Reviews for WD My Book Essential Edition Externo 500GB Disco DuroUSB 2.0, 7,200 RPM, 16MB - MPN: WDG1U5000N
By anonymous - Mar 22, 2008
Just Stopped WorkingPuntos Fuertes: Worked for 1 month Puntos Débiles: Terrible engineering, very easy to brick it and lose all of your data. I had this hard drive for more than a month now, and it worked just fine. I made a copy of my brother's music database and it worked just fine for a long time. I came home today and plugged it in, and it didn't work. The hard drive didn't even spin. The green circle in front flashes weakly for a little bit, and that's all. Western Digital could care less, too. 100% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
rgillespey
- Oct 11, 2006
No problemsPuntos Fuertes: Large capacity, portability. Puntos Débiles: Price can be an issue, but storage is coming down in cost big time. I think that I paid about $149 after rebate, so very good at that price. A longer warranty would be nice. I wanted to use this for a while before I posted a review. I am using this drive to store movies. The 500GB size and USB 2.0 interface have made it an excellent choice for this purpose. For my needs and at the price for which I made the purchase, I am very pleased with this drive. The lack of firewire hasn't been a problem, since all of my computers don't have a firewire connection anyway. Only has a 1 year warranty, but obviously that's only an issue if it fails. I believe that most credit cards will exptend the warranty for an additional period (YMMV, depending on your card). Have had no issues. I would definitely recommend it. 95% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
masterren
- Aug 4, 2006
Excellent ValuePuntos Fuertes: Quite small, aesthetically pleasing, quiet, high capacity, inexpensive Puntos Débiles: Only one year warranty, not pre-formatted to NTFS, not 500GB but 465GB (not really a weakness, but you should keep this in mind) I recently purchased this from a popular online computer retailer. When I first plugged it into my USB2.0 PCI card, all of my USB peripherals got disconnected. After a reboot, everything seemed fine. I do not know if this product was the culprit though. Setup was extremely easy--plug and play. The only things I needed to do were change it to NTFS instead of FAT32 and set it up in WinXP for "performance" instead of "quick disconnect."
91% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
rogrdane
- Dec 3, 2007
Two Died - !!!Puntos Fuertes: Well, when they (2) worked, were okay. Large inexpensive... Puntos Débiles: STOPPED working in less than three months. This in a very controlled environment with careful care. ALL data gone! Will not buy again. A 1/3 or 1/4 failure rate is Unacceptable! And to lose data on top of Just NOT working? Wow... WD, where did you subcontract this junk to? Cannot recommend, period. 91% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
marcin12
- Apr 3, 2006
MY BookPuntos Fuertes: 500gb space, Great looking design, good perfromance, air ventilated through holes, Nice turning on and off feature Puntos Débiles: Plastic design, no way to open enlousure, one year warranty pretty much standard among external hard drives My book is a great addition to any desk. This external hard drive looks increarible good on the desk. 87% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Respuesta del miembro: bvjagan
Oct 17, 2006 Hi marcin12,
Por el miembro:
doom66
- May 29, 2007
This drive died on me in 10 days.Puntos Fuertes: Its cheap, attractive, and has plenty of space. Puntos Débiles: It gave up the ghost for no apparent reason and I lost over 400 gigs of data in an instant. Do bumps, shakes, or drops. Not a very happy camper. I've owned 4 previous external drives and I decided to go with western digital because of the rave reviews. Now I have the worst data loss of my life. I'm going back to LaCie. 86% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
RickGFW
- Aug 14, 2006
WD My Book Essential Edition External 500GB Hard...Puntos Fuertes: $/GB, power management, front mounted power switch Puntos Débiles: Still looking for one Bought this on a great sale at BestBuy for $200 and have been kicking myself for not buying two. May buy a second at this week's sale price of $230. I'm transferring old Sony 8mm and Digital 8mm video to hard disk for editing and back-up and chewing up GB like never before. Didn't need any backup software, just massive quantities of reliable basic storage. 85% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
tengst
- Jul 12, 2006
My Book Essential 500GBPuntos Fuertes: Small, simple, reasonably priced Puntos Débiles: No firewire interface It's hard to ding the unit because it has no firewire interface since they make a premium model that does have it. However, the premium model was enough extra $ at the time as to not be worth it. 84% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
sanfran94107
- Oct 22, 2007
Awful drive -- died (along with my data) after 1...Puntos Fuertes: Looks nice. Puntos Débiles: Horrible product with high failure rate. If you don't believe the failure rate, read the comments on the following site: 83% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
greatdanejupiter
