| Value |  4.5 | | Performance |  4 | | Ease of Use | 4.5 | | Overall Satisfaction | 4 |
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1 of 5 This is a temporary drive... Thursday, May 08, 2008
Phil from Tonawanda, NY
I bought one of these in Feb 2007. It worked well for about 10 months or so. In Nov or Dec 2007, it began to have "issues". I used recovery software that WD has on their website to recover the drive (a 22 hr process). Once this was accomplished, I backed up the drive to another external (Seagate 500 gig) drive and dvd's. The drive lasted another two months before giving up the ghost. I bought the extended warranty for $29.00 and Buy.com is giving me a $173.00 credit for it. I'm using that to by another Seagate that has a 5 year warranty from the factory. No more WD's for me. This is the second time I've lost data because of their sub-par drives. Was this review helpful?  
4 of 5 MyBook Essential is so so Saturday, May 03, 2008
A Customer from Purcellville, VA
External Drive would be a great product with better documentation. It also needs to come with backup software rather than be an advertisement to buy backup software Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great Drive for this price Friday, May 02, 2008
A Customer from new york
simple to use and to install. just plug it in and you're all set to go. what else do I have to say? Was this review helpful?
1 of 5 Seagate FreeAgent has a better warranty for the sa Thursday, May 01, 2008
A Customer from Plano, TX
My Book was OK while it lasted... about 14 months. WD does not provide any support or hard disk replacement (even at a cost) in case of disk failure if you are outside the 1 year warranty (even 14 months in my case). Once I got past the frustration of dealing with WD customer support and the disapointment of losing of all my backups, movies, and songs, I bought a Seagate FreeAgent to replace it. The Seagate comes with a standard 5 year warranty. :-) The Seagate does not vibrate as much or heats up as much either.
Both of the WD and Seagate drives seem to be performing at the same speed (i.e. I did not notice any difference in the duration for my backups). So for about the same cost, the Seagate is a much better deal with a 5 warranty. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great External Drive Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tom from south Texas
I read the reviews prior to my purchase and most of the complaints seemed to be about the installed software, not the unit itself. I plugged it into the USB and it read the drive with no problems (XP Pro). I took the advice from several posts and the first thing I did was reformat the drive to NTFS. I never even looked at the software. It's a very large drive and it took about 2 hours to format, but afterwards it's formatted for XP and the software is gone (I'd rather use the space for my files anyway). The drive reads and writes fast and easily, no software issues, no problems. I'd buy another one if I needed the space. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 so easy to set up and use... Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Phil from Centennial, CO
...I ignored the software that came with it and just plugged it into a spare usb port on my desktop. It appeared as a new drive in Windows explorer and I dragged all my files to it with no problems. Was this review helpful?
1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Works as advertised Thursday, April 24, 2008
A Customer from Cave Creek, AZ
I read most of the reviews at this site and some others before I purchased the HD. Most of them were spot on as the product was easy to install and worked out of the box. The only problem I had was when I rebooted. My PC wanted to boot from this HD. Based on some comments I had read, I saved the software that came with the HD and reformatted the HD. Now it boots fine although it takes a bit longer as I still think the system is looking for something on the HD as the little blue light blinks for awhile. Was this review helpful?
1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Elegant, reliable, simple Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A Customer from Chicago, IL
As said in the subject, the design of the product is excellent. There is enough to be productive, but not too much for a simple user (USB) (I have other hard drives with more options I never use)
The drive was simple to connect to my computer (even worked with Vista, which had problems with another drive of mine)
Overall, I'm quite satisfied. Was this review helpful?
4 of 5 Simple to use, works for me Monday, April 21, 2008
V from san mateo, ca
So far so good for this easy to use drive. Didn't bother using the software that came with it. Didn't need it. Pretty quiet and small and even with prices on drives like this dropping so fast, I'm pleased with the purchase due to it's convenience. I take this around with my laptop so I can watch movies, video, have access to my music collection etc.
Only annoying things are: the autoplay that you have to cancel when it recognizes the drive. Still too slow for my tastes in moving tons of data--I moved 90Gb in about 1.5 hr from a mac to this. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great Hard Drive Thursday, April 17, 2008
Mike from Tyler, Texas
I have been using this WD 500GB drive for about a month and I love it. It has a glossy black case that looks good anywhere. It has a soft blue alternating light on the front. It is not as big as most. It seems to stay cool even after putting 50GB of movies on it in one sitting. It was as fast as any other external drive I have and I own 2 of another brand and 3 WD. One of the best features is that it shuts off when you put you computer into hybernate or shut it off. The software that comes with it is trial versions you have to pay for. I reformatted the drive to NTFS so it would handle larger files and I deleted the software. I bought 2 of these. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 GREAT PRICE AND GREAT VALUE Monday, April 14, 2008
Eric Griesel from Houston, Texas
This 500GB external storage unit was competitively priced and doesn't look clumsy on a desk. Plus, at buy.com it qualified for free delivery - how can you possibly beat that deal anywhere else? Was this review helpful?
0 of 9 customers found this review helpful.
3 of 5 hard to understand Wednesday, March 26, 2008
A Customer from cleveland, Ohio
It was easy to pug in, but after that I was not sure if it was working and how to download my materials...was not sure what was free and on the hard disk and what I had to pay for to someone else...very confusing Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 This Drive Rocks Sunday, March 23, 2008
Nate from Irwin PA
This drive is the first external drive that I bought and it was so easy to use! I have a mac so it was just plug it in and there you have it. It takes about a minute for my laptop to recognize it everytime I turn it on but once it does, the drive is just like having another folder on your desktop with lots of space in it. I definitely recommend this drive for anyone with a mac. Was this review helpful?
