WD My Book Essential Edition 2.0 External 1TB Hard Drive

Comment:
I hooked it up and it worked formatted NTFS.I never use third party software for backing up data.I found they all screw up after awhile.I stick with the old drag-and-drop  method.I hate the fact that you can't turn it off.You can only unplug it or it slows down my boot up time by quite some time.It basically works OK.I use a different drive for main backup and hook this one up once a week for a secondary back up.It is not too fast.My OS drive is a 285/275 Read /Write SATA drive but it runs only at about 15 to 20 megs/second.I definitely would not buy this kind of drive again!

Comment:
I used to be a strenuously avowed and strongly dedicated Seagate hard drive nonconformist, at least up until my less than 1 year old Seagate Barracuda internal 1TB main drive seized and caused me to lose everything, since I had no backup other than a few copies of some of my files on an external Seagate FreeAgent 500GB, that, coupled with my dealings with Seagate changed my mind and convictions. When I contacted Seagate, (with a straight face and no audible giggling), they offered to recover my files from the crashed drive for only 1200 to 2200 dollars - absolutely absurd if not grossly obnoxious. With this ludicrous proposal they would get to make that exorbitant amount of money off a faulty hard drive that they themselves manufactured? Balderdash and rotting garbage!! I wrote back and refused their um...kind offer to rescue my data...and instead, requested a replacement hard drive...I never heard back from them again...needless to say, I will NEVER buy another Seagate product even if they come down to 5 dollars and offer a free year of groceries. Still needing new hard drives, I turned to Western Digital, read a few reviews and decided to purchase 4 1TB Caviar Black drives, 2 for my system, and 2 for my wife's. I also bough a Western Digital 1TB 'My Book'. All four 1TB drives are humming along beautifully since April 2009, but I did have an issue with the WD My Book, but it was partly my fault and not that of the drive, (other than the lack of instruction or adequate warning). I had selected all the files on the My Book and clicked 'Delete', as I wanted to replace my main C: drive back-up (made previously) with a new copy made from another back-up software and I didn't want a complete second copy of my C: drive files on the My Book. Unfortunately, deleting the My Book's contents was not a prudent choice as it also deleted the drive's required operational instructions so that after the process completed, my system no longer recognized that I had an external WD 1TB drive. I received an RMA from the good folks at NCIX and took the drive into the store. In only about 5 minutes or so, they reformatted the drive and re-wrote the operational instructions and sent me on my way. Once home, I plugged it in, fired up my system, and "oh joy", there was my WD 1TB external. It appears Western Digital make some excellent drives, but IMHO, they should consider partitioning off the required instructions the same way that internal hard drives do, which is why I only gave 4 stars instead of 5. I must also add that NCIX has a level of service par excellence and equaled by no other computer retailer. I'm fully satisfied with their products, service and NCIX's level of expediency in caring for their customer's needs. This review was modfied by poster @ 08-29-09 10:48 AM

Comment:
I just bought one of these to store some files and it overall the drive performs really well. It has never given me any issues.