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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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDG1U5000
Customer Review: Good Product Unless You Get A Defective One
Summary: 4 Stars
Western Digital has a good reputation, and their products are generally good. But my situaiton was as follows: a couple of DAYS after installing it, I could no longer access it. I went to their support line, and, after a number of tests, it was clear that the product was defective.
Amazon only refunds 50% of the value of opened and used products, according to their policy. Western told me to return it to the seller. I explained Amazon's policy, so they had me return to them and replaced it with a refurbished model. So even though I had the product only a few days, I have a used one in its place.
The good news is the the refurbished one is working well. If return/replacement issues are significant to you, you might take this into account.
New info: I and another respondent have had trouble with the hard drive info being completely lost. Apparently this is not the fault of the unit but the nature of hard drives. Leave it off when you do not need it. Even though it can take the heat, sometimes, when you turn your computer off (or on), a stray static charge can erase the info from your external drive. So use this as a storage drive (backing it up first) and leave it off except when you need it, and then turn it off.
Customer Review: My experiences with the Western Digital My Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I've now had the My Book for over a month and thought I would add my review to the others. People seem to be having some quite different experiences with this. Mine has been consistently positive.
Some complain about the noise. Mine makes virtually no noise. Perhaps this is because of the way I use it. I use the My Book exclusively for data storage. I put photos, camcorder videos, and music files on it. I have not installed any programs on it and never will. I suspect that some of those who have problems with it making noise have made the mistake of installing programs onto it. If you use it only for storage, it should make very little noise. Running programs off it would also cause it to run hotter and wear out more quickly. I have two cats and so am also concerned with the effect their fur could have on it. So I would never consider it for anything other than storage.
All in all, I couldn't be happier with this. You get a huge amount of storage for very little cash outlay. Used properly (i.e., for storage only, not to run programs) I expect this to be with me for quite some time to come. But I also am using them only for back up. I have all the same data on an internal hard drive. It is the only smart way to go.
Customer Review: Best Hard Drive I've Ever Owned
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best hard drive I've ever had. It's solidly built, runs completely silently, runs cool, and is at a fantastic cost. I've owned dozens of hard drives through the years and this one is hands down my favorite from my favorite company ever. I bought it over a year ago and it still is perfect.
Some things to note however to get the best out of this device.
1) As soon as you get it format it in NTFS using either My Computer>Right Click>Format>NTFS in Windows or if using a Gnome Edition of Linux such as Ubuntu (like myself) open terminal and type 'sudo gpart'. This allows you to store files over 2GB on it such as your DvD ISO backups or back ups of your games.
2) Buy a refurbished or used one. New this product is $300. You can find it all day long on Amazon between $60 and $90 cutting the cost down to almost 1/6 on a good day.
3) Some other customers have complained about this product breaking after prolonged use. This device does have a limited lifespan with write usage. This being said try to put data on it that you want to back up and then set it to 'read only'. This will save you some headaches in the future. It's meant to be a backup drive after all and not one for installing applications on.
Customer Review: Stopped working the day after I bought it
Summary: 1 Stars
I just purchased a WD My Book Essential Edition 500 GB external hard drive yesterday. I backed up files from an old HP laptop, transferred some additional files from a 2-yr-old Gateway laptop, and then went to transfer everything over to my newer Dell laptop. The Dell would not recognize the hard drive. After a quick search online, I found that many other folks have run into the same problem. So, planning to get everything off the hard drive and return it, I plugged it into my Gateway that it had previously worked on. The Gateway now does not recognize the drive. The old HP does not recognize the drive. I even tried a desktop eMachine and a Dell desktop, and neither of them will recognize it either. The blue ring does not turn on. The drive is completely silent - no signs of life. I have not abused it, and have followed all directions carefully concerning order of plugging things in and using the "safely remove hardware" feature before removing it from the computers that did recognize it (when they recognized it). I have irreplaceable files on this now non-functioning hard drive! Lesson learned - I have never only had files on external drives in one place, but did it this time and now am regretting it mightily! Stay away from this one!Customer Review: Looks good, easy to use, uploads quickly
Summary: 4 Stars
First off: I'm a mac person, and the aesthetics of the technology I use matters to me -- don't ask why. I like the look of this hard drive. I had another hard drive that I liked to hide underneath my desk it was so ugly -- but this one sits right up there next to my mac.
I bought this mostly as a scratch disk for Final Cut Pro -- and it needs to be fast so as not to slow down rendering and other processes. I've used a few different brands and this one is my favorite (maybe I'm a bit jaded coming out of a bad relationship with a hard drive whose power supply failed after about 6 months, but I like this one a lot better than that one). It runs smoothly and quietly in the background and seems to be as fast or faster than other ones I've used. I know that is not very specific or technical -- but I am the kind of user who doesn't like to be bothered by that kind of thing a lot, I just want something that works for me and this one seems to do the job. I read several reviews of different drives before buying this one, some technical and some not, and was convinced by what I read and by the price that this would do what I needed it to in my price range. It has.