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: Disappointed after one year, poor customer support
Summary: 1 Stars
I am utterly disappointed with my external drive. It's just been a little over a year since purchase and it has malfunctioned. The warranty expired after a year, how convenient. We phoned technical support. We were offered to be transferred to a phone technician for a fee to help us troubleshoot the problem. After paying the $15 fee, we were in contact with a technician only for him to tell us that we need to replace our drive. No diagnostics, no further questions, no attempts to merely reboot the computer, nothing. The total time in contact with the technician was approximately 5 minutes, and I was placed on hold for at least a minute in between. Now, I will need to fork up an additional $500-plus to recover the data (i.e. family pictures for the last 8 months, most of which were of my newborn son) that may or may not exist on my malfunctioned drive.Customer Review: Auto shut off is annoying
Summary: 3 Stars
Seems reliable, quiet, and fast enough... but i really don't like the auto shut off feature. If you don't use it for 10 minutues it shuts down. When you try to access a file from it again, it goes back on. I could be working on a file, step away for a minute, then come back to it and save... and then it has to spin up again just to save. This takes a few seconds every time this happens, which slows me down.
Also... I am unsure of the longevity of an electronic item which is constantly going on and off. In any electronic device, a surge is sent through the device when powering up. We all know that this process of starting up is what wears electronics out, and decreases their life.
So.... if there is someone out there that knows how to turn this feature off... please let me know. I would love it if without auto shut off.
Customer Review: WD My Book - high value for a good price
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my first external hard drive. I chose WD because after too many crashes by a popular drive brand I realized that I've had several internal WD drives and never had a problem with them.
Just over a month ago I ordered a 500 GB drive for only $85 - and got a 640 GB drive, compliments of the manufacturer. That's just over $.13 per GB, an amazingly good price.
It's not portable and must be plugged into a power supply, but it's the size of a thick book, beautiful to look at and almost totally silent. It's not as fast as an internal drive; I get about 20-30 MB per second, nowhere near as fast as the 60 MB/s claimed for USB2 but comparable to my internal WD drive.
Unless you really need super-fast data transfer rates, this is a good, solid performer at a great price. Highly recommended.
Customer Review: My Book 500GB is a solid performer
Summary: 5 Stars
I was looking for an inexpensive storage solution for my ever-growing closed file folder on my work laptop. I was constantly having to burn copies of files to CD-R's and then delete massive amounts of data off my tiny laptop hard drive. Well, the My Book 500GB was a perfect solution! It connected very easy and was a snap to use. I'm completely satisfied and have had no problems with the unit since receiving it. It has an auto on/off feature which is nice and is very quiet. I would definitely recommend this product and would buy another if this one ever failed. I also have the Maxtor OneTouch 500GB USB drive and I would say they both perform admirably.
Amazon shipping was fast as usual and I will continue to do most (if not all) of my online shopping with Amazon.com. The prices and selection cannot be beat.
Customer Review: I would give it a zero, but the system doesn't go that low.
Summary: 1 Stars
Bought the 750GB version (basically identical), and it lasted almost exactly 24 hours before dying, taking 300GB of my data with it. Warranty choices were:
1. Open enclosure to get data out (including credit card and passwords), but loose all warranty. Often the enclosure dies while hard drive is ok... but it is a risk. If the hard drive is a problem, doing this creates a beautiful looking, expensive paperweight.
2. Lose data, but get replacement drive. Bye bye to data, and who knows if they wipe drive properly before recycling it.
3. Pay professional company to retrieve data. Called one, who wanted $500 minimum.
Best choice? By something that works, and has good support. WD makes poor enclosures (have now lost 2 this week), and offers poor support policies. Buyer beware.