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

I recently purchased from Amazon two of the new 2TB My Book Essential hard drives to expand and upgrade my external file storage, consisting largely of nearly ten years of digital photo files. I have used Western Digital external drives for several years, and have had absolutely no reliability or quality problems with them. One of these two new drives is my fire safe backup, and the other is the on duty storage for all of our past years digital photos. These new drives are very fast and quiet. I would have given these new drives a five star rating, except for two issues, which may be very important for other people to know about. I hope my review will save the readers many hours of frustration, which I went through. The first issue that you may experience is a well known problem (just do an internet search of the problem) which causes your computer to take about TEN TIMES longer than normal to boot up. This is due to a conflict with the BIOS used by some manufacturers. (Both of my computers have the same initials as High Power) One is my one year old laptop, and the other is our two year old desktop, both with all current updates installed. There is some hope that you may be able to avoid this problem by making some changes to your BIOS setup, but such was not the case for me. Talking with technical support people from both Western Digital and computer manufacturers plus an on-site house call by a very experienced local/independent computer specialist confirmed this. So at present the ONLY way we can avoid this problem is to leave the new external drive disconnected until after the computer is all finished with its whole start up process. (I do this by having the power supply for this new hard drive plugged in to a separate switched power strip which I then turn on only after the computer has completed booting up.) -you can do the same thing using the USB cable, if you wish. The second issue is with the Smart Ware software that comes with these new My Book Essential drives. After many hours of working with it, and trying to like it, I finally un-installed it. For many people who do not currently have any type of real-time backup implemented for their system, it may be just fine. But for me, I hated the lack of visibility and lack of easy accessibility of the specific backed up files. And for some people these new on line automatic file back-ups may work, but the transfer rate time factor for a large number of large files is not to my liking. For years I have used a very simple and inexpensive real-time automatic file backup program, which in my opinion is totally user-friendly and user adjustable. (the image that come to my mind is of a little hamster running in his wheel automatically backing up my selected file (and folders)) that I will continue with. (-BTW, they are a USA company (in the state of Utah) with excellent customer support.) So, I am happy using these new external hard drives as generic external storage. As usual, I purchased from Amazon, and their price and delivery was perfect!

I had 2 of these My Books. 1.5TB and 3TB. They both have worked very well for sometime now. No complaints there. I needed another 3TB because both are full up, so I made the purchase of another 3TB thinking... these things are great. I connected up the new one and copied over a lot of personal files just for backing up. I also moved over a lot of recorded TV shows that we have saved to watch later. (My wife watches allot) Thats why I have so much need for these external drives. Thats most of the data we have is multimedia and pictures etc. After 2 days, the little white light on the front of the case was constant on, and the drive would not spin up. Come to find out, the USB controller piece inside went bad. These drives have some sort of hardware encryption that is integrated into the controller that encrypts the data even if you do not install the software. (I did the research on-line; you should check it out before purchasing) So I took the hard drive out of the enclosure, thinking I could possibly recover the data by connection via sata cable. The internal drive is really just a green drive that can be used internally on a PC. I did this and the drive spun up and was recognized by the PC. Perfect!!! Maybe I can recover the data on there. NOT!!! The data was encrypted by the stupid controller that WD puts on these things. So no go on recovery of my wifes TV shows. The other personal data I have in several places so no big deal. But those TV shows were lost. People, Im in the hot seat now with her! Bottom line, these things work great when you get a good one, but when they crater, your done. Unless you want to pay a data recovery vendor to pull your data for a couple hundred dollars. WD will give me another one to replace this bad one, they are good about that, but Im returning it and getting the Seagate Back-up Plus. It doesnt encrypt your stuff unless you tell it to in the software. Sorry WD, but these external drives lost you my business. _______ 15 minutes after posting this, my wife told me to change the stars to 1 because she hates it. I just didnt like it. Maybe this will help my cause.

