WD My Book 1TB External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 File Backup and Storage

Packaged arrived within 3 days, very good shipping. The drive came pre-formatted as NTFS, and contained western digital product related software. I had to wipe it clean as I am using a combination of Linux and Unix systems which caused some trouble due to problems with IO instability (Debian Testing not the fault of this drive). The drive performs excellent in Windows 7 x64, and decent on USB 2.0 on a MacBook Pro (Using Parallels for NTFS drive mounting). Linux USB 3.0 drivers are still lacking, maximum read/write speeds about the same as USB 2.0 (35-50 MB/sec). Windows transfer speeds were outstanding, capping at over 110 MB/sec from a SSD and 90 MB/sec from a network Samba share. Data reads just as fast to the SSD, but not written quite as fast to the network share. In any event, I am extremely pleased with my purchase. Another outstanding product from Western Digital, they know how to do hard drives and its hard to go wrong if you pick their products.

Well with all the demands for offline backup to store all that stuff you think is worth storing this may be a good choice. I got my unit to throw all my photo files into after the supposedly automatic backup from Norton quitworking. Not being a real techy type I had my doubts as to how to hook it up. No worries. You just plug it in and attach the USB and you are off and running. The software is all preinstalled and my computer recognizes the drivers right off. All I did was pick how often I wanted it to run a backup on my files or amendments to them. Amazons price was really good as I looked a lot of places for this unit. So if you too need s secure place for some of your importasnt data, you can pick which kind, this might be the one. Western Digital Has been around a long time and not because they make bad stuff.

When choosing amongst the different external hard drives out there, I read that this product actually had built in backup software that worked well. I figured that rather than configuring Windows Backup (or a 3rd-party software that I had always used in the past), I would spring for this product with its software. Bad decision. Two majors issues have arisen that are forcing me to uninstall this software. 1) The software does not allow you to configure what directory you would like to back up. This is a big one. All is does is back up your My Documents folder. If, perhaps like me, you keep important files anywhere else on the computer, this program will be useless to you. 2) The backup software continuously runs, eating up 25% of my processor at all times. You can tell it to go into a more passive mode, but the active mode (really, the selling point) is so resource hogging as to cripple your system if you multitask. These two issues are non-starters for me. I have uninstalled the backup utility, and would advise anyone who is interested in buying this drive for the program to look elsewhere. As for the drive itself? It is a fine drive, and will make a good external hard drive. However, from a cost-standpoint, there are cheaper drives that work just as well, but to not come prepackaged with software that isnt particularly useful.

Western Digital is the only brand of external drives I buy. I have a 3TB and this 4TB and they work flawlessly. Prior to these, I had a Seagate and it made a lot of noise and then died, taking all my stuff with it. I saw a gold box deal about six months after that, and figured that since Seagate drives get good reviews, that the one that had failed on me must have been an anomaly. Four or five months later, my computer started to have trouble communicating with the second Seagate, and then it, too died. Thankfully, I had learned my lesson and was backing everything up to a cloud as well so I suffered no loss, but still I felt like an idiot for buying a brand that had let me down big time twice. You couldnt give me a Seagate. The happy part of the story is that the two Western Drives I have now are absolutely dependable, they dont complain, i.e. making strange sounds, and they have earned my loyalty by their track records. They are two solid work horses that interface seamlessly with my cloud back up service, and are as accessible as the hard drive in my computer. I could not be more satisfied with them, especially since they are priced so fairly.

I have 4 My Book Essentials (USB-3.0) and one My Book 3.0 (USB-3.0). The Essential all seem to have an improved plug support bracket. It goes completely around the end of the plug. The 3.0 has just a simple side support tab. The latter looks really weak. I have been using a black/white epoxy to reinforce the plug to circuit board on 5 of 6 sides. It is thicker than the clear stuff, which started to wick into the plug of the first one I did, the My Book 3.0 drive (I managed to pick that out with a needle while still soft). Ive glued 4 of the 5 drives so far. 3 of those 4 use different, removable, circuit boards. This holds the plug and some other stuff. They all have a std SATA (serial ata) connection/plug for the hard drive itself. While I have not tried it, Im pretty sure that if you were to damage the plug you could swap the sub panel from a similar drive, perhaps any of them, long enough to recover data stuck in a drive w/a bad plug. The one gripe- the drive(s) are all 7% smaller than advertised.

