Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
by Western Digital
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Our Price: $143.49 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $69.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
Customer Review: One possible simple repair for WD My Books not powering on
Summary: 1 Stars
My out-of-warranty WD My Book Essential II USB 2.0 drive (MDL: WD5000H1U-00) stopped powering on recently, and after testing the wall wart output and trying a different USB cable & computer, I opened the enclosure and tried the bare drive in another enclosure, and it worked fine.
So I started testing the I/O / power supply PCB (I am an electrical engineer). Mine says FIREFLY 1U/1B in the upper right on the component side. With the 12V power attached, there was no voltage appearing across the 1000uF cap (C55), so I assumed the 12V to 5V DC-DC (switching) converter circuit was not working. Nothing looks scorched, swollen, or out of the ordinary physically. Then I happened to test the voltage at the output of the inductor (L19) and I was getting 4.X volts! I looked more carefully, and apparently the surface-mount inductor solder joint had opened! If the inductor is not connected at one end to the output capacitor, things aren't going to work!! So I resoldered it down, and voila, it worked perfectly again.
I think this could be the source of many complaints people have about WD My Book drives failing in high-use applications. The more time the drive is powered on, the more vibration the surface-mount inductor will experience (mostly from the drive mechanism but also from its self-induced switching vibration), and the more likely the solder joint will fail. If you know your bare drive is good, look carefully at the FIREFLY 1U/1B board and test for continuity between both ends of the inductor and the + terminal of the 1000uF output cap (C55)! Or, better yet, check for continuity between pin 8 (SW) of U4 (the NX2114 controller chip) and the + terminal of the output cap. I hope this saves somebody from losing data or throwing away a perfectly good hard drive!
Customer Review: Good external HD, but use ONLY for backup/data storage
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been using Western Digital HD's for nearly 15 years now and never yet have had one of them fail on me (though there's always a first time!) I currently own two of these My Book 500GB external drives which I have hooked up to my newest system. These drives are attractively designed, quite sleek with good ventilation and very easy to set up; the only things you need to do are (1) plug in the power adapter and connect it to a suitable socket and (2) connect the USB cable to the computer; Windows XP and Vista will do the rest of the setup process automatically. (There's a version for Mac.) As others have noted, the drive is formatted FAT at the factory, so you'll need to reformat it if you want to use NTFS - do remember to copy over the tools to another drive first if you want to use them. They're also decently sturdy; I accidentially knocked the first one off my desk not long after I bought it, but it took no damage and is still running smoothly 8 months later. The drive goes to standby automatically when not in use to save power and reduce heat, so it will take a few seconds to get it spun up after a period of inactivity. Also, USB 2.0, though quite speedy, is still slow compared to the internal hard drive's PATA or SATA connections, so keep that in mind when transferring data.
A very important caveat: ***heed the advice of other reviewers and use this drive, and ANY other model of external hard drive, ONLY for backup and data storage.*** Do NOT rely on any external hard drive for primary storage or running programs or operating systems. External hard drives are designed and intended to expand your storage space, not to serve as primary drives. Remember this and you should have a highly satisfying experience with this hard drive.
Customer Review: if you use Windows and have large files: do this before anything else
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been using this for a year now, and it's generally been ok. I had some issues at first where the drive wouldn't show up on my computer running XP, or the drive icon would show up and then disappear with no apparent pattern. The WD website was no help. The backup software is not helpful in my mind, though I've never found one I liked.
OK, so I admit, I did not read the manual, but just plugged the drive in. One piece of advice: if you run Windows, before you do anything else, reformat the My Book. "This WD device is preformatted as a single FAT32 partition for compatibility with all updated Windows and Macintosh operating systems. The FAT32 file system has a maximum individual file size limit of 4 GB." I never read that in the manual. Recently, I kept trying to move 2 4.3GB files on it, and it kept giving me an error stating "There is not enough free disk space" when there obviously was. It took me a while to figure out it was because of the formatting. As I am relatively tech competent but not hard core, I don't want to go through the process of backing up everything essential on the drive on another drive and then reformatting or risking losing everything by creating partitions and reformatting within them. I ended up just splitting the files (which means I will have to combine them again if I ever use them again).
Also, if you want 500GBs I'd think of getting a 320GB Passport instead. I have a couple Passports, and in the end they have been much more useful since they are easy to carry around (no power adapter and smaller size) and never have given me problems. I fly often, and security always asks to examine the My Book drive unless you take it out and put it in a separate bin.
Customer Review: An obviously defective product
Summary: 1 Stars
I've owned five of the WD 500GB external drives and have just had the third one fail in a little over 2-years. I know of only two other people who own 1-each of these drives and both of theirs failed in under a year. My one attempt to rectify the matter with Western Digital lead to instructions to obtain a return authorization with the recommendation that I could pay a third-party to try to retrieve my lost 200GBs of data. I have not had this problem with the 80GB drives (of which I own 2), the 120GB (of which I own 1), the 250GB (of which I own 1), or the 1TB drives (of which I own 2). I also own 2 WD portable drives (250GB & 500GB) and have had reliable service so far. After hearing that Western Digital has added a VCD system to their 1TB external drives, I decided it was time to wave good-bye to Western Digital forever.
I can no longer recommend their products with a clear conscience and will likely never purchase anything from them again. I let them burn me once. I forgave and let them burn me twice. Now they have burned me 3-times on the same model and at three-strikes, they're now out of the running.
I gave them 2-stars (edited to 1-star), only because 2 of my five drives are still operating. For how long, no one knows.
As an update, as of today (1-19-2010), my final 500GB drive stopped being recognized by the system. Western Digital insists they don't know anything about a problem with this model but the reviews here tell an entirely different story. If you buy a WD 500GB Essential MyBook, you're throwing your money and your data away. After 7-years as a dedicated Western Digital customer I'm switching to Seagate.
Customer Review: Perfect Size Phsyically and Memory Wise
Summary: 4 Stars
Western Digital's `My Book' line is a mixture of quality (performance) and quantity (available space). These external hard drives work smooth, but may occasionally click (come on it's only natural with that much information). Now with the terabyte model available why pick this one (500gb model)? Ask yourself, what do I need a terabyte for? If you think you can fill it go for it, but be warned it's a tad bit tougher to obtain the same performance this 500GB model offers. Can't fill a terabyte? No problem, you just saved yourself about forty bucks!
Western Digital is a brand I personally find to be steadily reliable over long periods of time. With the 500gb and 320gb `My book' models I've found nothing but top performance. It kicks into your machine fast, and is pretty simple to get going. Plug in the adapter to the nearest outlet, connect the USB cable, and profit!
I tote this around daily to multiple computers and have had no negative responses. It looks great, but scratches easily too (mine looks like a cats scratch post). I've even dropped it a few times, still it holds through thick and thin (oh mine also looks like a dented car too). It's also user friendly. People, who know little about computers and nothing of storage devices, will find it to be simple enough.
Really you can't go wrong with this, if you want a smaller unit try looking into the `Passport' models. Great buy, and can be found nearly anywhere (well anyplace that sells eletroni-...never mind you know).