Western Digital Elements Hard Drive - WDE1U5000N - Refurbished
Western Digital Elements 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

My main focus of this product is to use it to back up my computer on one device. It works great...easy to use and does the job.
 
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No problems at all. I have had it for almost a year and have used it a lot without any issues whatsoever. WD Elements HD's rule.
 
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Arrived in a timely manner, and was more than simple to use. Just plug it in, attach it with the USB cable, and voila! Ready to go, and it's never had even a single problem.
 
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I bought this to free up the 50%+ of the hard drive on my laptop that was being taken up by my music and photo libraries and it performs that function admirably. If I have any criticism it would be size and weight. It's a little too big to fit comfortably in my laptop bag, so it usually travels in my checked bag, as I travel a lot. Mildly annoying, but managable. And to anwer one question I saw posted, the drive I have does not have an on/off switch, contrary to the picture. No big deal. If I don't want it on, I don't make the USB connection.
 
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Great value and simple to use as Plug and Play. Thus far, no issues with drive at all.
 
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I recieved this in 2 business days(wow that was fast). It looked larger than I expected. This is not an issue since I will not carry this around.I use this to store songs and pictures only. I use my laptop to store critical files. It gets heated up a bit. Build quality could have been more elegant. Little noisy. LED light shud have been in the front. These are minor issues which anyone can live with. Overall a good buy and good bang for the buck.
 
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The drive is formatted FAT32, so you have to re-format it NTFS if you want to write files over 4GB to it, such as backups.
 
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Ordered, and promptly received. Installations was a breeze, and I like the length of the USB cable that was included with the unit. Small profile plug-in adapter. It does not have an on/off switch, that would be a nice feature to add but, the drive runs 7/24 anyway. As with all external harddrives, this one generates some heat. Place in a well-ventilated area.
 
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Ooh! It is amazing. No noise. Just click and transfer. For the weekly discount price of 80$, I found it is really a great value for money.
 
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I am using this as a backup drive: Pros - inexpensive, fast shipping, easy to use, quiet, plug & play, heavy duty, cool operation. Cons - no on/off switch, no backup software included, no power light. Works great, simple . . . . recommend ! ! !
 
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As usual, I am very happy with the dealing with Buy.com. Always get the best service
 
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This was a great buy. Usually after a few months, you see ads and regret not waiting. Several months have gone by now and I have yet to regret this one! Easy to use. Durable, tough construction and more storage than you can shake a USB cable at.
 
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Just plugged it in and backed up files. Just what you expect from a device like this. Nice case. Feels like its built well.
 
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I have recently bought this. A bit heavy. Other than that, it's working great. Very little noise.
 
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Other than being a little bulky, this is a good drive. The bulkiness is offset by the fact that the thing is built like a tank, which is great, since I have to pack it all over the place. I have, so far, connected it with two laptops and a desktop and it has been recognized immediately and I have had no trouble reading from or writing to it from any of the machines. I noted a couple of reviews mentioned noise which I have not noticed at all.
 
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Great backup drive. Price was very good and the shipping excellent. Works as well on both my Mac and my PC so it fits the bill as well as I had hoped.
 
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I love it...No bells or whistles, it just does what its advertised to do!
 
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I'm using this to back up my laptop's hard drive. It's quiet and unobtrusive. Great product.
 
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I got this product quicker than I thought I would and immediately backed up my computer with it. It has been everything I had hoped and although I have not used it very much yet - it has worked out well for me.
 
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Received unit, looks just like the photo, only NO OFF SWITCH! So, unless I want to have the drive running 24/7, I have to unplug the damn thing by crawling under my desk in the sea of power strips and unplug it. Because of this, overall for ease of use, I only gave it a 2 out of 5. Speed seemed to be slower than my other 500Gb hard drives too. It took hours to back up 450Gb worth of data. I have 4 other external HDs, all Western Digital IDE drives in aftermarket cases that have an off switch AND a cooling fan built in. They all run faster. I only gave it a 3 out of 5. It was cheap for an external hard drive. It came formatted FAT32, and I immediately reformatted.
 
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Very pleased with the external hard drive and at a good price.
 
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As a Linux user, you never quite know what new hardware is going to work. Well, this was about as brainless as I've ever seen on Linux, or even Windows for that matter! Plug it in, and a couple of minutes later you have your new 500G drive ready to go. Add in a great price, and free shipping, makes this drive a bargain!
 
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This hard drive is so easy to use. Just plug it in and go. Was looking for something to back up all my files onto and this has been working great.
 
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This product is truley a plug and play unit.
 
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good quality with suitable price
 
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Had this drive about a month useing on a mac book pro for backup and data works very good so far. Drive was very easy to format and setup good value for the price.
 
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I bought this as a backup hard drive after running out of space on my old 80GB external hard drive (which I happened to have purchased for the same price 2 years ago) and to use for DJing for now. Used it last night for the first time and it worked great! Love the sturdiness of the drive too. Thanks for the fast delivery, buy.com!
 