4 of 5 Great light hard drive Thursday, March 20, 2008
Frank from Hackensack, NJ
Not heavy at all, small and quiet Was this review helpful?
1 of 4 customers found this review helpful.
1 of 5 Caution, not alway compatible! Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A Customer from ohio
Drive states XP compatible 2 out of the 3 XP machines that I have tried it out on, failed. There are no driver downloads that I have found, while looking for a driver found out that this is a very common problem. Use Caution when buying. Will be getting another brand to replace the need. Was this review helpful?
2 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
4 of 5 Easy to install Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A Customer from texas
Works great. Easy install. So far so good. I like the software but it's only a 30 day trial. After that you have to buy it at 29.95. This is the only negative. Was this review helpful?
2 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 Great Product Great Price Monday, March 03, 2008
A Customer from N.O. LA
I Have one of these at work and love it so i bought this one for my house. looked all over and buy had the best price. i choose the 5 - 9 day free shipping and got my item in 3 days. I could not be happier. Was this review helpful?
2 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
4 of 5 MyBook Works Fine Sunday, March 02, 2008
A Customer from Klein TX
Worked without a glitch when hooked up to the USB port on two different computers. One an eMachines P4 with WinXP Pro and the other a Dell P4 with WinXP Home. Was this review helpful?
2 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
4 of 5 Good product, worth value Sunday, March 02, 2008
A Customer from Minneapolis, MN
I bought WD 500 Mybook 1 month ago and it work well, nice design, easy to install and use but you should not install 2 trial software. Just copy and paste.
Buy.com is very good in shipping. It take about 1.5 day from order to received but packaging is not good but however, Mybook is safe and ok :)
Was this review helpful?
4 of 5 Good product, worth value Sunday, March 02, 2008
A Customer from Minneapolis, MN
I bought WD 500 Mybook 1 month ago and it work well, nice design, easy to install and use but you should not install 2 trial software. Just copy and paste.
Buy.com is very good in shipping. It take about 1.5 day from order to received but packaging is not good but however, Mybook is safe and ok :)
Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Simple to Use! Saturday, March 01, 2008
Jessee from Redding, CA
I just plugged this baby in and it worked like a charm. The thing installs itself. It's sleek and doesn't take a lot of space. It runs extremely quietly. I bought this to back-up my computer files. It comes with included software or you can use your own Windows back-up and set it up from there (that's what I did). You can't go wrong with the product or the price. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 WD Digital 500 mb external drive Saturday, March 01, 2008
A Customer from New York
Great product came quickly in the mail. Works like a charm. Fast and easy setup. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 note on the required cable Friday, February 29, 2008
josh from Cambridge, MA
the hard drive works fine. i have it partitioned for both mac and pc. no problems yet. i simply wanted to clarify that this external harddrive requires a USB 2.0 A to mini-B 5 pin cable. this doesn't seem to be indicated anywhere. i learned the hard way by purchasing an incompatible cable that was suggested by buy.com. Was this review helpful?
1 of 1 customers found this review helpful.
5 of 5 The external hard drive is very good Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Customer from flint mi
I think the external hard drive is very good, because the speed is fast and it looks very nice. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great Buy Tuesday, February 26, 2008
cesavage@verizon.net from Tampa, Florida
Plug and Play
Have 328G of music on it and it plays perfectly Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Great backup drive Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A Customer from vermont
I am using this as a backup drive for my music and photos. It works great and looks good on my desk as well. Very easy to set up, just plug it in. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 So Easy a Caveman Can do it... Monday, February 25, 2008
Valeri1812@aol.com from New York, NY
It's just plug and play. No fuss no mess. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 What a COOL Drive Monday, February 25, 2008
Susan from Tulsa, OK
I have several external harddrives. They get SO hot, this was a really good price so i got it to go with my laptop and for the next 24 hours, i had it busy transferring data for safekeeping and even after 24 hours, it was COOL as a cucumber! Works Great! Price Great! A REAL COOL DEAL! Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Simple Monday, February 25, 2008
Jason from Bowling Green, KY
I have two of these external hard drives. One I use to backup a couple of windows systems. The other is used to backup a Linux system. Value is great, performance is adequate for its intended purpose, easily installed and configured on both systems. I give it high marks, would buy again and recommend to friends. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 great product Monday, February 25, 2008
A Customer from El Cajon, California
My only wish would be for the power cord and the USB cord to be longer. I had to re-work where I keep it to accommodate for the shorter length. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 Excellent so far Monday, February 25, 2008
Mark from Valparaiso, Florida
I have had this product for over 30 days and no problems.
It comes with a disk with some software on it but it is not really need if you just want to backup data. It has a hard drive backup feature. I already knew what i wanted backed up.
I just used explorer to backup all of my documents, and I also backed up my e-mail and contacts. It worked like a charm.
There is so much room I was also able to backup my wifes computer as well with no problems. This was the first time my wife's data was backed up so she's a happy camper now.
Overall it was a good price for the product and no real issues. Was this review helpful?
5 of 5 500 G hard drive Monday, February 25, 2008
hsiangt@gmail.com from Yorktown, VA
It is a huge drive and so far I am very pleased with it. But the software for back up has to be purchased that part I don't like. Was this review helpful?
2 of 5 My Book Essential add ons Monday, February 25, 2008
rdtshoes@netzero.net from Floral City Fl.
The My Book Essential is working just fine it's the add ons that are confusing. Memeo is a add on that brings a monthly charge, and more add ons with it. Microsoft woor 2003 keeps poping up for a product key, which I do not have and they do not provide. So far I have not been able to download any info thur Memeo, it will not allow me to sign up with them, I do not understand all that they ask for. Memeo 30 day help desk did contact me I gave them the info that the |
