Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDG1U5000
by Western Digital
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List Price: Our Price: $199.99 You Save: $130.00 (39%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $69.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDG1U5000
Customer Review: Western Digital Essential Edition 500 External Hard Drive
Summary: 4 Stars
As my wife and I are avid amateur photographers, we are always looking for additional storage space for our images. This purchase is our second My Book. We have owned the first for over a year now and have no problems to report. So I would suspect the same would apply to this drive. They are simple to install, just plug and play. I have only one gripe with the new drive. On the older drive the large round indicator on the front acted as a power button. The new one does not have this feature. I was very close to returning it (thinking it was broken) until I noticed the instructions state that the drive will "automatically" power down when the computer is turned off. It makes no mention of the power off button. I would prefer that WD give the option to power the drive down manually, thus the 4 stars instead of 5.Customer Review: This is my second one
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent the past year digitizing my CD collection and when I outgrew my 200 gig internal hard drive I decided to go the external route. The My Book was a good choice. The drive is extremely quiet, takes up very little space, and does not get hot in normal use. I really like that the drive is smart enough to automatically go into stand-by when you turn off your P.C.
The first thing you will want to do if you buy one is to delete the junk software that comes preinstalled on the disc. The second thing is to reformat the drive to use the NTFS file system, which is more reilable than FAT 32.
The drive is not a speed demon but is more than adequate for streaming music. I recently bought a second one to backup the first. Unless you need the Firewire port, the Essential Edition should be adequate.
Customer Review: Worst Hard Drive
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this hard drive to back up various computers at home -- Macs and PCs. At first eveything was fine. But once I got up to 350 GB, I started to hear a hum. It got louder by the time I finshed transferring files and it was at 400GB. I touched and it was REAL HOT!
I thought OK, maybe too many files loued too quikly. I dismounted it and turned off the power.
Next day I tried to mount it and it would not show up on any of the machines! All those hours, all those back ups to a failed disk! I had problems with a Western Digital portable drive earlier -- real finicky on which computers it would mount on. So WD will NOT get strike three -- they are OUT for me.
Going back LaCie whose HDs are still working after 10 years!
You buy cheap, you get cheap!
Customer Review: good drive
Summary: 4 Stars
I picked this model over the premium edition because of the reviews about the software, which seem to be the only difference really (except for the capacity gauge lights on the premium edition, which is a nice feature). All I really wanted was software where I could pick certain folders and have it copy them to this external drive, letting me say what should happen if there are duplicate files. I downloaded SyncBack and will try it out shortly. As per the device, I haven't had any problems with it so far...it powers up right when I plug it into my computer and shuts down when I unplug it. Read, write, and delete speeds seem very reasonable to me. It took about 25 seconds to write 190MB worth of files (sorry, that's the only data point I captured).
Overall, I'm happy with the purchase so far.
Customer Review: Buyer Beware!
Summary: 1 Stars
I wish I read the reviews before... With data you really want function over form!
I generally don't make a habit of leaving reviews. However, I was so disappointed with this product that I was motivated to do this. In any case, look at the distribution of the reviews. On one side, a of people love it and give it 5 stars (113 at the time of this writing). *However*, a lot of people hate it (72 at the time of this writing). Well, add me to the latter. My WD MyBook crapped out after a few months (less than 4). I haven't contacted WD, I'm going to take it to a Memory Recovering place, and that'll be the end of it (along with my desire of buying future WD products). Don't say you weren't warned (73 people have taken the time to put it in writing, don't be #74).
Cheers,
-FZ