- Jun 27, 2007
Bad CompanyPuntos Fuertes: While it works, It is a great Hard drive Puntos Débiles: Burning and slow copy speed. It works great...untill it starts to smoke! Never leave your home with this hard drive on! When I spoke to the company about it, They said " Yeah it happens sometimes." They will not save my information on the hard drive or send me a new box, even though it is under warrenty. I had purchased it in March 07 and now it is only Jun 2007!! They had told me to hire a data restore company to get it. Great!! More money to throw away with Western Digital! Not to mention my 400GB Internal Hard drive from them crashed too! My Advise Stay Away from this company!! All other (non-western digital)Hard drives purchased work great!! And they are all over 1 yr!!! 80% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
By anonymous - Aug 16, 2007
died in less than 2 weeksPuntos Fuertes: Lots of space Puntos Débiles: Died in less than two weeks I was using the drive and it "unmounted" from my Mac Desktop. There was still power to the drive but it would not recognize it on my Mac. I tried a PC and still nothing. Finally after 5 hours of frantically searching for a solution I found a "recovery" software from Western Digital. I was able to recover most everything but I lost about 4000 pictures that can not be replaced. Guess it's back to DVD for me. 80% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Respuesta del miembro: Sky22222
Dec 13, 2007 You can get the data replaced for a huge price. Looks like they've made a new industry by making faulty drives. Sorry about the pictures!
Por el miembro:
hhalkin
- Jul 2, 2007
Partioning error. Horrible Tech Support 070615-003262Puntos Fuertes: None sofar. Puntos Débiles: Does not work. I ordered this drive from Beach Camera. I received it on June 15, 2007. 80% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
Sky22222
- Dec 12, 2007
500 GB AND 250 GB FAILEDPuntos Fuertes: None. Looks nice but I didn't buy it for looks. Puntos Débiles: Everything! I bought the 250 GB drive in May 2007. I was in the process of moving and didn't take it out of the box for a couple of months. It never worked correctly. I thought maybe I had done something wrong and set it aside, so I could have someone look at it to see if it had failed. Meantime I still needed storage, and bought a 500 GB drive July 27, 2007. That failed December 6, 2007. Customer service is atrocious; you can NOT understand the people answering the phones. When I had my 250 GB drive replaced, I received a dirty refurbished drive with the wrong power cord, no USB cable, and no documentation. 78% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
MADMOMMABEAR2
- Jul 16, 2006
WD My Book Essential Edition External 500GB Hard...Puntos Fuertes: Capacity Puntos Débiles: Lack of firewire port This hard drive is truely USB 2.0 plug and play; my computer recognized it almost instantaneously upon hooking it up with the USB cable. With a 500 GB capacity, it can store a great deal of files, photos, videos, etc, and I don't even know if I will end up filling it completely. If you don't mind the fact that it doesn't have a firewire port (which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5), then I highly recommend this drive to anyone looking for a simple and easy to use external hard drive. 74% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
daveymark
- Aug 30, 2006
Great hard drive for the pricePuntos Fuertes: Price, fast USB transfer, fun to look at Puntos Débiles: No firewire This holds all of my movies and mp3's. I also use it to backup my computer. I have had my computer fail once already, and this has saved me. fast USB transfers make this worth the price I paid. My only gripe would be no firewire, but Western Digital does make a my book w/ firewire - for a fee. I didn't know this when I purchaased this, but I have learned to love it. I have it sitting in line with my books, and it looks attractive as well. 74% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
brycepgh
- Jul 26, 2006
WD MyBook External 500GB HDDPuntos Fuertes: Price, Capacity, Styling Puntos Débiles: No firewire or network connectivity Inside is actually a SATA drive which is excellent. The design is very styled and the enclosure itself is well cooled. This comes with only a 1 year warranty, but at the price it is definitely a bargain. The drive also comes with feet so you can stack a couple of these for your own little datacenter. 73% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
ramubay
- Oct 3, 2006
Great Backup ToolPuntos Fuertes: Nice design, simple one touch operation, upgradable. Puntos Débiles: USB 2.0 Only, a bit larger than expected, 1 year warranty This is overall a great external hard drive. The one-touch backup with included software is a snap. Had I wanted Firewire, I would have gotten the higher end model, so I am not terribly dissapointed by that. Only complaint is the 1 year warranty which is strange as WD offers a 1 year warranty on retail products and 5 on OEM products. Seagate for example is 5 and 5 I believe. 69% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Respuesta del miembro: turtlemonkey
Apr 27, 2007 how is it upgradeable?
