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| Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive | 
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| Brand: Western Digital
Category: CE
Buy New: £53.50
Buy New/Used from £49.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (155 reviews)
Sales Rank: 79
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Hard Drive Size: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 2.1 x 6.5
MPN: WDH1U5000E
Model: WDH1U5000E
UPC: 718037120928
EAN: 0718037120928
ASIN: B000WP0NM8
Release Date: November 25, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Quality Product November 13, 2008
This is a relatively small, sleek external HDD. I've had a 250GB WD My Book for over 2 years and it still works perfectly so there was no doubt about buying WD again. This drive is smaller in size than the 250GB and has a glossy plastic finish and is extremely quiet. The only real difference is the addition of an extra light which flashes constantly when the drive is in use (i.e. playing an mp3 file) - it seems unnecessary.
The drive comes with pre-installed trial backup software and some other unnecessary software. I'd advise anyone who doesn't want this software to perform the Quick Format function on the drive and this will remove this software. If you are using the drive for straight forward backing up of mp3, jpeg, etc. I'd recommend using the open source (free) "Cobian Backup" software (which is NOT pre-installed) instead of either the MS backup software you may have on your PC (it backups unnecessary MS components) or the pre-installed trial backup software. It's easy to use and runs quietly in the background.
In summary, highly recommended. At a cost of approximately 12p per GB, it's a bargain.
Edit: It would appear that Amazon is publishing reviews for the 500GB My Book on the 1TB My Book product page and vice-versa. This is a review for the 500GB My Book.
 "Failure rate of less than 1%"? November 13, 2008
I ordered one of these drives about a month ago, deciding that although lots of people had warned against it, there were probably just as many satisfied customers who didn't bother to leave a review. Just like I'm doing now, probably most people only leave a review when they've had a problem with a product.
Unfortunately the light on the front of the drive just kept flashing and it just wouldn't connect to my Mac. I emailed Western Digital tech support and they suggested I returned it as it was faulty.
Undeterred, I ordered a replacement. When I plugged it in nothing happened for about 3 minutes and then it appeared on my Mac desktop. I have since found out that this delay was because the drive is formatted in FAT32 which means it's recognisable by Mac and PC, however it takes longer to be recognised by Mac and so various websites recommended that if you're only using it on a Mac to reformat it using Mac's disk utility tool. The next day I switched on the drive to reformat it and nothing happened. Again I contacted Western Digital tech support and they said that it appeared to be faulty and to return it, stating "This drive is usually very reliable as many of our customers have had no issues with it. We have a less than 1% failure rate with our drives."
In that case I must be extremely unlucky!
There does seem to be a high failure rate with these drives. Even if it works to begin with, from other people's reviews and my experience it seems that the drive can fail at any time, which defeats the object of using this drive to back up your data. I'm now looking for another drive of a similar size and price but that is reliable - if anyone has any recommendations that would be appreciated!
Very Poor Longevity November 9, 2008
I've not got this specific model but I've had a 500GB WD external hard drive for just over 18 months and it has died. There is no help from WD because of course it's out of warranty. If this is the longevity of their products then it's very, very poor for something that just sits on a shelf and should be available when disaster strikes. I for one will not be entertaining WD products ever again.
After a while the drives of WD become unreadable November 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well I thought that WD was a reliable brand in hard drives and external hard drives. I was mistaken. My first external hard drive was on WD 500GB MyBook, it died after 8 months of use. I managed to save most of my data into another WD external hard drive that I bought, this time 1TB. This one died just 3 months after the purchase...
The worse is that I own a third one WD 1 TB external drive...It has not failed me yet, but after reading all those reviews in the net I do not believe that it will last much longer. Also one friend of mine that has bought one WD 500Gb had the same problem after a few months of use.
I am sending my drives to WD for replacement, but I am not optimistic at all that they will not fail me again..
Stay away from those Drives!!
Excellent hard drive, do not use the backup programme. November 8, 2008
Brilliant memory book, but, having tried the Memeo backup programme which comes with it for 6 months and encountered horrendous problems, including having it wipe valuable information from my computer several times,I would recommend you do not use it at all. You can send information to the My Book via the icon in My Computer quite easily, and then you are in control!(The My Book is excellent value for money, too).
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