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Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive | 
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| Brand: Western Digital
Category: CE
Buy New: £77.00
New (28) Used (1) from £77.00
Rating:  155 reviews
Media: Electronics
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Hard Drive Size: 1000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 2.1 x 6.5
MPN: WDH1U10000E
Model: WDH1U10000E
UPC: 718037122724
EAN: 0718037122724
ASIN: B000W9RNOA
Release Date: October 7, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Technical DataStorage Hard Drive / CapacityTB1Technical DataStorage Hard Drive / Buffer SizeMB16Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Widthcm5.4Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Depthcm13.7Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Heightcm16.6Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Weightkg1.15Technical DataStorage Hard Drive / Interface TypeHi-Speed USBTechnical DataStorage / TypeHard driveTechnical DataHeader / Product LineMy Book Essential Edition 2.0Technical DataHeader / ModelWDH1U10000Technical DataHeader / CompatibilityPCTechnical DataHeader / Country KitsMiddle EastTechnical DataHeader / ManufacturerWestern DigitalTechnical DataHeader / Packaged Quantity1Technical DataStorage Hard Drive / Hard Drive TypeExternal hard driveTechnical DataExternal Hard Drive / Power SourceIncluded AC adapterTechnical DataEnvironmental Standards / EPA Energy Star CompliantYes
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| Customer Reviews:
 A great external Hard Disk January 28, 2008
John Nunn (Coventry, U.K.)
185 out of 193 found this review helpful
A superb external HDD, the USB2 connection ensures a good transfer rate with high reliability. The Supplied MIO software is unfortunately absolutely appalling and only a trial version at that, do not install despite the recommendations in the instructions. The device is very much plug and play with no drivers needed. I have got a pair of these attached to my development PC and they are great for storing old project data, iso images, unused virtual hard disk files and pictures. I would not recommend using this to run applications or virtual machines from as the performance is not good enough, but it should help free some static storage from your internal HDD's.
Stop whining March 6, 2008
skat dog (UK)
127 out of 141 found this review helpful
There's a running theme when you read reviews about hard drives; there will be at least one person giving it 1 star. And why? Because hard drives fail, that's life, and to be honest that is probably why you want one in the first place; to back up your files in case your computer hard drive fails. I work with hard drives on a daily basis and I see failers all the time. With a phyiscal medium there is always going to be a certain failure rate, especially consider how many million (or billion) hard drives have been manufactured.
Add to that the fact that a high percentage of people who have bad experiences with a product will write a review, but the majority of people who bought it without a problem will be happily backing up their data oblivious of all the whining reviews.
I bought the My Book as it's robust, cheap, and as quiet as any other I've heard. Oh and it works. And if it stops working, well I'll get it replaced under warranty.
An external hard drive that actually looks nice. September 20, 2008
James Drake (UK)
107 out of 108 found this review helpful
Okay, there are a lot of reviews for this product already and a lot of misinformation so I thought I'd try to clear the air a bit and lay down the key points for external hard drives:
* You will not get 1TB of storage on this product. The industry measures 1TB as 1000 GB, but your computer measures it as 1024GB. The same goes for GB into MB. The true capacity of this drive when formatted will be in the region of 930GB.
* It comes with a multi-plug. Follow the instructions to clip off the USA plug and clip on the UK plug. No tools are required (except fingers) and most children of 5 could complete the task.
* The drive turns on and off with your computer and 'sleeps' when inactive to reduce power consumption and heat. In sleep mode it uses less power than your mouse, but if for whatever reason you want to turn it of simply right-click the drive icon and select 'safely remove'.
* Don't let the 'I lost all my files' reviews put you off. Some hard drives do fail. This is the same for all manufactures and cannot be avoided. Valuable data should always be backed up on two separate devices.
* If you are planning to store video on the drive it would be a good idea to format the drive to NTFS straight out of the box, don't worry about overwriting the files that come on the drive, you don't need them.
Compared to other drives on the market this one is nicer to look at, and thanks to it's sleep mode, quieter and cooler than most. Getting (nearly) a Gigabyte per pound isn't too bad either!
