Western Digital My Book Home Edition WDH1CS5000N Hard Drive - WDH1CS5000N - Refurbished
Western Digital 500GB My Book Home Edition - Triple Interface (USB 2.0, eSATA & FireWire 400) External Hard Drive

this thing is a wonder. i am constantly downloading movies, so this was the perfect hard drive for me. it works fast, no sounds whatsoever, a long adapter cord and USB, and 465gb. i filled this thing up in less than 6 months, but it was still worth it. so far, i've fit 400 full length movies, thousands of pictures, songs, other videos, dozens of games and more!!!! buy this. YOU WON'T REGRET IT!!!!
 
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I am so happy with my WD My Book HD. I didn't know it was including a demo backup program offer. This was a big plus in my estimation. The WD backup software was only $29. Well worth the price and the ease of use. You never know when your internal HD will fail. So backup, backup, backup!
 
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Works Great! Easy to use and Super Value! My only complaint would be that the fire wire cable included was 6pt to 6 pt. My laptop requires a 6pt to 4pt.
 
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This product was the perfect compliment for my Mac, allowing me to fully use my Time machine feature. Firewire speed is excellent too! No special computer knowledge to operate was wonderful. So simple even I could connect it and let it do its thing.
 
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I've only had this for two weeks. Works great so far. Love the FireWire speed using my MacBook Pro and Leopard. My Book was totally plug and play. Now everything is backed up automatically daily, weekly, monthly, etc..... If I loose anything or have any issues with my laptop, I can go into Time Machine at any given point in the past and fix or restore files. Awesome team so far.
 
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Maybe my expectations were too high, but I have been disappointed. The documentation that came with the unit was very poor. I had to search the W-D website for the full user manual, and that wasn't much better. Questions sent to their tech support were answered in 24 hours. I cannot leave the drive connected to my computer - when I start up the computer, it tries to read the external drive as a boot disk. The backup software is clunky. Seems like a quality unit, but it just takes more energy and effort than I was expecting.
 
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Other than the occasional unexplained glitch, probably caused by Mac's Time Machine rather than the My Book itself, installation and use have been easy and reliable. The Firewire interface is most useful because it doesn't require me to fill up another of the precious USB slots on my computer. All in all, no complaints.
 
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This thing is great. Although it only has 465 gb of the 500 (because of the os and software) it is great. I have over 200 movies, thousands of pictures and music, hundreds of smaller videos, documents etc. all saved on this godsend of a hard drive and I'm only using about 58% of it. It is also pretty durable; I accidentally knocked it over pretty hard with my foot a few times and it had no effect; it didn't even freeze. It is very convenient because it automatically turns on/off with your pc; I had some trouble with the programs it wanted to install for me at first but nothing big, now only my laptop tells me the percent, my regular pc just has the hard drive, so that isn't a big deal. I haven't had a single glitch with the hard drive itself yet. I will probably get the terabyte one soon because i'm filling this baby up quick.
 
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Bought this last month. Probably had it 3 weeks, easy install. Like that I can back up either of my PCs with this and it's firewire capable.
 
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I was looking for a external hard drive that would not only provide backups for my desktop and laptop but would also provide more disk space for transferring documents and video other files from DVD storage to being more accessible. The WD My Book was perfect. After converting the hard disk from its default format (FAT32) to the partitionable (NTFS) format (which was pretty simple), I made partitions for the desktop backup, laptop backup, and for regular hard disk use. Now everything is backed up, I've been able to move files from my laptop hard drive (which was getting pretty full) to My Book, and I've got room to spare! The drive has worked flawlessly. It seems to be as fast (using firewire) as the internal drives, and it is very quiet! It came with backup software, which enables password protected backups almost automatically. (The software says it is trial version when you first load it, but WD sent the product key with the drive so that the software can be loaded permanently.) I wanted a drive that could connect via USB for flexibility and portability and via firewire for speed. This drive fills that bill and also connects via eSATA which might be useful in the future should I upgrade my desktop. So far (I've had the drive for about two weeks), I am extremely satisfied with it and would recommend it to others.
 
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I am talking out of the box, on to my drive shelf on my desk and plug the ac and usb in and started to transferring files with windows explorer....absolutely no hitches, no worries.;.would highly recommend this drive to anyone and will probably get another one soon....digital photo files from my studio are getting bigger and bigger...
 
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I bought this for use with a Mac in order to have a bootable backup using the firewire connection. I have reformatted it for Mac and I use Super Duper for a backup program. The drive works fine, the backup runs daily with no problems. The so called Drive Manager program from WD does nothing except indicate the percent of drive capacity used, nothing more ??, it's a waste of time to even install it. So, if you plan to use this drive with a Mac it will work fine but don't expect any use from WD included programs.
 