Over the years, Ive owned MANY computers and hard drives and such. Ive been pretty lucky with hard drives, but havent escaped the occasional HD failure. Suffice it to say, I have had my share of hard drive failures. A hard drive failure is ALWAYS annoying and a wake up call to backup data more frequently. I decided that I needed an external drive to backup my primary drive (on my main computer) - since it contains a lot of files that would be pretty hard to replace. Being an I.T. guy myself, I DO keep backups on internet servers. But I wanted something LOCAL (ie: FAST and easy) that would hold my main files AND have a program that would back things up in the background so that Id never have to worry about keeping current backups. You know, when you have a crash, one of the first questions that goes through your mind is: gee, when was the last time I backed up?. I went with Western Digital because Ive had VERY good experiences with their drives. In fact, I dont think that Ive EVER had a WD drive fail on me. (Seagate, yes, Other who knows who build them drives, yes - WD, no). Could be luck of the draw, but hey - if it works, STICK WITH IT. I received this external drive - plugged it in. Windows 7 (64 bit) recognized it right away. Two updates (firmware and software) and I was up and running. The backup software - a GEM. Exactly what I was looking for. It is taking awhile to backup my main HD - but hey - we live in a world where people expect things way too fast. Im a fairly ordinary user, but I DO tend to encode a LOT of videos. This uses up a LOT of hard drive space. The drive is CURRENTLY backing up my main HD (does it in the background, how nice!). I have a little under a terrabyte to backup and it looks like it will finish overnight. Not bad - People tend to dismiss how huge a terrabyte is. Just like the national debt - people dont realize how big a TRILLION is. Example: If you spend one dollar per SECOND - itll take you over 31,700 YEARS to spend ONE trillion dollars. Anyway, I digress - an overnight backup is NOT BAD for an external drive backing up nearly a terrabyte. The software appears to run in the background - it should backup any new or changed files automatically. Bottom line - This drive is working BEAUTIFULLY for my purposes. It is giving me peace of mind. While I dont have long term experience with it, it is working well and if it has the durability of all my older WD drives, Ill be very pleased indeed. One reviewer said it had a flimsy USB3 connector. Im not seeing that. Maybe WD improved the connector with newer models, but mine appears to be a solid, standard, USB3 connector. If I have any issues, I will update this review. I hope my (rather lengthy typing) has been helpful. All in all - Great product. - Ron Donofero *Update* - I had a great deal of trouble with the included backup software. It works great WHEN IT WORKS - but seems to run into problems for unknown reasons (I am an I.T. Tech and did a lot of research to solve the problems - finally gave up). I now use Acronis software to do my backups. I still love the drive, but DO NOT - I repeat - DO NOT use the included smartware software or youll be sorry. I highly recommend this drive married with Acronis - that seems to be an awesome winning combination.

Amazon had a very good price and the shipping was free with the Super Saver Shipping. Even though it was shipped for free, it arrived in three days to my surprise. Ive used the Super Saver Shipping numerous times and have had very good experiences with it, never any problems. So I highly recommend the purchase be made through Amazon. As far as the hard drive, although the price has dropped some since I bought this item, I am still pleased with it. The price with the free shipping was as competitive as every other company. The reason I bought the WD hard drive was for the drive space and it was one of the few that has password protection. This is important due to the sensitive nature of job-related material. So the password protection application was necessary. I found that not all hard drives have this feature. The software it contains is already installed and all you have to do is download the desired portion onto your system. The on/off switch doesnt operate until a particular program is downloaded, this was new for me. The only draw back was that the instructions which came with it werent very helpful and it took me some time to navigate through them. Since I have no formal training and am basically self-taught on my PC, it took longer. If you have any familiarity with such items, you will have no problem with that. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase.

This was a good deal on a high-capacity hard drive. I wanted to get a drive that would theoretically be the last external storage I would ever need, and I was pleased that this one at least offered some means of eventually upgrading to USB 3.0. So far its working great with no problems. I converted it to FAT32 for use with my PS3 and had no problems doing so. I use it to backup files and store music, video, etc. that I wont always have room for on my computers hard drive. I dont use it for automatic backup, so I cant comment on that. I rated the bundled software at 1 star because I have no interest in it and wish it had come without. They should just give you a code to download that stuff if you want it. For people worried that it cant be removed or the drive will not work correctly, I have not had any issues after removing it and reformatting to FAT32. I have only had this for about 6 months, so long-term viability is still to be seen, but so far I dont have any complaints and still consider it a good deal.

I bought this external unit just to get the hard drive inside. I dont care about it being portable, and it was cheaper to buy it as a portable than as a stand alone internal drive. This is the second one I bought. They are external drive is exactly the same as the internal drive, but the internal drive alone was $25 more than the external. Go figure. As an internal drive to store multimedia it is awesome and reliable. This is the second one I have purchased for a home theater PC that also runs 24/7 as a media server. Keep in mind your motherboard will need an UEFI type BIOS to natively hard drives over 2GB . If you install this into a drive with the regular BIOS you will have headaches getting it to work, if at all. Like all hard drives, the secret to long life is keeping the COOL. With good airflow from active cooling (which means a real FAN), you should get years of use. In a case that relies on convective cooling, or minimal airflow, you will be shortening their life. There are tools you can download that will report the internal temperature of the drive. Use one to make sure you are keeping them happy.

Were in kind of a weird situation at the moment: The WD MyBook Essential external HD (2TB) is selling for thirty dollars less than a bare 2.0TB hard drive (WD Caviar Green)! I think its just because a spike in HD prices hasnt caught up with the old inventory price for the MyBook, but heres an opportunity to make a few bucks-- strip out the drive and sell it on eBay. You may not want to though. The one I bought failed after nine months. Im not sure if its the drive, the connector (see other reviews here for broken USB 3.0 connector woes-- I dont think thats the problem with mine), the cable, or something else; but Windows 7 hangs whenever the drive is connected, and eventually reports that the drive must be formatted. An attempt to format it always fails, whether from the dialog it presents or from Windows Disk Management utility. On the other hand, it saved my bacon more than once while it was alive, so I cant give it fewer stars. Three seems about right. The first thing I did was to make a system image onto the drive using the Backup & Restore control panel, and have automatically updated that once a week. This system image helped a great deal when a buggy ATi video card driver update hosed my whole system. It often fails when done automatically, so when I remember I do it manually. If I get a replacement, I think Ill shut off the automated backup utility (SmartWare) and just use the native backup tools during times when Im away. I never recovered a file using SmartWare, but it seemed to chug along efficiently and not get in the way (until the big failure, of course). Im using it with a USB 2.0 port and the speed was neither impressively fast nor torturously slow. Ive submitted a support request and hope WD will honor it, either with a refund or a replacement. UPDATE 5 Dec 2011: After a few weeks of back-and-forth, they did indeed send me a new drive. I installed the firmware update and SmartWare update without problems, and now we see whether this one can outlast the previous model. Cross fingers. I *do* like WDs products-- most of my system builds have used their HDs-- and I can see that the occasional lemon gets released.