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Western Digital 500GB My Book Essential 2.0 - USB 2.0 External Hard Drive WDH1U5000N
Western Digital
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$169.99
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$114.99 |
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$55.00
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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.
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Customer Reviews
for Western Digital 500GB My Book Essential 2.0 - USB 2.0 External Hard Drive WDH1U5000N --- Western Digital
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unreliable: 2 drives died within a year
The first drive died after about two months of very light use. Then I got a replacement drive from Western Digital. This second drive died a few days ago, after about a year of very light use. Both drives died the same way, with the clicking sound of death.
Search keywords: Western Digital unreliable, My Book unreliable.
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Two of these have failed in the past year - STAY AWAY!
I got one and my dad got one - both have failed in less than a year. Stay away from this piece of junk.
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software bundle with my book
I delete the softwares come with it. It causes me to lose some files. I use turbo backup. I don't know it is the problem with the delete software or I have problem with turbo backup. I could not backup to "my book" or I have to spend $30 to buy "rar" to make it work.
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Auto shut off is annoying
Seems reliable, quiet, and fast enough... but i really don't like the auto shut off feature. If you don't use it for 10 minutues it shuts down. When you try to access a file from it again, it goes back on. I could be working on a file, step away for a minute, then come back to it and save... and then it has to spin up again just to save. This takes a few seconds every time this happens, which slows me down.
Also... I am unsure of the longevity of an electronic item which is constantly going on and off. In any electronic device, a surge is sent through the device when powering up. We all know that this process of starting up is what wears electronics out, and decreases their life.
So.... if there is someone out there that knows how to turn this feature off... please let me know. I would love it if without auto shut off.
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Great price for the amount of storage.
This is the second Western Digital HD that I purchased and I am very happy with the ease and speed of transfers.
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Good Value
Pro: Good price for large storage.
Con: No fast connention such as eSATA or FireWire (Only in Home Edition)
Useless software provided (Even not run on my computer)
465GB total space instead of 500GB (not a big deal though)
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Does what I expected, at a good price.
It's a product that does what it is supposed to do, with NO glitches. I copied over 290 GB of MP3's in about six hours, and am enjoying them now. 62,000 songs, all happily living in a plastic book shaped drive. Quiet, pretty, and smart. Like a good woman.
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500 = 465?
I purchased this unit and installed it on my windows xp system to find that the drive only shows 465gb rather than the advertised 500. It may be my mistake or my NTFS, but this seems a bit like false advertising either way.
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V2.0 Of The My Book Series Is Out - Will It Be More Reliable Than V1.0?
Western Digital has released v2.0 of the My Book Essential external hard drive series, redesigned for late 2007.
The Essential series is the value line from Western Digital's external hard drive product line. Featuring a USB-only connection, the drive is targeted to price-conscious users who need lots of extra storage space, but don't need multiple connectivity options (USB, eSATA, Firewire).
Slightly reduced in thickness from its predecessor, v2.0 is about the size of an epic paperback novel only a few inches deeper. It weighs in around two pounds.
Gone is the green lighted circle which used to represent the power switch on older v1.0 drives - v2.0 uses a blue-lighted vertical drive activity indicator which alternates on and off when the drive is being accessed.
But also gone is the power switch itself. The latest generation of external drives from a variety of manufacturers including Western Digital and Seagate are now omitting them as a cost-saving measure. The My Book powers up upon plugging in the power and/or the USB connector. The drive is configured to power down after 10 minutes of inactivity or sensing the computer has been turned off.
Another substantial change is also becoming common with external drive models - doing away with the standard USB cable and replacing it with a USB-mini. The included cable, around three feet in length, may be too short for some applications, and be prepared to have some longer USB mini connector cables on hand if you want to extend the reach. Seagate has gone the same way.
Setting the drive up takes well under five minutes, from removing the shrink wrap on the box to actually seeing the drive on your desktop. The box comes with a very brief manual, a power cord (with a horizontally aligned transformer which may or may not be a good thing depending on where you plug it in), a USB cable, and the unit itself, wrapped in a protective plastic sheet.
The drive is pre-formatted using the FAT system, which creates a single partition of 465 gigabytes. The FAT file system assures the drive will function on multiple platforms. The drive will prompt you to install some minor diagnostic software and some Google tools you likely already have considered - Google Toolbar, Picasa, and Google Desktop (which indexes your hard drive and uses the Google search engine to help you find files.) For the latter, consider Copernic Desktop Search 2, which is free and offers superior search performance and better tools.
Most Windows and XP users will want to reformat the drive to the NTFS file system, which will support those 4+ gigabyte files FAT will not. You can easily reformat the drive under XP by clicking your way through Control Panel ("->" means you should click on this option) -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management. It takes at least an hour to complete the reformat, and be aware the tools included on the drive will be erased so consider backing them up somewhere else if you care about them.
V2.0's redesign features a very shiny, smooth surfaced external case. I fear it will readily show fingerprints and scratches, so be extra careful when handling it.