 SENSIBLE PRECAUTIONS March 23, 2008
The Sparky (uk)
105 out of 123 found this review helpful
Bought this drive & had it for a few days, so far its fine, here are some tips though:
My system is an XP laptop upgraded to Vista Business 6 months ago, so
Pros:
1. Compact & quiet, infact my laptop hardrive i can hear over the WD drive. Its virtually silent. Runs very cool.
2. Its plug & play so will work within a few minutes of plugging in.
Cons:
1. Comes formatted as FAT32, if your running Vista or XP then your existing system will most likely be NTFS. So reformat to NTFS using the Windows quick format. KEEP IT ALL THE SAME!!! BE WARNED THOUGH FOMATTING OR REFORMATTING ANY HARD DRIVE DELETES EVERYTHING ON IT! So copy off the user manual & other files that come on the drive first to your desktop then put them back on after the reformat. If you do lose the software that comes with it, you can download it at the website, once you've registered the product.
2. The Memeo backup software is only a trail version, i think this should be free as standard, so its a waste of time installing this. As it won't work untill you purchase it after the 30 day trial period! I USE WINDOWS ENTIRE PC BACKUP INSTEAD THAT COMES WITH VISTA. THEN BACK UP MANUALLY ONCE A WEEK!
3. It's 930GB not 1TB, not really a con, as with most hard drives, you don't get the full useable capacity. It is a 1TB drive but there will be base files needed to make it work that have to be there so you get 930GB.
Always buy a bigger drive than you need to get around this issue!!!
Summary then:
1. Reformat to NTFS
2. Keep this drive in the upright position always.
3. Don't knock it about or keep moving it.
4. Don't bother using the software that comes with it.
5. If this is used for backup then it's good practice anyway to keep two seperate hard drives & from different manufacturers even to reduce the risk of any data loss, should one drive go down you've got the other. I don't trust any pc related equipment! Then again two backups of the same data should be done as standard.
5.If disconnecting any hardware from a pc i would always ensure everything is switched off, it only take a bit of static to destroy your files & your pc. This all helps to save your files.
DO NOT UNPLUG THIS DRIVE FROM YOUR PC WHILE BOTH ARE SWITCHED ON, YOU MAY LOSE EVERYTHING ON IT! & KNACKER YOUR PC TOO!!!
I've yet to see how the long term reliability is, as other reviews say they have failures after 6 months or so. We'll see then.
Taking precautions! February 2, 2008
Titheman (Cheltenham, UK)
98 out of 106 found this review helpful
Had mine 2 weeks now, so far no problems (although of course the real test is whether it lasts years, not weeks!)
As mentioned by others, I find it quick and silent in use and simple to install.
But given the number of problems reported on these types of drives, I thought I would take a few precautions:
1) re-format to NTFS (tedious, but MS claim it's more robust than FAT....)
2) don't move it around much (The doc. does say that these devices are not intended to be portable)
3) as I only use it for backup, as soon as I start up my PC I run my backup (a simple batch file using xcopy commands is good enough for me,) then I disconnect the drive with the "Safely Remove Hardware Facility" - this seems to be a firm recommendation in the WD doc.
I do wonder if some of the problems people are experiencing are because they have physically removed the drive whilst applications are still connected to it.
I am willing to forgo constant data synchronisation in order to have the drive disconnected most of the time, but I guess that won't suit some people. This technique should also reduce exposure to virus contamination (I hope!)
Time will tell if these precautions do the trick or not.....
Other points to note:
If you're going to reformat to NTFS you might want to ensure that you copy off the user manual pdf first - I couldn't find it on WD's website. There is also a diagnostics module which I copied too, although I have no idea how useful this might be as yet. As others have noted, the trial software can be ignored.
The doc. recommends that you keep the air vents on the top, back and bottom clear of obstruction, but every picture in their publicity material shows it stood upright (i.e. with the bottom blocked!)
Amazon are currently selling via Pixmania - I have seen lots of problems reported with this outfit (not least being that they are based in France, which makes product returns a right pain.) So I'm afraid I bought mine elsewhere.
Right now it's worth 5 stars - but that could change dramatically if it fails!
P.S.
I would like to make image copies of my C: drive in the event of a total failure of my internal disk, but the reviews of Norton Ghost seem almost as problematical as those for external drives, so I'm still thinking about that.
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