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I use it with Microsoft Vista's complete system backup and it works very well. Since Vista has all of the backup functionality built-in, I don't use the software that came with the product. You'll need to order a SATA cable if it's your desire to go that route, as the SATA cable doesn't come with the package... USB cable does. Also, you'll need to reformat to NTFS for Vista backup.
 
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I have two of these drives (500GB, USB, FW400/800) and they've been working excellent since last Fall on my PPC mac. I've tried them one on FW800 and it blazes, but since I only have one of those ports, I put them both on separate FW400 connections and they still smoke USB. Even though they are very quiet, FW allows much longer cables than USB, so I have them across the room and I don't even hear the quietest noises. They also automatically shut off -- I love this -- so when you power up/down, the drives do, too. I don't remember any real set-up (I think there was a small bit of software that coordinates the on/off) and of course I formatted them, but that's it. They just sit over in their corner (make sure they are well-ventilated) and chug silently away... When Leopard came out, I made one MyBook my Time Machine drive and it's been perfect. Up until now, I've been as good (not) at backing up as most people, but with 10.5 (Leopard) it's automatic and recovering files is as easy as accessing a drive. I've been able to recover several lost files that I would have otherwise rebuilt -- it's just too easy to replace them now. Even when I've had some system problems, why troubleshoot when you can recover settings or even replace affected folders in minutes and move on? I'm now a fervent backup evangelist (now that Leopard and Time Machine do all the work) -- and I back up every hour, day, and week... Have YOU backed up today? Of course, the MyBook drive is the IDEAL vehicle for Time Machine. The other drive I have gets rigorous use for my EyeTV files and iMovie and iDVD projects, and it handles regular files and multi-gig files with ease. My only regrets? 1. Buying the drive when it first came out (the prices now are unbelievable -- under $200?!?!?), and 2. Somewhat related to price, not getting the TB drive (or two). Not that I need two terabytes, but guys are always trying to make sure they have the largest hard drive...
 
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The Western Digital external hard drive I bought is performing very well. It was easy to install and backed up my internal hard drive quickly. It continues to back up my data automatically. One minor, but annoying problem: The included software, which automatically installs itself, asks for a product code, which it tells you is on the box. It is not there. I had to call WD and the software company twice before a live person was able to assist me. The code, it turns out, is at the bottom of a sheet of paper in the box. Why didn't I see it? Because the sheet of paper is the one which contains information about the hard drive in numerous languages, but not English, so why would I go there? The English instructions do not have the code attached. Aside from that minor glitch, I am very satisfied with my purchase.
 
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I've have this drive for a few weeks and it seems to be functioning just fine. However, the Memeo "Anywhere Backup" is a disapointment. The software functionality was exactly what I was looking for and it was very easy to set up. I wanted it to do "real time" backups to suppliment my traditional monthly DVD backup methodology. The trouble is that the software, even in background mode is a resource hog that was slowing down my other applications and my wireless USB mouse. I have the drive setup with the USB connection so perhaps that's part of the problem. But even when the system is idle, the backup software seem to be "busy" and my internal hard drive as constantly being exercised. After three or four attempts of trying to figure this out, I finally gave up and uninstalled the backup software. So if you are just going to be using the USB connection, I would recommend buying the less expensive "Essentials" version of the MyBook that just comes with the "trial" version of the software.
 
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Excellent product. Easy to use and lots of data space. Plug and play... I might just have to get another one soon... =)
 
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got the product quickly...extremely silent drive. haven't had any problems..Im' only using the USB interface and still haven't used the other two. the surface finish will though get easily scratched but i don't care. nothing can last forever anyways. overall, no complaints with it...the white LED display is cool...nothing superb but works. Its level is supposed to display the amount of content filled in the drive but it hasn't been showing for mine...all lights are lit up always. definitely buy this one if you need something reliable and cheap.
 
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I have another WD 500GB Essential model that I purchased over a year ago. But the UBS link was just too slow for previewing family videos I have recorded. This newer version, with the Firewire interface, is much faster. I can store large video files much faster and the replaying of family videos never skips a beat. Now I have both drives standing side by side on my desktop. They are both very quiet and they don't take up much room. Installation did take a few minutes as I needed to reformat the drive to NTFS. Works great!
 
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I use this for backing up two Apple computers (one PowerMac G4 and one PowerBook G4) with Time Machine. After about three weeks, I am very satisfied with its performance. All I had to do after taking it out of the box was to repartition it to the Apple Partition Map and reformat it to the HFS+ filesystem, and I was set.
 
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This does not work with Scientific Atlantic's Explorer 8300HD as an expander for the DVR.
 
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