As with the earlier model, no internal fan is apparent and heat dissipation is absolutely critical to the longevity of any hard drive. Some manufacturers have skimped on this, such as Seagate with their FreeAgent series which has had a high failure rate, but v1.0 Western Digital My Book drives have also historically not fared well either. Consumers want these devices to be nearly silent, and the tradeoff is product design that omits what is often the single most important component to guarantee a longer drive life - a cooling fan.
Although both series of drives seemed to get equally warm to the touch (but not uncomfortably hot), the single most important concern I have about Western Digital's entire My Book product line is drive longevity and data integrity. The last version of this product had scores of complaints about drive failures, almost always resulting in partial or total loss of your data. Most seemed to either fail during the first week of use or right around the first anniversary of purchase.
Different hard drives, depending on design, can generate more or less heat. It's not possible to tell precisely what model hard drive is being used in v2.0 (and whether it's an upgrade in quality from the earlier model), but perhaps Western Digital will have noticed the relatively high number of drive failures from its earlier product line and has used a different model for v2.0. Time will tell.
Both versions of the My Book series seem to offer adequate ventilation on the top, back, and bottom of the unit. Airflow will be very important to allow the heat from the hard drive to dissipate. In any external case without a fan to move air through the unit, or a heat sink to collect and bleed off the heat from the drive, the temperature inside the case will easily exceed 120 degrees, if not much higher if you reduce or block any of the ventilation holes. The higher the temperature, the sooner your drive will fail.
As with all USB external drives, the time spent transferring files back and forth will be much longer than experienced using an internal hard drive. The My Book series is best suited as a backup method to store copies of your important data in case one of your primary hard drives should fail. When powered down (which happens when the drive has not been accessed for around ten minutes), there will be an additional delay when attempting to access files from it, because the drive will need to spin-up (allow around 5-10 seconds for this).
As to the product's quality and longevity, as this is a new product line there is no easy way to guarantee whether this will prove a completely reliable product. But historically, external drives of all kinds tend to live shorter lives than internal drives, and Western Digital's warranty for this model remains one year. For $25 you can extend the warranty for two additional years from Western Digital's website.
But remember, it doesn't matter how long the warranty lasts if your data is gone because of a drive failure. No warranty will cover the costs to recover data from a failed drive (which can easily exceed $1000 with no guarantee of success). Do not rely on any hard drive to protect your most precious files alone. Every hard drive fails eventually. Instead, consider using the My Book Essential as a hard drive backup of your primary drives. Or if you need to rely on an external drive for day to day use, consider purchasing a second unit and using that to backup the first in case catastrophe strikes.
You can also prolong the life of your drive yourself by keeping it cool. I have a small inexpensive desk fan set on low blowing across my stack of external drives which does a good job. I also keep papers off of the drive, away from the sun or any heat vents.
Also pay attention to the sound your drive makes - it can be an early indicator of imminent failure. A whining or grinding sound (like a power saw off in the distance) is a clear danger sign. Loud clicking sounds when the drive is accessing data should sound a red alert that your drive is about to die. And should you encounter "delayed write failures" or other errors increasing in frequency as the drive ages, you should begin planning its replacement. Unfortunately, sometimes drives suddenly fail with no warning, so please create a backup strategy today before you lose up to 465 gigabytes of your files tomorrow.
Let's keep our fingers crossed that Western Digital has corrected the flaws from the first version of this product line. It's too bad the power switch is gone and they've switched to the less common USB-mini connectors, but as long as it keeps my data safe and secure, I can live with the changes.
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Works very well with Dish Network DVR
My only planned usage of this external hard disk drive (HDD) is attached to my Dish Network ViP622 DVR. The set up was very easy, following directions to connect the drive with the supplied cables to power and to the Dish DVR USB connection. I kept thinking that the cable needed to be able to push farther into the back of the DVR, but trying it anyway, it has been working fine.
After hooking the HDD up to the DVR, I navigated to the DVR menu to Manage USB Device and it displayed an error dialog box with the Dish phone number I needed to call to activate this service ($39.99 fee). I called the number and went through a series of recorded message menus to activate the service, never talked to a real person. I did have a phone line hooked into my DVR, and within a minute or two of hanging up, I was able to continue on and let the DVR format the drive.
A big advantage to me was the design of the My Book HDD's, they automatically stop the HDD after a period of time unused. When you go to use the drive, there may be a delay for the drive to start up, but this is acceptable to me knowing that in the long run this should make the drive last longer for my type of usage. I do not have to worry about separately turning on and off the HDD.
I read reviews of older models of My Book, some people had issues that sounded to be related to overheating, so I avoided doing too much data transfer at one time. I had hundreds of Gb's to transfer in programs on my DVR, but did the transfer in smaller chunks. It takes a long time to transfer a large amount of data, and you can not use what is on the HDD while the transfer is happening, so I would suggest this method.
The HDD has been working well for my intended purpose. The DISH DVR does a reasonable job of using the USB Device feature. It is a separate area of the menu system to get to the USB device recorded programs, which is a small pain, but worth the effort. If you find yourself wanting more room to record addtional DVR programs, this is a very good option to consider.
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