Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDG1U5000
by Western Digital
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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: Quick & Quiet
Summary: 4 Stars
Visually appealing, extremely quiet operation -- just a slight ticking under heavy use. Very stable, with two long thin rubber strips keeping the case from moving. Installation is automatic on Win2000. Drive powers on and off automatically with the computer. Green ring of light on front flickers to indicate read/write.
However, operation of the drive was quirky at first. Opening the root of the drive would always bring up the annoying software install menu. (The software includes Adobe Acrobat Reader, Google Toolbar for IE, and Picasa). To facilitate use with both Windows and Mac, the drive comes preformatted to FAT32. However, this limits file sizes to 4GB. Using Windows utilities to reformat to NTFS was simple and hassle-free.
Note that a small slip of yellow paper in the box suggests downloading and installing an updated drive utility. Unfortunately, starting this updated utility brings up a blue screen of death, forcing a reboot of my Win2000 machine. Fortunately, the utility software is unneccesary.
Were it not for this hassle, I would have given the drive five stars.
UPDATE (March 18, 2008): The drive is STILL in perfect working order -- after nearly two years of weekday backups and a switch to XP. For months now, I have been using TrueCrypt for file encryption without any problems.
UPDATE (May 12, 2008): Drive died over the weekend, causing the blue screen of death, and now makes sad clicking noises as it tries to mount.
RIP
Customer Review: cheap high-volume storage
Summary: 4 Stars
First the pros: The unit worked out of the gate and is very quiet. Reformatted to NTFS and that worked out fine
Second the cons: The drive comes with no discernable way to upgrade to another drive later. 1TB drives will be at this price point next year and I didn't want to especially buy another external appliance. Also the fact I have a power brick is not great. My other external drive has a direct plug into the wall, so this is another piece to bring along. It would be nice if there were some actual instructions as what the software was on the drive. What was there was .pdfs of the included installation instructions. I don't need an installation manual, I would like to know what the bundled software is (was). As many other have said, the case is made of a cheap plastic. I hope it holds up.
UPDATE: ok, I have been using the drive for a little while now and I have to say that I am not as happy as I was earlier. The drive is relatively slow compared to my other two external drives (not WD). Access times are slow and navigating is slow. Worse, the drive seems to go unresponsive occasionally for several seconds at a time, causing my laptop to become unresponsive. My other two external units do not perform this slowly nor do they cause these performance issues. I'm not changing the rating, but if you could put up with a little extra noise, I would recommend getting a good Seagate or Samsung drive and sticking it into an external drive enclosure yourself.
Customer Review: Fast, Easy, and Affordable Storage Solution
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased this drive back in August and have been using it steadily since then. It's a solid performer!
An earlier review pointed out that it came pre-formatted to FAT32 but after copying the included software on the drive to my main drive a quick format to NTFS for larger storage blocks. Honestly, other than the drive monitoring utility not much else included was worth it as I had already installed most of the apps before.
Occasionally, after about five minutes of not accessing the drive it will spin down for power conservation. When accessing the drive in this state it takes an extra three or four seconds and then you are up and running so it's not a big deal in my opinion.
One thing I have noticed recently as I've approached filling the drive up is a bit more drive noise (which is why I give it four of five stars). I'm guessing this has something to do with how it is accessing stored data. I've not defragged the drive yet so maybe that will help the problem.
Another thing that comes up when you unplug the drive from your computer then plug it back in is that you can get a BIOS message stating that the startup drive configuration has changed and a recommendation to go into setup to select the start up order. If you just leave it plugged in all the time, like I do, then that is a non-issue except for when you first plug it in.
All in all this is a great drive and I am planning to get a second one.
Customer Review: Bulky, heavy, but worked as advertised
Summary: 5 Stars
Pros: It's got lots of storage and transfers data relatively fast. It's quiet (no fan) and looks stylish. I knew what I was getting into, though, so I'm not complaining about the size and weight.
Cons: If you want an easy to pack and move portable, this AIN'T it. Get a USB powered 2.5" drive. The things I didn't like about it and was uninformed when I got it are: 1) the little rubber feet on it like to fall off REALLY easy. 2) There are no pads as it comes to lay it on its side. Sure, it takes up less room, but I keep knocking the thing over. 3) It's a FAT-32 drive. Convert it to NTFS or else you won't be able to store ISO's of ripped DVD's, single layer or dual layer. 4) it comes with pre-loaded software that seems useless for what I bought it for -- Storing digital pictures, music, and ripped DVD's.
-- Bottom line, I'm going to have to buy a 2.5" USB powered external for dragging my media to and from work. I REALLY like my friend's passport Western Digital 160 GB USB 2.0 Passport 2.5" External Hard Drive ( WDXMS1600TN ). A 160 gig would really be the ticket!!!
** UPDATE **
The drive died and took all of the data with it. Got slower and slower, so I started transfering the important data off and it died halfway through the transfer. I am disappointed that it lasted only two hears with light use.
Customer Review: Does what it advertises...what else can you ask for?
Summary: 4 Stars
Picked up this drive for a 100 bucks flat so it was a great deal for 500 gigs of external storage. My 300gb and 250gb externals were full so I needed all the room I could get my hands on. I have this whole black piano finish thing going with all my computer peripherals so this was a great addition to my desk. It is surprisingly compact and sleek. In fact, my 250 gb Fantom drive is actually bigger than this one!
For newcomers to external hard drives, you may want to look up how to format this HD from a FAT32(factory default) to NTFS. I tend to store files that are upwards of 4gb and with the FAT32 this is not possible. It is very easy to format the drive in XP and all the preloaded stuff (read: junk) that comes with the drive is pretty unnecessary. The google software might be useful to some people but you could probably just download that off the web. Right click on My Computer. Goto Manage. Right click on the My Book drive and hit Format. Switch file system to NTFS and just let it do its thing. In about an hour you will have a perfectly empty and formatted drive ready to use.
Overall I am happy with the purchase - it is a good, compact, sleek, reliable hard drive for about a c-note. That's a good deal. Also, I gave the product 4 stars not because there is anything wrong with it but just because I reserve the 5 star rating for truly phenomenal products.
Hope you found this review helpful!