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This little unit is really quiet. I thought I had read it was loud. It has been been working great so far. No problems at all.
 
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Have had drive for a few weeks and seems to work fine. Not running hot and is very quiet. Delivery was on time and packaging good. I use frequently during day so lack of power switch is not an issue to me.
 
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this has been the easiest external drive that i have ever used. i would reccomend this drive for even the newcomer to computers and external drives,quality item,good price
 
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No problems so far. Runs cool and quiet. Couldn't ask for better.
 
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Quality item, good price, quick delivery.
 
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I've had this drive now for about 3 months and it works absolutely perfectly. Originally, I couldn't decide between this and the Seagate 500gb as they were around the same price. After reading the reviews for both, and now having personal experience with this drive, I have to say I am VERY glad that I chose this one. The transfer speed is decent, and it doesn't run too hot. If you're looking for a cheap, reliable backup drive.. this is the one!
 
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Very easy to use. Purchased about one month ago to back up my digital pictures. Just Plug in and copy the files. Like it!
 
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I see this over and over again: people not understanding that 500GB as advertised by the drive manufacturer is same as 465GB as reported by the operating system. They both represent the same amount of storage. The difference is that they are reported in different units of GB. The drive manufacturer uses 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes while the operating system uses 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes. (Why the OS uses a funny number you ask? It is based on binary numbering system. You practically have to be a computer scientist or engineer to FULLY understand why this is the case.) So to convert 500GB, as reported by the drive manufacturer, to the value reported by the OS, you divide 500 by 1.073741824 (since 1GB reported by OS equals 1.073741824 GB reported by drive maker) and, voila, you get 465GB as calculated and displayed by the OS.
 
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Fast shipping, good product!
 
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I've used this for a month now. Has not given me any kind of problems yet. Touchwood. Pros: Easy to use, pretty silent as well. Shipping took a little longer than i expected, but im ok with that (coz opted for free) Cons: The power cable did not seem to be of very good quality. No switch on the device to turn off the power of the drive. Overall : Not bad, but i think i would have preferred the WD Notebook (500 GB) over this one.
 
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I would definitely recommend this product. Did not find a single problem yet.
 
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Wow! Can't get anymore easy than this. It is truly plug and play. Good quality and a great price. They best part about my buy.com experience was the free shipping: I thought there would be a longer wait for the products arrival, I recieved the HD in two days. I love you buy.com
 
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This external drive provides a half of a terabyte of storage for very little money, in a software/hardware package that is simple to install, uncomplicated, and a pleasure to use. It's also small and very portable. With this much storage, backing up large drives is easy, and because it's easy to carry from one computer to the next, I can copy my entire C: drive onto the portable drive, tuck it into my briefcase, carry it home, and have all of my files available. Exellent value!
 
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No complaints about this HD. Easy to use, priced great. highly recommend!
 
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A little loud but great external drive.
 
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I have had the product now for about 3 weeks and it has functioned flawlessly.
 
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picked this HD over at Target during Black Friday for $89 Bucks. anyhow it works very well and is very fast. the thing that i like about it that you may not... there is no On/Off button. so its off when the computer is off and it turns on when the computer is on. when the computer is on but not using the HD, the HD spins down to use less power. i love love. its cheap. it works every time! RECOMMENDED!
 
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It worked fine until the warranty just expired. It started clicking and that's it. All my pictures, movies, music - all gone. Warranty - 1 year. Well, even if the warranty was still on it wouldn't help much. They'd replace the hard drive but all your data is still GONE! Do these people at WD even realize that their poor work cost people not just money but precious memories too? I would not buy WD ever again and I would not recommend it to my friends.
 
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Works Great. No issues, works as advertised
 
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I purchased this external HD to back up two home PC's. I did a complete format before using it and completed a full back-up of both PC's in less than an hour! This HD works great, very easy to use and the price was excellent. Highly recommend this product.
 
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I purchased this drive in order to take it with me when I travel. It stores movies and music along with pictures. So far no problems, works perfectly, it doesn't heat up and it transfers at a mosdest speed for being USB.
 
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Except for the inability to create one partition in NTFS and one in FAT32, I love this thing. I recently switched from an Acer laptop to a MacBook, and bought this to store everything on the Acer before I wipe the HD.
 
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I have used it with two different laptops, one being an old Dell with 1.1 USB ports. The backup unit performs flawlessly.
 
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First, the price was awesome from buy.com. Couldn't have asked for a better deal at the time. It's a decent size of 500GB, which, is probably about average size nowadays, if not a slight bit small. Personally, it was perfect as I don't NEED more than 500GB right now and won't for some time. The product was literally plug n play. No setup or anything required. It defaults as FAT32 which is actually kinda nice if you have a PS3 and want to copy some files to it that way since it can't read NTFS. It's not as portable as the laptop encased drives are, but, it's still not that bad. The case is very sturdy, quiet, and the rubber end "grips" ensure it won't slide anywhere. Overall, a perfect deal.
 
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