Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
by Western Digital
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Our Price: $159.98 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: Great for regular backup...
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this external drive for backup purposes and to transfer files from one computer to another without having to use all my bandwidth in my LAN.
It's been of great help since day 1.
First of all, I've tried it in WinXP, Vista and Win7, it's been flawless since I installed it in all three OS's. I haven't installed the backup features that come with the drive so I can't say how good they are.
So far I've used it for like 4 or 5 straight hours in a ventilated room with no A/C and it doesn't get hotter than normal, although I always keep it's three way ventilation open so it can breath freely.
When it comes to noise level, there is none.
In conclusion I can say that this is a great hard drive if you use it for occasional backup purposes; I haven't tested the drive by keeping it on 100% of the time. So there's my 2 cents, hope it helps.
P.S. Would I recommend it??? Yes!!!
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: 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: 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.