| Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive | 
 enlarge
| Brand: Western Digital
Category: CE
Buy New: £53.00
Buy New from £53.00
Avg. Customer Rating:   (77 reviews)
Sales Rank: 10
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Hard Drive Size: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 2.1 x 6.5
MPN: WDH1U5000E
Model: WDH1U5000E
UPC: 718037120928
EAN: 0718037120928
ASIN: B000WP0NM8
Release Date: November 25, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 2-3 business days
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Manufacturer's Description
Are you running out of hard drive capacity? Do you need to archive some important digital documents, photos, or music? This elegant external hard drive, reminiscent of a book, is the perfect solution. It takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf
Box Contents
External hard drive
USB cable
AC adapter
Quick Install Guide
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...
A solid hard drive at an attractive price. September 3, 2008
A very good hard drive that has been backing up to computers (a Macbook and an iMac) for at least 6 months now with no problems at all. The hard drive does make a bit of noise- but being my first hard drive I could not tell you if it was loud compared to the competition.
The hard drive works seamlessly with Time Machine (Apple's backup solution for macs). Another point to note is that I move this hard drive quite a bit across the room, so it has had a couple of 'knocks', but fortunately nothing seems to be affected. But since I do move it, I find the fact that it doesn't power itself purely through the USB annoying as I have to unplug it every time.
In terms of data transfer, it is quick and fast, but since it powers off after 10 mins of inactivity, you have to wait for the disk to rev back up again to access any data after that time- not a huge problem but very slightly annoting.
Still, a very good choice.
 frail and plasticy August 30, 2008
I already have a metal case WD 500GB drive which seems robust and has been working well for many months. Thought this one would be a bit lighter to take on the plane - it is just a rather frail plastic case. The loaded software is not very good looking at independant reviews and in any case are only 30d trials. It is working OK at the moment and is good value for money. I wish I had gone for the 320GB passport model which is much more compact and looks equally robust or simply bought another (smaller) and tougher metal cased version.
Given other peoples concern about reliability, I think I might avoid this particular model if buying again.
 Fantastic external HDD August 28, 2008
I was quite astounded by this product, so much storage and so cheap. It even looks good! It worked first time on both my Macbook and my PC.
Don't even try the included software; this disk is plug and play with any modern computer.
Highly recommended. You can be confident buying this.
At the risk of being a boring old fart, I will tell you that 30 years ago I bought a hard disk - 8MB, yes MB not GB. It was the size of a washing machine and cost 10,000 UK pounds. Things have moved on a bit...
 Major, major risk August 19, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
WD keep updating the outside of the box, but don't seem to have done anything about the fundamental problem which a lot of reviewers (including myself) have experienced: namely, after about 18 months you will get an I/O error, followed by clicks, followed by the disk being totally inaccessible. WD will provide a replacement, but all your data will be lost. This was a great storage solution until the day it died. As a permanent solution, experience has shown it to be unreliable.
Rock Solid August 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just keep buying these!
Rock solid performance, easy set up. I now have 4 or 5 of these to store photos, videos and for backups of my laptop's hard drive.
No doubt I'll be buying a few more as and when my storage requirements dictate.
|
|
|
