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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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
Customer Review: Good and Bad...
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently purchased this product, I have another one that I keep music and info on and got this one for my pictures. My pictures of course are valuable and cannot be replaced. I like the design, although it is slightly smaller than it predecesor, and I like the fact that once you plug it in it automatically downloads its drivers.
One thing that did not like or appreciate was that it came with some free trial software for backup and auto sync, also google desktop and a toolbar. They don't give you the choice of downloading it, it automatically downloads, I can erase it later but they don't disclose what they are about to put on your computer or give you a choice.
I had it all setup and put my pictures on it, the next day the light was off and would not come on. The power cord had failed. The device still works well but I have no confidence in the thing. I'm affraid that if I put valuable stuff on it I'm going to lose it.
Although the device works really well and I've had no other problem with it, I'm kinda sorry that I bought it.
Customer Review: Good value for the money
Summary: 4 Stars
The WD 500gb "My Book" is a perfect solution for desktop backup. I use mine attached to a NSLU2 as one of a pair. It's said that if you don't have a backup, you really don't have anything - and I agree. Every night, every machine on my network backs up important files to the NSLU2 and one of these drives. I then have the drives copy to each other - essentially resulting in three copies of everything. So I'm a bit OCD.
They are quiet, seem to be reliable (what drive isn't reliable till it fails?) and at around a hundred bucks for 500gb, very reasonably priced. I just purchased the second and I plan to add a third, probably the 1tb model, to another box soon.
Keep in mind when you see people giving one star cause the drive puked that every single manufacturer produces the occasional bad unit. You won't find any of these types of drives with a perfect rating - hence the idea of maintaining multiple copies. I'd like to add a blu-ray drive to my machine at some point in the future and add hard copy backups that way.
Recommended!
Customer Review: I'll never buy a Western Digital hard drive again.
Summary: 1 Stars
I have two of these hard drives. I originally bought them because you couldn't beat the price. I use one as a storage backup and one as a short term backup. I trusted that my storage backup would be there in case the short term back up went out. Not the case. I went to plug it up and found that it had starting clicking though it worked perfectly last time I backed up my data on it. This clicking problem is apparently a very common sign of hard drive failure. It is toast unless I want to pay out the wazoo to get my data recovered by a professional service. Now here I am with no back up of my data since BOTH Western Digital My Books have failed. The worst part is that they are 3 weeks out of warranty. It is ridiculous to think that even if you backup frequently and do everything they say to do, your data can still disappear forever. I guess you get what you pay for.
I recommend carefully reading many reviews and likely problems before you purchase a hard drive made by Western Digital. This company has really let us down.
Customer Review: Buy Garbage, Get Garbage
Summary: 1 Stars
This was my second, third, and forth Western Digital (MY BOOK) Drives that failed. My second Drive (MY BOOK 500 GB) died after 16 months of service. It was out of Warranty and I lost a good amount of work on it. I replaced it with this drive (Western Digital MY BOOK ESSENTIAL 500 GB) which died 7 months after service. This drive was in fact under Warranty. I sent it back to Western Digital at my shipping expense, and received the replacement today. Guess
The replacement drive failed to power up, was not regained on two computers, and this one needs to go back. Western Digital may have covered the warranty, but how could anyone explain sending out a dead drive for a replacement? How?
Do yourself a favor, read the reviews here on Amazon, Look at the SEAGATE drives and pick something with not only a better warranty, but better service, and reviews. Western Digital only warranties its drives for one year, Seagate hands you a five year warranty.
Customer Review: Well, at least it still works...
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought my WD drive (320 GB) without reading any of the reviews. There are many reviews saying that it dies after a year. I don't know, I guess I'll wait and see since I've only had mine about three or four months.
My main gripe is the way this damn thing works. It takes extremely long to put all your data on it, it comes with Autosync, which it INSISTS on opening automatically each time I turn on my computer, slowing my laptop down to a crawl. The instructions are virtually non-existant. Need help with something? Too bad. Figure it out yourself.
I was so frustrated that I've already bought a new external HD (because I don't trust this one and it drives me crazy) and the new Toshiba that I bought worked so much more smoothly. No software starts up when I turn on my laptop, no slowing it down and the program it comes with (NTI Shadow) is easy to use and contains detailed PDF instructions.
I give it two stars because it still works.