Por el miembro:
tonnywu888
- Aug 14, 2006
WD My Book Essential Edition External 500GBPuntos Fuertes: Super fast, big capacity Puntos Débiles: Lack of firewire It's USB 2.0 Plug and Play. Very easy to install. Works on windows 2003. It's a true USB 2.0 external hard driver. Speed of transfer is very fast. Inside the enclosure it's a 16MB SATA drive, which is pretty cool. I like it very much and would recommend it to anyone who want to store photos or videos. 69% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
EchelonOne
- Jul 31, 2006
The BookPuntos Fuertes: Large capacity, fast, cheap, mobility Puntos Débiles: None. Every computer I've ever came in contact with has had USB before it would have Firewire, so the whole "lack of Firewire support" the other people complained about is rather mute. In addition to that, Western Digital does make other 500GB models that do support Firewire including the lastest version having 800Mbs transfer rates. So, if you want Firewire, then buy a model with Firewire. Another point to take into consideration is that unless you have a "very new" computer with Firewire 800 (1394b) support, USB 2.0 is faster than 1394a. The ability for this thing to power itself up and/or down with the computer is also a plus over other brands. 67% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
DS_Nitris
- Sep 3, 2007
Excellent Drive!Puntos Fuertes: Capacity, price, great Western Digital quality, dependabilty. Puntos Débiles: USB only....but if you want firewire get the next model up. Only 1 year warranty. At this point I own 5 of these drives as I use them for digital video storage and backups. If you want a solid drive that's very well priced, and dependable for backing up your data, I would highly recommend the My Book! 67% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
plotdot
- Mar 8, 2007
My Book Essential Edition External 500 GB BombsPuntos Fuertes: Easy to set up Puntos Débiles: Compatibility issues with Macs. Little or no troubleshooting information on my problem. Every help desk telephone number was in Southeast Asia or India. No 800 numbers to call for help. Seemed flimsy I received this for Christmas as a purchase from Amazon. It was easy to set up, but never worked properly. Even though my Mac G5 desktop then had only 140 GB on its 250 GB hard drive, whenever I tried to back up the HD contents on the My Book, I got an error message saying there wasn't enough space to do a backup. I had it plugged into my computer for three days trying to make it work, even rebooting several times, but I could never get it to back up a thing. Then one evening I heard a loud roaring sound coming from my computer, which turned out to be a combination of the hard drive spinning like crazy and the fan trying to cool it down. I immediately shut down everything, unplugged the My Book, rebooted, and things went back to normal. I returned My Book and got my money back. All the other reviews seem to be from Windows users. I wonder if there's some compatibility issue with Macs or G5s or OS X 10.3.9, which is what I have. Or perhaps I was sent a lemon. But given the state it put my G5 in, I really didn't want to take a chance on trying another one. At any rate, I've yet to find another backup device with as much storage space as this one. Too bad it didn't work for me. 67% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
lchen95
- Sep 26, 2006
Died after 5 daysPuntos Fuertes: none Puntos Débiles: died after 5 days Well, I guess it doesn't matter which brand you go with. There appears to be some kind of a lemon rate with these external hard drives (maybe some have higher or some lower). Until someone does a serious, statistically sound reliability test on these drives, I think DVD is the way to back up your data. Still, my drive died after just 5 days. Fortunately, I had not lost any significantly important data. 63% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
RuffRyder1672
- Oct 8, 2006
Excellent external storagePuntos Fuertes: 500gb at a very good price. I was able to purchase this as an external drive cheaper than what the internal version would have been (Best Buy). Puntos Débiles: Spin up time I bought this to replace my old and failing external ata enclosure that I had. I would highly recommend purchasing a pre built enclosure like this instead of buying the enclosure and hd seperate. I have experienced very few problems with the drive. My only complaint is that it spins down, and then when Windows decides it needs to access something on it there will be about a 5 second delay for it to spin up. Lots of storage at a great price! 61% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
pqchen
- Aug 8, 2006
