Western Digital My Book Office Edition 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - WDH1B5000N - with Automatic Backup & Remote Access Feature!

The hdd itself works great and was extremely easy to set up. The bundled software is a little annoying as I haven't had time to figure out how to disable it from starting when windows loads. And to piggyback off of other comments, the activation process is confusing since the software is a year long trial version. Overall, I'm very happy with the hdd. Very sleek, smaller and lighter than I thought.
 
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Even though Western Digital claims their product is a plug and go drive they are not telling the whole story. After I finally found the driver on line, it turns out not to work with XP's backup program in the operating system. You are then forced to use W.D. back up software which as far as I can see does not allow the user to program a set time and day for backup. You either have the backup on or off. As far as the performance of the drive it does operate very nice. The other software which they claim you can access your drive away from home is only a 30 day trial. After which you pay $30.00, and the software conflicts with XP.
 
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Everything works fine, except the MioNet. It shut down my Windows XP operating system when I tried to set it up for use. So, it's useless to me. The storage part works well.
 
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The hardware execution is virtually flawless. Western Digital has made a very solid piece of equipment for a small business network and loaded it with some useful software to facilitate its use. Unfortunately the software falls a bit short of Western Digitals standards for their hardware. The "back-up" utility loaded easily and did a good job of retrieving and "backing up" most of the files, however, some files seem to cause a problem in their path, and the unit continuously searches for them in an attempt to "back them up". There is no utility that I've found yet for "excluding" certain specific files from its search. Also, the other software comes as "trail" versions, with some confusion resulting from trying to "decipher" whether the "activation code" provided will make them "full versions" or not. The back-up also continuously siphons resources from the computer, and uses Network resources as it constantly "updates" backed up files. There is no software adjustment provided for altering how often the unit checks computers on the network for changes. That would help a lot, and make the product a "five star" across the board.
 
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Very happy with results after product was reported "lost in transet" Received replacement item in timely action. Thanks.
 
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Very easy to install the software, except the software that came with the Drive would not work with my computer (Dell desk top running Microsoft XP Professional). I had to contact the software vendor that came with the External Drive (Memeo) and they had me download a brand new version of the Memeo AutoBackup software and now everything works perfectly, fast, as I expected it should etc. I am very happy with the unit.
 
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I managed to pick this one up for $139 with free shipping and actually got it the next day to my pleasant surprise. It was a breeze out of the box to plug it in and start using it right away. (True plug & play). As a Mac user, didn't have much use for the auto backup software and the remote access is apparently only for Windows users so mac users looking for that feature, look elsewhere. I quickly & easily reformatted (Mac Journaled format) and have had no issues with the drive. It's quiet and the sleek silver/aluminum casing looks nice with the Mac. The external "gauge" isn't very useful but looks pretty. All in all, this is a great value and I was very happy with the purchase.
 
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