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,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
Customer Review: Works great with Macs and PCs
Summary: 5 Stars
I lose those little keychain jump drives every three seconds, and when I can hold on to one, I always fill it to capacity within a couple of weeks. This thing is small enough to tuck out of the way when needed, or put in a messenger bag or other shoulder bag. I backed up my hard drive, and continually add photos and large presentations, and it's nowhere near full. I did a dollar per byte ratio in my head when I was deciding between this and the other options, and this won easily. It goes seemlessly between Macs and PCs to which I connect it without me having to 'install' any added software. Let me stress: I've NEVER had a problem with it and I've connected it to at least a dozen different PCs which were managed by lots of different people... I suspect that those with trouble might have their own computer and its configuration (something Mac owners rarely worry about) to blame. This thing has been reliable for well over two years and I'm glad I bought it.Customer Review: DO not trust Western Digital!
Summary: 1 Stars
i have the 500gb and 250gb
250gb died after 1.5 years (last week) - so the warranty is out
500gb died after 1.1 years (today) - so the warranty is out
btw, i didn't die of power surge, that's what the customer service blame on.
losy 50gb of pictures! memories, yes, i didn't get backup thinking of getting it next month since i'm busy with work!
even the warranty is in, would you dare to send in for warranty with all your personal stuff in there? plus they don't warranty recovery.
search around the internet for failure of this drive, you will get plenty. Plus some side show you how to open the case and try the hard drive on the external drive to recover your drive. Most of the case, it won't work. Will not buy anything from this company. Try Seagate that has better quality.
for some reason i got to repost...it got deleted...mught be BELKIN situation
Customer Review: Great for regular backup...
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this external drive for backup purposes and to transfer files from one computer to another without having to use all my bandwidth in my LAN.
It's been of great help since day 1.
First of all, I've tried it in WinXP, Vista and Win7, it's been flawless since I installed it in all three OS's. I haven't installed the backup features that come with the drive so I can't say how good they are.
So far I've used it for like 4 or 5 straight hours in a ventilated room with no A/C and it doesn't get hotter than normal, although I always keep it's three way ventilation open so it can breath freely.
When it comes to noise level, there is none.
In conclusion I can say that this is a great hard drive if you use it for occasional backup purposes; I haven't tested the drive by keeping it on 100% of the time. So there's my 2 cents, hope it helps.
P.S. Would I recommend it??? Yes!!!
Customer Review: Horribly Slow with Vista
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought the 500 GB My Book at Best Buy for $99 and expected it to perform like my older IO Gear external drive. I was horribly disappointed. While Vista recognized the drive immediately, it took over an hour to copy a 10 GB folder using a USB 2 connection. That's simply unacceptable. I should have checked the other reviews here and at Cnet to see how bad this drive is. I have had several WD drives in computers over the years and never expected them to produce a product that would perform so poorly. My advice would be to pay a little more for another drive.
Update 8/13/2008:
I plugged the drive into an XP machine and it worked fine. The speed problem seems to be isolated to my laptop with Vista Premium. My drive is version 2.0. When other reviewers say, "I can't understand the bad reviews" it points out how inconsistent the quality is with this product. I certainly can understand the bad reviews.
Customer Review: HORRIBLE product, drive failed, unreliable when brand new
Summary: 1 Stars
When this drive was actually working, I was not impressed with it. This is one of the noisiest external hard drives I have owned. The hard drive inside of the case must be very close to the case itself because sometimes it vibrates and makes a rattling sound. Also, sometimes I had to unplug and plug the USB cable back in 3 times to get Windows to recognize the hard drive. Nothing wrong with my computer because all of my other USB devices work just fine.
LAST NIGHT, I was awoken to the sound of CLICK, CLICK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. I knew it was a hard drive making this sound, and at first, I thought it was my internal hard drive, NOPE, it was this external hard drive. Sure enough, all my music (which is all I used this drive for) had become corrupt. I had hundreds of music folders, and only 19 of them were readable after this happened. I will never, ever buy a hard drive from Western Digital again.