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

I have expanded my collection over time of MyBook Essentials from a 1 TB version purchased about 5 years ago to about five total split betwee the 2 TB and 3 TB versions. I like the 3 TB version because of its extra capacity (I use them exclusively with Windows 7 backup and WHS 2011 backup) but the 3 TB version wont work with Windows system imaging because it doesnt have 4K sectors. But after a lot of investigation it turns out that Windows has a LOT of limitations related to the 2 TB limit with Windows backup and system images (for bare metal backup) because it uses Microsoft VHD (virtual hard disk) technology behind the scenes. Microsoft made the same oops mistake in software that standards committees made in hardware when they decided that 2 TB was more disk space than anyone would EVER need. So for now I mostly use the 2 TB versions of the MyBook Essential although I have really outgrown it, because otherwise I cant get a bare metal backup (there are some external 3 TB drives from other manufacturers now that do 4k sector emulation; but I dont trust their drives reliability). Hopefully Microsoft will fix the issue with Windows backup and/or VHDs soon.

I chose this rating because I feel the 3TB ext is doing its job flawlessly. My laptop has a 250GB internal HDD and was 75% filled up with movies. With this bad boy, I was able to transfer all my tv movies and other files to the external. Allowing my laptop to free up space. How often do I use the 3TB ext? At least once a week. I used to transfer tv movies from my laptop to 16GB thumbdrive to watch on my Samsung 40inch 1080p 120hz LED HDTV. Now I can use the 3TB ext. Like: Good price. Transfer rate is fast. Noise level is relatively quiet. Runs smoothly on Windows XP. Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility. Dislike: Like many other customer reviewers been writing, the 3TB ext isnt sturdy and can easily be tipped over with the slightest touch. I recommend flipping it (or else the stand blocks the cable ports) and placing it on the plastic stand that came with the box. It works perfectly. Recommend to a friend? Yes.

When it comes hard drive, what I usually look for is the size and whether it retains heat while exchanging files. This is a great drive from WD. I like WD since many years ago and it continue to produce great hardware. The drive itself is a 2tb drive and it is very fast. I cant believe that usb 3.0 is so much better than 2.0 usb. this drive comes in a sleak black color, shinny it is. has vents on sides that help to keep the drive cool. I bought this drive mainly to get it to store files and play on my playstation. Since playstation has a limit on 2tb, this is great. Formatting to Fat32 is a breezed. It came with a formatter as well. So for those that needed to format, you have everything in the drive, although you need to copy that formatter.exe file to your computer before you format. as for the durability, i say its great. I like for that fact that it feels solid and strong. When you hold it, you feel like it is made from a well made strong and quality material. Some drives you buy cheap will not have this feels. One thing I dont like about the drive is that not about its performance but rather maybe the black shinny outside shell tends to collect dust or maybe its black and it is easier for me to see. I clean it and later I see dust on it again. Although it does not affect the drive performance but it does look dirty if look at it close up. overall the price is decent. it isnt cheap or expensive for a 2tb drive. however, because of the brand I think you get it for a very good drive for backup.

I have a home media center PC and have purchased several of these over the last couple years to store movies and tv shows. I always purchase them in pairs so I have one for the media center and one for backup. WD has changed the design slightly on this model compared to the 1TB & 2 TB model My Book. Those models had two blue LED lights on the front that would blink back and forth when data was being accessed. When the drive went into sleep mode the front would go dark and the lights off. This model has one micro white LED that is bright. It flashes when data is being accessed and continues to slowly pulse when the drive is asleep. A little disappointing in the asthtetics area that they changed this as I purchase this drive for looks almost as much as capacity. It also seems to take a bit longer to spin up and be ready when powering it on than the older models. I gave the bundled software 2 stars because it only came preloaded on the hard drive and not backed up on a disc. When I purchase a hard drive I dont feel anything at all should be on it. The first thing I did was format the drive but then I have to find a place to store the bundled software if I wanted to keep it. Otherwise, WD is a very solid product and I will continue to purchase. They cost a bit more than other brands but I feel you are paying for higher quality. USB 3.0 speeds were good. I purchased a seperate USB 3 card for my laptop but it also works fine at USB 2 speeds as well.

Well, the USB connector on my drive seems solid, but given the other reviewers comments, I am being very careful with it. I am using the drive as a backup device for my desktop, and so far it is quiet, cool and quick. I am running it off a front panel USB 2.0 port and backups are averaging around 25 to 30 MB/s. I am using ShadowProtect 5.0.1 for the backup chores, and it is also recommended... fast and efficient, the backups are even mountable, which I think is GREAT. I am used to external hard drives that are slow and hot -- this one isnt like that at all, and it has tons of room. When I first got it, I copied off all the WD software and used the quick formatter that they provide (on the drive) to reformat to a clean NTFS volume, took just a couple of minutes, not even time for a cup of coffee. Highly recommended! I see the price has gone up since I made my purchase, +20 bucks, but still a bargain for a 4 TB drive... expecially one this good.

