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Western Digital WDG1U5000 My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

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Western Digital WDG1U5000 My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

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Small, simple, elegant, and very easy to use. Just plug this drive in, and you've got plenty of room to back up and save your valuable data, music, photos, and movies.

List Price:	$329.99
Our Price:	$89.00
You Save:	$240.99 (73%)

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Product Details

Product Length:	11.6 inches
Product Width:	8.0 inches
Product Height:	4.7 inches
Product Weight:	4.8 pounds
Package Length:	11.5 inches
Package Width:	8.1 inches
Package Height:	4.6 inches
Package Weight:	3.4 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 297 reviews

Features

Store and back up your music, photos, videos and important documents with this external hard drive
Easy to set up and use with built-in installation software
Simple user interface features USB 2.0 connectivity
Device holds up to 500 GB of data
Measures 5.55 x 2.25 x 6.71 inches (WxHxD)

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 3.0

Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

Drive wiped self clean after 8 months and dies after 1 year Nov 26, 2008
My review is similiar to the multiple horror stories that other owners have told.

Bought one of these drives, running on Windows XP, to provide a safe storage for vacation photos. Drive was used moderately and never moved or dropped. Thankfully I had my pictures backed up elsewhere, as after 8 months the drive wiped itself clean. After owning the drive for a year, the drive sounded the "3 clicks of death" swan song and was unusable.

Bottom line, don't rely on this drive for safe storage of data, as this product is not reliable.

Started off well, then died. Nov 21, 2008
I had this hard drive for about a year in a half. It had pretty much all my stuff on it. Sadly I didn't back most of my stuff up, and next thing you know, it died. It started making 3 clicking noises, then 3 more clicking noises. It would be recognized by my computer but basically the drive couldn't be read. I'm not sure if the data is still there but I would have to pay $1700 to send it out to drive savers which is not worth the money as of right now.

When this drive worked for me, it was really good, but I have to give it 1 star because of how quickly it failed after buying it.

Moral of the story, only buy this if you plan on rarely using it for backups and other things, because this drive WILL fail in a certain amount of time.

Works great Nov 17, 2008
I use this device to backup both my laptops and have never had any problems with it. I've had it for around two years now (I don't like to write reviews until I've had some experience with a product.)

I like that the drive can be easily disconnected from the power and data cables. Size and form-factor are great for my needs. The unit stays in a sleep-state when it is powered but not connected to a PC. It wakes up instantly when a data connection is sensed / plugged in.

The only thing I haven't been able to do reliably is connect it directly to my router for wireless access but that isn't a big deal to me because I worry about the security of using it that way (even though I keep my wireless network secure, there will always be a hacker smarter than me...).

Drive Failures Oct 29, 2008
The Western Digital MyBook drives really fail. A lot.
Customer Service tries to be helpful but there's not much they can do.

Take backups often.

Not reliable, do not trust WD Oct 20, 2008
The "My Book" drive I bought died in 8 months. I've been in the field for over 15 years and that is only the 3rd time I've had a drive quit on me. The big difference is the other drives that went bad were over five years old. I still can't believe how unreliable WD drives are. I have an external Lacie drive that has been running 24/7 for the past two years and is still doing fine.

If you value your data, do not trust WD drives. Yes, they're inexpensive, but your time and frustration is worth paying a bit more for a more reliable brand.