Product Description

They're your photos¿your music¿your videos¿your important files. Make extra room for them, back them up, and keep them safe on YOUR book. WD's My Book Premium is the perfect external hard drive for all your precious digital assets.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14621 in Consumer Electronics
• Color: Black
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WDG1C5000N
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.00" h x 4.00" w x 10.00" l, 4.00 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Features

• Convenient dual interface (USB 2.0 and FireWire) offers maximum compatibility and speed
• 500 GB capacity, 7200 RPM, 16 MB Cache
• Capacity gauge shows you at a glance how much space is left on your drive
• Smart design takes up less space on your desk and stacks horizontally
• Intelligent drive management features ensure optimal operation

Amazon.com Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description Is your computer loaded with photos, music, video, and all sorts of important files? If so, you should make extra room, back them up, and keep them safe on Western Digital's WDG1C5000 My Book Premium Edition 500 GB Hard Drive. This reliable, easy-to-use external hard drive is the perfect storage solution for all your precious digital assets.

Save and back up all your digital assets with the My Book Premium Edition Hard Drive. View larger.

Simple, easy-to-use design.

Hard drive features dual interface connectivity (FireWire 400 and USB 2.0). View larger.

The elegant case takes up very little space.

Installation is a breeze because you don't really "install" anything -- just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is not even an installation CD because all the included software loads automatically from the hard drive the first time you plug it in. For cream-of-the-crop, high-speed performance, use My Book Premium's FireWire 400 interface. However, if FireWire 400 isn't convenient, Western Digital has you covered -- the My Book Premium hard drive is also compatible with USB 2.0 connectivity. Best of all, you don't have to choose between one or the other because both interfaces are built into every drive.

Western Digital provides software (WD Backup) that makes backing up your data as easy as possible. With a few simple steps you can back up all your data files, or just save your picture and music files. You can also schedule routine backups so you don't have to worry about it ever again. Built for ease of use, this drive is equipped with a capacity gauge that shows how much space is left on your drive. The My Book Premium also includes intelligent drive management features. For example, the drive turns itself on and off with your computer, and Safe Shutdown prevents the drive from being powered down until all your data has been written.

But that's not all. Western Digital uses a smart design to make the My Book Premium look as good as it performs. The elegant case resembles a book and takes up very little space on your desk. Plus, it stacks horizontally and allows two or more drives to nestle neatly together like encyclopedias on a shelf. Inside the stylish exterior is an exceptionally fast, ultra-quiet, cool-running hard drive. Last but not least, the My Book Premium is equipped with free Google software that searches your drives, manages your photos, and simplifies Web searches.

My Book Premium Edition Hard Drives are ideal for:

• High-speed backup of important documents and images
• Extra storage for your computer
• Automatic backups of your existing hard drive
• Archiving the music stored on your MP3 player
• Adding plenty of space for digital video capture and editing
• Saving and organizing your digital photo collection

Note: For basic, less expensive storage option without automatic backup software, consider the My Book Essential Edition 500 GB Hard Drive.

What's in the Box
My Book Premium 500 GB USB 2.0/FireWire external hard drive, USB cable, FireWire cable (six-pin to six-pin), AC adapter with power cord, and quick install guide.

From the manufacturer
They're your photos...your music...your videos...your important files. Make extra room for them, back them up, and keep them safe on WD's My Book Premium. This reliable, easy-to-use external hard drive is the perfect storage solution for all your precious digital assets.

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.

Features

• Easy to set up, 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. There is no CD to install; the included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in.
• Dual interface — For all-out, high-speed performance, FireWire 400 is the interface of choice. For convenience and compatibility among multiple computers, USB 2.0 is the way to go. How do you choose? With this drive, you don’t have to choose — you get both interfaces on the same drive.
• WD Backup software – We’ve provided software that makes backing up your data as easy as possible. With a few simples steps you can back up all your data files or just save your picture and music files. You can also set scheduled backups, so you don't have to think about it again.
• Capacity gauge — See at a glance how much space is left on your drive.
• Intelligent drive management features — The My Book drive turns itself on and off with your computer and Safe Shutdown prevents the drive from being powered down until all your data has been written.
• Smart design — The elegant case, iconic of a book, takes up less space on your desk, stacks horizontally, and allows two or more drives to stand neatly together like volumes on a shelf.
• High quality hard drive — Inside the case is an exceptionally fast, ultra quiet, cool-running hard drive from Western Digital.
• Free Google software — Search your drive, manage your photos, and simplify Web searches with included Google software.