I got this drive mostly because of its energy star rating. If it werent for that I would not have bought it due to the many complaints about its USB connectors being easy to break. I like that the drive turns on automatically after a power failure which makes it great for backups. It does have soft power button that will turn the drive off if necessary, and of course it goes into power save mode if its not in use. I dont like the hard drive activity light which is just a white LED buried somewhere deep inside the housing. You can only see it if you look carefully and at the right angle, or if the room is completely dark the inside of the case lights up faintly. Many reviewers complain about getting bad drives, but I see as many or more bad drive reviews of every brand these days - manufacturers just dont seem to care about quality anymore. So I ran both of these drives through at least 16 days of testing using Ubuntu and a spare computer. Unfortunately I dont have any USB 3.0 systems and writing a repeating bit pattern of 0x55 to every byte on the drive followed by reading it back again takes around 55 hours. I let it write and read 0x55 and 0xaa and then aborted the test before it wrote/read 0x00 and 0xff. I started using that drive for backups and tested the second drive, which I let get through all four tests (0x55, 0xaa, 0x00, 0xff), and then I had it do a random write/read test where it writes random data to the drive and then reads back the data it recently wrote. This forces the heads on the drive to move back and forth a lot. The second drive passed all of these tests which took about 10 days total. If you want to test your own drive, first back up the software thats on the drive because these tests will erase the drive. Download any version of Ubuntu (free), burn to CD or USB flash memory, and you can boot your computer from the CD/USB without making any changes to your regular hard drive by choosing to Try Ubuntu. Once booted, open Applications > Accessories > Terminal, and type this command: sudo fdisk -l Find the line that says Disk /dev/___ 3000.6 GB and note what the value of ___ is. In my case, the 3000.6 GB drive was /dev/sdc but yours may be different. Now type the following: badblocks -vw /dev/___ Replace ___ with the correct device name on your system. BE SURE YOU USE THE CORRECT DEVICE NAME SINCE YOU ARE GOING TO COMPLETELY ERASE THAT DEVICE WITH THIS TEST. You can also run badblocks -v /dev/___ which should prevent erasing the drive by re-writing what used to be on the drive as it goes along, but the test will take twice as long. The tests have very little in the way of progress indicators but theyll tell you when they start writing each of the four sets of bytes and when they start reading those bytes. They will also tell you when the whole set of tests is done and if there are any errors. If you want to perform the random data write/read test, run these commands: dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/___ & dd if=/dev/___ of=/dev/null These tests will always erase your hard drive. While the test is running, you will just see a flashing cursor on an empty line. When the test is done, you will see the $ command prompt again. If there are errors, youll see them, but it wont tell you anything on success.

WD My Book 2TB External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 File Backup and Storage I purchased this to use to backup our pictures and videos of our daughter. We needed a good amount of space so it could be a 2nd backup of our 1TB WD My Book and have space left over for new data as we go. I initially connected it directly to my Win 7 desktop to check it over. It connects like any normal USB drive. Ready to go no formatting needed. I had over 1.9TB of usable space. The test files I transferred over went quickly with no drag on the system. I then connected directly to my TP-LINK TL-WDR4300 Wireless N750 Dual Band Routers USB port as I wanted to share this with the other systems in the house. Even though the router only has USB 2.0 ports the transfer of files to and from the drive went quickly. Serving up videos to the Roku 2 player went smooth and no stuttering. I love the ease of use and the amount of storage for such a great price. Western Digitals equipment is top notch and the software if you decide to use it is great. Excellent drive.

Reading many of the previous reviews before I bought the 3TB WD hard-drive made me a bit nervous as to what I am going to pay for. Maybe there were bad drives (as with any hardware manufacturing business) and maybe the software included needs improvement - I dont know! Ive been using this drive for about 3 weeks now and all I have to say is that I am satisfied with my purchase. I have filled up nearly half of it already and there is no hassle. The software included wasnt used and I treated it as my old hard drive (a 2TB WD), plug and play. Observations: It does lag (take time) to access when it is ideal and that is expected due to the large size and since it is the only 3TB on the market right now for consumers I would only hope those problems get solved soon enough with future generations. However, it isnt a drawback at all, patience (1 to 5 seconds) will do miracles. I am currently using it with USB 2.0 and all is well, I feel it is serving its purpose 100%. Overall: 5/5 Shipping: With Amazon Prime you cant go wrong! Thank you Amazon!

This is the third generation of WD My Book external drives that I have had (the first is over four years old and still running fine). The hardware, always good, just keeps getting better. The current drives use WD green drive technology that spins the drive only as fast as needed and slows it down at other times. Saves considerable energy. The drives fall short of my expectations in two ways. First, WD needs to be much more forthright about the security features they provide. Their specs are vague and some would lead you to believe their security feature hardware encrypts the content of the drive. The fact that I can turn it on and off with change of a password and it takes zero time to re-write the disk suggests the feature really is not much more than password access to the drive -- something that is much less desirable from a security perspective. I was expecting hardware encryption. I dont think I got it. Second, WD provides some basically grossly over-simplified back-up software. It provides no ability to control which directories are backed up; all or nothing. Dont bother to install it!

Ive had quite a few people buy these, after a few of my Seagate drives died in less than a year, I decided to stick with Western Digital that has never failed me. Everybody that wants one is working with video, they need tons of space and speed as well. Ive completely filled up my 3 TB drive via usb 2.0 about 21 hours to wait. It did get warm but I saw no warping of the case, and it continues to shell out HD video no hiccups. None of these have been returned though I did have one guy back up his entire laptop to the drive when he accidentally hit the backup button, so far the only trouble because it caused him to run out of space. I guess somebody uses that button, I just havent met anybody that needed it yet. These drives work well, and if you check the price you will see it is cheaper to buy one of these, take it apart to get the drive out, and put it in your computer than it is to actually buy an internal drive for your computer. So really, for the price, this USB external case and internal hard drive combo is a steal.