Western Digital 500 GB My Book Essential 2.0 - USB 2.0 External Hard Drive WDH1U5000N | List Price: $129.99
Discount Price: $80.99
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Brand: Western Digital
Binding: Personal Computers
Warranty: 1 year warranty
Features: - Includes - External hard drive, USB cable, AC adapter and Quick Install Guide
- Smart and energy efficient - Turns itself on and off with your computer
- Saving and organizing your digital photo collection
- USB 2.0 Serial Bus Transfer Rate - 480 Mbits/s
- System Requirements - Available USB port, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later
Avoid At All Costs [Posted on 2008-10-30]
Although the data is reliably kept and I have not encountered any data corruption, the hard drive frequently fails to mount. Only on rare occasions does the drive show up, and if it does I make sure to update what I can. I'm sorry to say this external hard drive is just not reliable in regards to access.
Works great with Macs and PCs [Posted on 2008-10-30]
I lose those little keychain jump drives every three seconds, and when I can hold on to one, I always fill it to capacity within a couple of weeks. This thing is small enough to tuck out of the way when needed, or put in a messenger bag or other shoulder bag. I backed up my hard drive, and continually add photos and large presentations, and it's nowhere near full. I did a dollar per byte ratio in my head when I was deciding between this and the other options, and this won easily. It goes seemlessly between Macs and PCs to which I connect it without me having to 'install' any added software. Let me stress: I've NEVER had a problem with it and I've connected it to at least a dozen different PCs which were managed by lots of different people... I suspect that those with trouble might have their own computer and its configuration (something Mac owners rarely worry about) to blame. This thing has been reliable for well over two years and I'm glad I bought it.
External hard drive [Posted on 2008-10-31]
Excellent performance, easy to use. I had to reformat it to NTFS but they have instructions online.
Good external HD, but use ONLY for backup/data storage [Posted on 2008-11-02]
I've been using Western Digital HD's for nearly 15 years now and never yet have had one of them fail on me (though there's always a first time!) I currently own two of these My Book 500GB external drives which I have hooked up to my newest system. These drives are attractively designed, quite sleek with good ventilation and very easy to set up; the only things you need to do are (1) plug in the power adapter and connect it to a suitable socket and (2) connect the USB cable to the computer; Windows XP and Vista will do the rest of the setup process automatically. (There's a version for Mac.) As others have noted, the drive is formatted FAT at the factory, so you'll need to reformat it if you want to use NTFS - do remember to copy over the tools to another drive first if you want to use them. They're also decently sturdy; I accidentially knocked the first one off my desk not long after I bought it, but it took no damage and is still running smoothly 8 months later. The drive goes to standby automatically when not in use to save power and reduce heat, so it will take a few seconds to get it spun up after a period of inactivity. Also, USB 2.0, though quite speedy, is still slow compared to the internal hard drive's PATA or SATA connections, so keep that in mind when transferring data.
A very important caveat: ***heed the advice of other reviewers and use this drive, and ANY other model of external hard drive, ONLY for backup and data storage.*** Do NOT rely on any external hard drive for primary storage or running programs or operating systems. External hard drives are designed and intended to expand your storage space, not to serve as primary drives. Remember this and you should have a highly satisfying experience with this hard drive.
More trouble than it's worth [Posted on 2008-11-12]
I bought one of these, and used it for several months, and liked it so well that I bought a second identical one.
These drives are supposed to spin down and go into sleep mode after a period of inactivity. The first drive did that just fine, UNTIL I got the second drive. Now both of them spin down and spin back up again immediately, with much noise and blinky light action. Off and on and off and on, forever. EXTREMELY annoying and distracting.
I spent approximately six hours total (over several days) on the phone with Western Digital tech support. Their final conclusion was that I needed to use a utility (which I downloaded from their site) to shut the drives down manually. This utility works, but only after several tries. Once the drives are shut down, I can only access them again by unplugging the drives physically, plugging them back in again, then waiting a minute or so while they start up.
It should be noted that the first drive I bought had been going into sleep mode perfectly. When I added the second, BOTH drives fail to go into sleep mode. And the original drive never goes into sleep mode anymore, even without the second drive installed.
As a result of all this, I have two drives which make great long-term storage, but are unusuable as additional hard drives to be used in real time. The latter is what I need, not the former. I'm out the money, and I still need some external drives I can USE.
BEWARE!!
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