Great 500GB external drive from WD.Puntos Fuertes: External 500GB storage size Puntos Débiles: only USB port WD 500GB MyBook external drive is a good choice for portable hard drive storage. It's easy to connect and set up under Windows XP and looks stylish and just like a real book on the shelf. Ideal for storing digital photos or other media. Considering FireWire/1394 and newer eSATA interface offering better performance, it might become out-dated soon in the future. 59% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
lonerangerone
- Jan 28, 2008
Plug and Play - maybe NOTPuntos Fuertes: Size Puntos Débiles: Doesn I bought this as a Christmas gift for my wife. We plugged in the power supply, then connected it to the computer. It saw the drive, but couldn 50% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
sreemv
- Jul 29, 2006
Nice interoperable diskPuntos Fuertes: -works well with Mac as well as PC Puntos Débiles: Limited to USB connectivity and one year warranty - who would want to risk losing family pictures and videos after a year!? Easily recognized in both MacOSx and Windows XP - Nice plug-and-play drive. Got it a good price making it worthwhile. Hopefully the drive lasts longer than the one year warranty. 47% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
jthejs
- Aug 3, 2006
My Book Essential Edition 500GB USB2.0 External Hard...Puntos Fuertes: Large Capacity, Stand-by mode, easy setup Puntos Débiles: 1-yr warranty, plastic casing Bought this for its large capacity needed for backup. It's was easy to setup; Windows XP Home recognizes the hard drive with plug-and-play. Haven't get a chance to use the backup software that comes with it and hence I cannot comment on it. I use a commercial backup software. I like the standby-mode. The hard drive goes into that mode after about 10 minutes of idling. And it takes about 1 second to restart from standby mode. 33% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
DIRANONI
- Aug 30, 2007
WD My Book Essential Edition External 500GB Hard...Puntos Fuertes: Great as a multimedia drive. Plug and play. Puntos Débiles: Wise to format the file from FAT32 to NTFS for optimal performance. Performance on a par with that of the Premium Edition. 33% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
jinny849
- Aug 30, 2006
about my bookPuntos Fuertes: huge capability. Puntos Débiles: too many hole upside, so dust can get in to the hard disks. Western digital my book is smaller than other hard 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
02BlueR6
- Aug 8, 2006
Huge capacity for decent pricePuntos Fuertes: Size of enclosure & capacity of drive. Puntos Débiles: USB port only. 1 year warranty. If your looking for a premade external drive this is an excellent choice. When it is on sale its at a decent price. The USB connection should be enough for most people, but if your looking for firewire connections the My Book Premium is your best bet. Overall, instantaneous recognition on my PC and was filling its capacity in no time. Recommended for anyone looking to add space to their computer without opening it up. 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
eyeoftiger
- Aug 5, 2007
My Book 500GB - great value - good looking drivePuntos Fuertes: - very compact - quiet - great price per GB Puntos Débiles: None so far I have other my book drives. I bought this one for my girlfriend. She is using it to backup her laptop. The drive is really compact (smaller than it looks online) and quiet. 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
MrCOMSEC
- May 20, 2007
WD My Book Essential Edition Externo 500GB Disco DuroPuntos Fuertes: Massive Storage Puntos Débiles: none - so far Easy to set up, easy to use -- This drive is all about simplicity. Plug it into your computer’s USB 2.0 port and start saving. Intelligent drive management features — The My Book drive turns itself on and off with your computer. Smart design — The elegant case, iconic of a book, takes up less space on your desk, stacks horizontally, and allows two or more drives to stand neatly together like volumes on a shelf. 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
seymouru
- Aug 12, 2006
Ideal solution for an external drivePuntos Fuertes: Massive capacity, 16MB cache, stackable. Puntos Débiles: A bit more expensive than buying an internal drive and enclosure. This is the ideal solution if you want to use an external drive. All the space you could want in one drive, stackable, Mac and PC-compatible, 16MB cache, and looks great on the desktop. It would be nice if there were a Firewire version, but USB 2.0 is still pretty fast. If you can get a good deal on this, go for it! 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