Ideal For

• High-speed backup of important documents and images
• Extra storage for your computer
• Automatic backups of your existing hard drive
• Archiving the music stored on your MP3 player
• Adding plenty of space for digital video capture and editing
• Saving and organizing your digital photo collection

---

Customer Reviews

Yes it works with power strips, Yes it can be shared on a network!!
I've been using this drive for about a month now. BUY IT! I don't know if there are some defective drives out there or what but several of the negative claims sounded very odd to me. The first thing I did when I got the drive was to plug it into a power strip.. It came right up.

Next, since I'm running a home network with several computers and a wireless laptop, I shared out the drive on my network. It worked like a champ. I can read and write data to it without a problem. Here are the steps you should use to properly share a drive in Windows XP:
1. On the computer you're sharing, open My Computer.

2. Right-click the hard drive you want to share and choose Sharing and Security from the shortcut menu that appears.

The Sharing tab appears, displaying a message that warns you that sharing a drive isn't a good idea. Beneath the message is a link that you can click to indicate that you understand the risk but want to share the drive. Then the Sharing tab changes to reveal the options that allow you to share the drive.

3. Select the Share This Folder on the Network option.

4. Enter a name for the share.

5. Select the Allow Network Users to Change My Files option.

If you don't select this option, network users can view files but can't create new files or modify existing files. Because you're a network user when you want to work on a file on this computer from a different computer, there's not much point in restricting what network users can do. However, the security in Windows XP is rather complicated, and it gets more complicated when you share folders.

6. Click OK.

Now, to access your new share on another computer you'll need two pieces of info: the name of your computer with the drive and the name of the share you just created. To find your computer name, right click on "My Computer" and choose Properties. Click on the "Computer Name" tab. In the middle of the page you'll see "Full computer name:" followed by your full computer name. If there is a dot after the computer name, you can ignore it. Write down your computer name and the name of the share you just created and head over to one of your network machines that you'd like to access the drive on.

Right click on "My Computer" and choose "Map Network Drive". A window with two fields will come up "Drive" and Folder" and a check box "Reconnect at logon".

In the Drive box, pick the drive letter you want the drive to have in My Computer. In the folder box, type the following using the name of your computer with the drive and the name of the share you created:

\\computername\sharename

Where computername is the computer you hooked up the shared mybook to and sharename is the name of the share you created.

If you want the computer to automatically reconnect to the share every time it reboots, you can check the reconnect at logon box.

Just click Finish and you're done!

Now, back to the My Book 500gb Premium Edition. I find it to be very quiet and unobtrusive. It has two blue rings around the power button that light up. The outside ring is a power and drive activity light that will flash and move when you are reading or writing data to the drive. The inside ring is actually a drive capacity light that tells you how much room is left on the drive! If your drive is half full, the half of the inside ring will be lit!

The center of the two rings is a power button. It shuts the drive completely off. One thing to note on this: when using the included backup software, you can (and should) schedule your backups to run automatically at regular times. If you power off the drive by pushing the middle power button, the drive cannot power itself back up automatically to complete your backup.

I have found that you don't really need to power off the drive anyway as it will slow itself down and go to a standby mode if it isn't accessed for a long time. The power stays on and the blue rings stay lit, but it does go into a power save mode. It will wake back up right away when you want to access it.

The drive also monitors the pc and knows when you turn off your computer. It automatically turns itself off when your pc is off and back on when your pc is turned back on! This is actually a big deal as most of the "do it yourself" external drive kits have a hard power button and the thing will be on until you manually turn it off.

There are 3 different flavors of this drive. The Essential Edition pretty much comes with the drive with USB connectivity and that's it. This works fine for a lot of people.

