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: Good, but people are having problems because
Summary: 5 Stars
I find this product really good. It is simple, small, elegant, and it works. I am not familiar with the longevity of the drive, because I only had it for a few days.
People seem to be having file transfers very slow. This is because it comes pre-formatted with a format that is more compatible with Mac and PC but less efficient and more prone to error.
Macintosh users should format it to HFS+. Windows users should format it to NTFS. This will make the drive faster in data transfer and less prone to error. The internet is full of tutorials on drive reformatting. Keep in mind that Macs cannot write to NTFS and Windows machines cannot read or write to HFS+.
Secondly, I would recommend this drive to have space around it. If it is not ventilated I would imagine it would not last long.
Following these tips would help. Good drive. Good deal. Thumbs up.
Customer Review: Would not purchase this hard drive
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased the WD My Book 500mb external hard drive about a year ago with a 3 year warranty. The drive failed after about 4 months with constant clicking and I lost everything that was on this drive. I received a replacement drive quickly. The second drive lasted about 7 months and last week the drive started clicking again... once again I lost everything on the drive. I went on WD's web site and the replacement drive had a 90 day warranty and I am out of luck getting a replacement drive from this company. I am in the process of purchasing another drive. I do not recommend this drive simply because the Western Digital company obviously does not have faith in their own product, otherwise the 3 year warranty would have carried over to the replacement drive. For two drives to fail in a year's time is not very good odds either and it seems the WD company feels the same about their own product.Customer Review: Hardware OK / Deceptive Software Installation
Summary: 3 Stars
This is my third Western Digital MyBook external drive, each installed on different computers. So far, I am pleased with their performance for PC backups. However, the most recent drive I purchased came with Memeo AutoBackup software. This software claims to offer background backups as your files are updated, eliminating the need for daily or weekly manual backups. Software installation and setup was a breeze.
Here's the problem: After the software was installed, setup, and running the first backup, I received a pop-up message indicating that this was a 30-day trial. If I want to use this software on an ongoing basis, I'll need to purchase it.
Trial software is fine IF AND ONLY IF the user is notified before installation that it is trial software. I'll be uninstalling this software and using the drive with Microsoft Vista's Backup & Restore software.
Customer Review: Western Digital Drives are good
Summary: 5 Stars
You can store any type and size of data as long as it's in NTFS file format, you dont have to reformat the drive and lose your daya you can chage the file system with your files on it.
Standard Windows utility that is called CONVERT serves this purpose
Just go to the Command Prompt and execute the command:
Type: C:\> CONVERT C: /fs:ntfs
Where C: is a name of the drive you want to convert.
After machine re-boot conversion process will start and you'll have your FAT32 converted to NTFS without of data loss.
Another thing about Western Digital Drives is that your computer may not reconginze the drive, this is becuase you have too many devices on one powerstrip, so get another powerstrip so that you do not draw too much current away from the drive(s), then restart ypour computer! Problem solved!
Customer Review: Use Appropriately!
Summary: 3 Stars
I have two of these, and I use them for backups. I do not consider them to be reliable enough for use as a primary drive - backups only!
Consider the previous negative reviews in the proper context. The previous reviewers who used one of these drives as primary storage without backing up were asking for trouble. If your primary or backup drive fails, just replace it. Hard drives will fail unexpectedly, but that's why you make backups, right?
There's no guarantee that an external drive (like this one) will be any more reliable than your primary internal drive; indeed, the 3-year warranty internal drives are probably somewhat more reliable than the 1-year external drives, so use an internal drive for backup if you can. However, these drives are very convenient as backup media... just don't have unreasonable expectations.
hth!