omgy
- Aug 1, 2006
My Book 500GBPuntos Fuertes: Simplistic Design; Very Quiet(no fan); On/Off Switch Puntos Débiles: No way to open or swap HDD's; Only 1 yr Warranty High capacity and very quiet... a great combination. 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
zsn530
- Jul 29, 2006
I love it!Puntos Fuertes: Simple, Quiet Puntos Débiles: No firewire port :) The drive looks sleek and is not intrusive or odd on a desk. The drive has vents to help keep the drive cool. Drive operation is very quiet. 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
lxh529
- Jul 29, 2006
Great Product, Easy StoragePuntos Fuertes: Product is very easy to use: plug and go. Very quiet machine unlike the others that I have dealt with which were pretty loud. Puntos Débiles: Nothing The HDD has a small, sleak exterior that is not obtrusive. It runs quiet and cool. The USB 2.0 connection makes tranfering files very quick. Setup was easy, just plug and play. 0% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
slyfoxer
- Jan 21, 2009
My Book Western Digital Hard Drive is WORTHLESSPuntos Fuertes: None...........it is inevitable......it will crash Puntos Débiles: Everything............data you have stored is not retrievable once it decides not to work. I have had this for less than a year. I used it to store movies, clips, phot files artwork back up files.......everything is gone. I clicked on a file to open it in My Book. When I did that it locked up the computer........causing me to have to reboot. Once I had done that the external hard drive had disappeared. The computer will not recognize it and there is nothing to show that it was ever on the computer. It still lights up and makes its "noises" but refuses to open. I have tried everything. WARNING.....you will lose all data stored on this...........do not risk using it to back up anything important. Basically it is worthless as a viable storage device with any longevity. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
greglgolf
- Jan 3, 2009
WD = Worthless DrivesPuntos Fuertes: Incessant humming puts me to sleep. Puntos Débiles: Endurance. Bought 1, lasted about a year. Bought another, lasted less than a year. Company does not seem to care that their products are worthless. Buy something else. Buffalo or seagate has worked well. WD seems to have power on/off difficulties, causing the device to fail prematurely. They still have not resolved it. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
WDHater
- Jul 10, 2008
WD Really isn't reliablePuntos Fuertes: None Puntos Débiles: Reliability Allow me to add another story of woe to those who use WD products. Mine. $1042 for data recovery. ::kicks self for buying WD:: (I will highly recommend the data recovery company -- who says the failure rate for WD is very high compared to other drives.) ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
Por el miembro:
ktbills
- Jan 27, 2008
Way UnderratedPuntos Fuertes: It just works Puntos Débiles: None so far This is my second Western Digital external drive. Like the first, which I still have, it works easily, with no problems or issues. All I ask of a hard drive is that it work with no hassles. I have one that I use for backups of my Dell and this one to backup my MacBook using Time Machine. Both have been flawless and for the money they are hard to beat. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil? Tope
testseek.com - Aug 18, 2009
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition USB2
Testseek.com has collected 14 expert reviews for Western Digital My Book Essential Edition USB2 and the average expert rating is 82 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions. Tope |
Almost Guaranteed to Fail
Puntos Fuertes: Easy to Connect, small footprint, inexpensive.
Puntos Débiles: You will lose all of your data when the drive fails.
I've had two of these, both an older model and the newer Firewire 800 model. They both failed in less than 6 months. Bottom line, don't consider buying one if you need to store important information. You'll find out the hard way that they're great devices for holding the office door open on a windy day, and not much more. Seriously, in fairness the competing products all have the same issues, mostly related to heat dissipation. Fan-less external enclosures just run way too hot for anything but light use. Also, when the drive fails (and it WILL fail) I understand that WD is pretty good about replacing the drive, but of course that means shipping the old one back to them, filled with your (potentially recoverable) personal data.
100% de los lectores encontraron este comentario útil. ¿Te ha parecido útil o inútil?