The Premium Edition comes with the drive, USB and Firewire connectivity and software for your computer including a backup program that is so easy that your grand parents can use it as well as google desktop search to help you find files on your computer just as easy as googling things on the web.

The Pro Edition is identical to the Premium except that it comes with a faster Firewire port for those who need it and it is white instead of black (Probably to match Apple Computers since those are the most likely ones to use a faster Firewire port).

I find that the drive does not get hot at all. If you put your hand on the vents on the top of the drive it will be warm, but that's it. I'm not worried about heat build up on this drive.

Installation:
The software that is included in the Premium Edition is actually on the hard drive itself and once you attach the drive to the computer and power it on, the drive will be recognized and installed by windows and the software install screen will usually pop up automatically. If for some reason this doesn't come up automatically, you can open My Computer, click on the new drive letter and click on the "autorun" file. This should make the software run. Just follow a basic simple install choosing whether you want to install the backup software and google optional pieces and your done.

As for speed, I haven't done any scientific benchmarks, but I've copied a few 4 gig test files back and forth and I'm quite happy with the speed.

In conclusion, the drive works, requires no maintenance, setup is a breeze and it looks cool on top of it all. Also, people complained that you can't plug it into a power strip, I did not have that problem, people said you can't network it, I was able to network it easily.

One more note. People need to realize the tech support terminology can be misleading. When you call tech support and say you're having trouble networking the my book drive, if they tell you that networking is not supported, that does NOT mean that you can't do it, it just means that tech support doesn't think that is a problem with the drive so they won't spend the time to tell you how to do it. If you are trying to figure out how to do something try doing a search with google or A9.com like "how to share a drive in windows xp". You'd be suprised at the things you'll learn!

Extremely simple to set up
After a distressing hard drive failure a couple of years ago, I've been hyper about backups (and backups of my backups...) for home data. I recently purchased this to backup my music and photo files and so far it's been great. It is extremely easy to set up; you plug it in, load the software, ask it to update your music and photo files, and off it goes. For me, the first backup of 80GB of music and photos took about 90 minutes.

It's also an extremely rugged piece -- a nice solid metal case that is heavy enough to stay put on your desktop (I have an older, lighter firewire drive that is always getting pushed around...this WD drive is definitely going to stay put where it is).


The only thing I don't like about it is that the documentation is pretty skimpy, and the WD website didn't seem to have a lot about this hard drive on it. I guess if I have no problems with it I won't miss the documentation, but I would feel better if there were a little more information readily available.

Unbelievably Unstable
I have owned and loved Western Digital products for many years. Unfortunately, they should have remained in the IDE and EIDE market and stayed out of the USB market, at least until they figured out how USB works.

I installed this product several weeks back and was hoping I could make the quirks, kinks, and overall instabilities go away, since I've been a huge Western Digital fan for many years. Alas, this is not possible. And my e-mails on their support site go unanswered. I simply get automatic e-mails, telling me that I need to try solutions that I've already tried...several times.

I've downloaded and updated the latest of every piece of software and every driver available and unfortunately, this wonderfully huge hard drive, that I would love to depend on, simply goes into la-la land at least once a day. At first, it appears in Windows Explorer to be there, but clicking on this drive will do little more than attempt to make me believe there is nothing on it, even though I have put over 100 GB of files onto it. That is, the content portion of the Explorer is simply blank. I reboot countless times to no avail. When I reboot, the drive simply shows the same results -- no data at all -- or the drive doesn't appear at all. When it doesn't appear in Explorer at all, I go into the Device Manager to find an "Unknown device". Uninstalling it and re-installing does little more than cause more frustration.

I know I should probably try the Firewire interface. However, I spent a lot of money to buy this drive; buying more hardware to, hopefully, simply satiate the needs of this particular piece of hardware, doesn't make fiscal sense to me.

I'm sorry, Western Digital, to give you a bad review, but please please please figure out how USB interfaces function before you produce another drive available and tarnish your good name any further. At this time, I can't even get my data off of your drive and I won't return it until I figure out how to do so. I will probably have to spend more money to figure out how to erase the information, simply so I can return it. We depend on companies like you to hold our valuable, personal information. This experience has been a very sour, disappointing let-down.