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Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1 TB Hard Drive
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13 new or used available from $96.99
Average customer review:
Product Description
Are you running out of hard drive capacity? Do you need to archive some important digital documents, photos, or music? This elegant external hard drive, reminiscent of a book, is the perfect solution. It takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf.Small, simple, elegant, and very easy to use. Just plug it in, and you've got plenty of room to back up and save your valuable data, music, photos, and movies.
Product Details
- Brand: Western Digital
- Model: WDH1U10000N
- Platform: Mac
- Format: CD
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 6.50" h x 2.10" w x 5.40" l, 3.70 pounds
- Memory: 128000MB DRAM
- Hard Disk: 1TB
- Processors: 1
- Native resolution: 640x480
- Display size: 669.2913385827
Features
- Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive, you just plug it in and it's ready to use.
- Fits right in: Takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf.
- Our environmentally-friendly drive is designed to save power by going into standby mode after 10 minutes of inactivity.
Editorial Reviews
From the Manufacturer
My Book Essential Edition 2.0 is easy to set up and easy to use. Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive, you just plug it in and it's ready to use. This external hard drive also turns itself on and off with your computer. It's ideal for anyone who needs instant storage for their important files or a digital photo collection.
A USB 2.0 connection is available for convenience and compatibility among multiple computers. The drive is also PC and Mac compatible: You can use the My Book Essential Edition with both PCs running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista and Macs running OSX 10.4.8 or higher.
The My Book Essential Edition is backed by a 1-year limited warranty.
What It Holds:- Up to 285,000 digital photos
- Up to 250,000 songs (MP3)
- Up to 25,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
- Up to 76 hours of Digital Video (DV)
- Up to 440 hours of DVD quality video
- Up to 120 hours of HD video
Product Features:
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Ideal for - Instant storage
- Easy to use
- USB 2.0
- Saving and organizing your digital photo collection
System Requirements
- Available USB port
- Windows® 2000/XP/Vista™
- Mac® OS X 10.4.8 or later
Package Includes
- External hard drive
- USB cable
- AC adapter
- Quick Install Guide
Which external drive interface is the right choice: USB, FireWire, eSATA, or Gigabit Ethernet? The right choice depends on compatibility with your computer and how you want to use your device. First, look at the connections on your computer.
Note: For convenience and flexibility, choose a WD hard drive with both USB and FireWire interfaces
(available in dual and triple interface configurations) or with both USB and eSATA interfaces.
Customer Reviews
Western Digital MyBook 1 TB - Great Capacity But Shorter Lived Than Other MyBooks
The Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB Hard Drive has great capacity but might not be well suited for this design. I've had great luck with my Western Digital drives, but may have bitten off more than I could chew with this 1 TB model. The bottom line is I now think that 1 TB might be too much capacity for a USB-only connection. Even though it might not be because of the size I did experience a hardware issue with the 1 TB model that had to be repaired. That was the first HD failure I've had with any of these WD external drives.
The larger capacity means that the disk geometry has to work harder for the same form factor. When you consider that neither the speed nor the buffer were improved with this model, it's easier to see why the performance is slightly less than the 500 GB model.
Ultimately I think it might make sense to step down to the Western Digital 500GB My Book Home Edition or the Western Digital My Book Premium 500 GB model instead. If you need 1 TB you might want to look at the Premium, Home, Studio or Professional versions in that capacity. I am nervous because of the negative press some of those have gotten, but the extra and faster interfaces would have to be better than this USB only Essentials version.
For a 1 TB drive, the buffer has to get larger. This guy is still limited by the 480 Mps connection speed of USB 2.0 but gives you only a fraction of that in production.
You can unplug the AC adapter to manually power it down from behind, or it will power down with your computer. The AC adapter helps it perform a little faster than the USB powered ones.
The software utilities should be deleted by anybody but the most novice user. Just do cut and paste backups instead and use some other shareware or NTFS if you need to enable encryption.
Connecting WD drives to different systems has always been a plus, and this drive connected to my Windows XP, Vista or Mac OS X computers.
The only factor that should change whether or not you get this drive or another one would be size and connection type. Obviously, WD makes Pro and other versions of these drives that have firewire and SATA connectors. For most Mac users, firewire 2 connectivity is a must.
I did experience my first drive failure with the 1 TB after only 3 months of use. From now on I'm stepping up to the higher end models for this capacity. Still, I may have just gotten a bad one and you might be luckier.
Pros
+ Works well on multiple platforms: Windows Vista, XP and Mac OS X
+ Nice 16 MB buffer for faster copying speeds is still acceptable
+ New sleek body, more pleasing to the eye
+ Turns on and off with your computer
+ Very easy installation, virtually plug and play
+ Integrates nicely with my growing stable of WD MyBook drives
+ 1 TB truly is amazing capacity in one drive
Cons
- 1 TB capacity is probably the largest you would want for USB transfer with a 16 MB buffer
- Software will only be useful for novice users and is not very good (after several years of these drives being on the market)
- New shiny body attracts fingerprints and dust, may not appeal to everyone
- Transfer speed still limited by USB only connection, must step up for FireWire ports
- Price for 1 TB of capacity not as good as some smaller drives in $ price per gigabyte
- AC adapter for power, not USB powered
Conclusion
This drive is great for those who want a large capacity drive. It's better to get a pair to guard against drive failures and backup your backup. Watch the price and try to get it on sale. Those looking for extra connectors (firewire, SATA) will want to step up to the other models.
Enjoy!
A data center on a shelf
It is very hard to argue with the amount of storage that one of these drives offer. If you have been in the industry for awhile, you can remember when a terabyte of data meant an entire data center of storage!
These drives are quite and they format to NTFS quickly as long as you remember to specify quick format!! I have been pleased enough with the drive that I now own 6 of them. My laptop now has 6 terabyte of storage to work with! Since I do a lot of music and video work, that is important to me. Considering the fact that these drives now run about $229 when on sale, why would you not buy one?
Keep in mind that if you connect multiple drives, you will want to use different controlled ports on your computer; not just a USB hub (the reason is each dedicated port of a USB 2.0 can only work at a total of 400 MB/S. That means if you have multiple drives on the same controlled port that they are sharing that speed (this will really show up if you are moving data from one drive to another on the same hub). Remember, having 4 ports on your computer does not mean that they are 4 seperately controlled ports! Check your users manual or call technical support for your product to see how many seperately controlled ports you really have.
I have now moved all of my video, photos, and music to these drives (3 terabyte) and use the other three terabyte as mirrored drives (fail safe)and it is all easily accessable on my computer and on my network through my computer.
I have had the first drive for 5 months now and have added the others as they went on sale. I have not had any boot issues (mentioned in other reviews) and all of the lights go off when the computer is powered down. I am running Vista Ultimate with all updates and I am using an IBM ThinkPad with current BIOS.
Great drives!!!
Sleek and quiet
My expectations were beyond met when I plugged this in. It amazes me that a 1tb external HD can be so quiet. I had returned a 1tb older version of Western digital's external HD because it sounded like a jet engine. WD clearly fixed that problem.
The design is sleek and stylish, it is perfectly silent, and it transfers quickly with a 2.0 USB port.
I highly recommend this product.
UPDATE: I've had the product for 7 months now and I still stand by my original review. It has never given me any problems or crashed.
