatting with the Disk Utility on the Mac was a breeze.
The read speeds from the drive are pretty decent - although I'd imagine if you were doing intensive operations such as photo/video editing of files on this external drive you would see some lag. The write speed is ~30-35 Mbps, this is just a tad disappointing since USB 2.0 is supposed to support upto 400 Mbps. Then again, this could be the computer's fault and not this drives.
If you are like me, and plan on using this for back-ups (which will not be that frequent) and would be reading stuff a lot more from this drive than writing to it - then you really can not go wrong with this drive.
Style points: It does look pretty good . Some folks hate the glowing blue lights and feel they are too bright. I beg to disagree. The drive also powers off when the Mac is put on sleep, so the lights do not remain on all the time.
In conclusion, this is a great deal for $200 for a 1TB drive. It would have been perfect with a Firewire option -- hence the 4 stars.
Customer Review: Chunky Look, Mega Storage, with some possible issues
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought the Western Digital My Book ITB to increase my Mac's Time Machine back-ups and to use for additional backup storage for my other computers. I expected the performance to be a little slow -- and it is, although not annoyingly so -- but that mattered less to me than the capacity and reliability. The capacity is a given, but what about reliability?
First, how it works: set up is easy. The drive plugs into an outlet (make sure you plug it into a surge protector) for power and through a USB slot to connect to the computer. Two bright blue bars alternate to show that the drive is working; when at rest, only one blue bar remains lit. When I first installed the drive, I erased its formatting and let my Mac do the rest. It has been working without issue, doing Time Machine backups as scheduled. It does have an annoying low frequency hum that pulses during use. My other external drive, a Seagate ST302504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, is completely quiet.
While I haven't had this external hard drive long enough to judge its longevity, I worried as soon as I opened the box. The case has numerous open slots and holes, presumably for ventilation, along the top and back, exposing the interior almost entirely. I'm afraid that dust settling in through these holes might compromise the device. So far, so good, but I wonder what will happen in another year.
The box is chunky: 6.5" tall, 5.25" front-to-back, and 2" wide. Despite a shiny black case a la iPhone, the look is more workhorse than elegant.
In general, I'm pleased with this drive's performance, but I removed one star for the hum and for the potential for issues that I may have to face in a year or two.
-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann
Customer Review: Large capacity for storing files
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned this drive for about six months so far, and I have not had any problems with it. I use this with my WDTV player, and have not had any problems that people have previously stated, like long upload times to catalog all the media. The transfer speeds are as fast as can be expected from USB 2.0, and connecting the external drive is a quick and painless procedure, especially considering that I have to haul it back to my computer from the entertainment center when I want to upload my latest batch of media files I've backed up or compiled.
I own both a Mac and a PC, and I have not had any substantial difficulties plugging the player into either and reading/writing files. However, I will note that on a Mac, I am unable to transfer any file that is 4+ GB onto the drive. I have to transfer it onto my PC first before it will successfully transfer. I believe this is just a limitation of the Mac though, as it also fails to write onto other USB devices, while the PC does not have any difficulties. (Not taking sides, I enjoy both for their strengths)
People have complained about HD failure, but Western Digital has been my favorite choice. Both my laptops have WD drives, and two out of three of my other external harddrives are WD as well. They take serious beatings (two are portable, and they've seen their fair shares of drops and bangs) and have not failed me yet, while Seagate and Hitachi drives have sputtered out (but to their credit, I was still able to salvage all data)
What I enjoy about this drive is that it will automatically go into a standby mode, much like a general portable harddrive. This may just be a feature that's included with all new desktop externals, but my other one and several other models I've seen years prior all have on/off switches, which have become a hassle now that they're contained in the deeper recesses of my desk space.
Customer Review: A data center on a shelf
Summary: 5 Stars
It is very hard to argue with the amount of storage that one of these drives offer. If you have been in the industry for awhile, you can remember when a terabyte of data meant an entire data center of storage!
These drives are quite and they format to NTFS quickly as long as you remember to specify quick format!! I have been pleased enough with the drive that I now own 6 of them. My laptop now has 6 terabyte of storage to work with! Since I do a lot of music and video work, that is important to me. Considering the fact that these drives now run about $229 when on sale, why would you not buy one?
Keep in mind that if you connect multiple drives, you will want to use different controlled ports on your computer; not just a USB hub (the reason is each dedicated port of a USB 2.0 can only work at a total of 400 MB/S. That means if you have multiple drives on the same controlled port that they are sharing that speed (this will really show up if you are moving data from one drive to another on the same hub). Remember, having 4 ports on your computer does not mean that they are 4 seperately controlled ports! Check your users manual or call technical support for your product to see how many seperately controlled ports you really have.
I have now moved all of my video, photos, and music to these drives (3 terabyte) and use the other three terabyte as mirrored drives (fail safe)and it is all easily accessable on my computer and on my network through my computer.
I have had the first drive for 5 months now and have added the others as they went on sale. I have not had any boot issues (mentioned in other reviews) and all of the lights go off when the computer is powered down. I am running Vista Ultimate with all updates and I am using an IBM ThinkPad with current BIOS.
Great drives!!!