I have owned this hard disk since November 2011 and so far, it is working out great!! I had read all the product reviews and I was wary about how fragile it is( people said it stops working if it drops), so I am being extra super careful with it like I would my baby! People also recommend that you should not use the WD backup software for one reason or another, so the first thing I did was to create folders called back up, and then copy pasted my Documents, Videos and Pictures in these folders to avoid anything going wrong. Anywho, I bought this for back up and movies and it serves its purpose. However, if you are a PlayStation 3 fanatic and you want to play games you have saved on this hard disk, please note that you have to re-format the disk to FAT32 because PS3 doesnt read NTFS. I dont know the politics involved in some of these decisions, so I am just giving free info..................... I use my older smaller WD hard disk 250 GB passport for PS3 games and back up, so I am good to go for the time being. Otherwise, this is my second WD hard disk and I hope it continues working just fine.

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.

Ok here it goes. This is my first ever external Hard drive so please bear with me on this review. **Just buy this one period**** hahahaha just kidding but no seriously this one is nice. ****HERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU GET THIS HARD DRIVE ****** 1st - Dont move it around: This is a desktop hard drive NOT a portable drive like the Passport Wallet Drives. So just put on your desk and dont move it around too much. The reason is that apparently with this particular hard drive, the connector in the back may become loose and create a bad USB connection. Supposedly this hard drive doesnt like being unplugged and replugged too many times. I just put mine laying down flat and not standing up, I dont want to run the risk of the desk shaking and having the drive topple over and possibly damaging the drive. Ive had my hard drive for almost 3 months now and I have not experienced any problems with the connectors yet, but again I dont ever unplug and replug it back and fourth. I just leave it alone. 2nd - DONT INSTALL THE ***** WD Smartware ****** **This is the most important thing to remember*** When you plug it in for the first time ***DONT INSTALL THE WD Smartware*** The only thing you should install or run is the SES driver. What this does is it rememebers your hard drive for the next time you restart your computer or when you plug in your hard drive back to the computer. Other wise its just going to keep asking you to relearn the device everytime you plug in the hard drive. Thats it...that is all you need to do. I found Scott Saccentis review to be very helpful. He did his review back in October 12, 2011. This is the title of his review How to set up your WD My Book Essential 3TB 3.0 USB drive This is a quote from his post If you dont install the SES driver, you will have to put up with the minor irritation of having to sit there a few seconds every time you plug it in and have it re-recognize the two drivers that it will successfully install, and hit the error on the SES driver not being found. For me, this is enough of an irritation that I install the SES driver. But you absolutely do NOT have to, if you dont mind putting up with those few extra seconds on every plug-in. Your call. If you want the SES driver installed, follow the next step. If you dont, skip it and NO harm done. --I dont want to sit there for a slow driver install every time I plug these things in, that is not the way to go for me. So I install the SES driver. BUT, I am not going to put the WD bloatware on my machine. And I dont have to. The SES driver is available as an automatic OPTIONAL download from Windows Update. So you need to launch Windows update from your computer, and you need to re-check for the latest updates, to refresh the list. Now that you have plugged in this new drive, you will find among the OPTIONAL Windows updates an SES driver listed. Install this update in the usual way. I dont think you need a reboot, but then it never hurts. So after downloading and installing the update, remove your new drive from your computer, the usual safe way, by Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media :) Reboot. Now plug your new drive back in again. You should find it is discovered just a bit quicker now, and with no driver error. Great. Here is the direct link to his review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R31CQOY6CS24X/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0042Z55RM&nodeID=172282&store=electronics#wasThisHelpful The reason: Here is the reason for not installing the WD Smartware to your computer. When I first got this hard drive i installed the software and then proceeded to do a full back up of all my files in my computer. Only later to find out that it back up about 30 - 40% of all my data. I was LIVID (furious) to say the least. It takes alot to make me very angry but this did it. I tried in vain to figure out why this happened or how to get it to back up the rest of the files. Eventually i uninstalled the software and restarted fresh again and just copy the files on my own. So here is what you do: - Buy this hard drive...LOL - Plug it in and install that SES driver that I mentioned - Next go to and click the Computer tab in the start menu from your desktop home screen - Look for the folder icon that says My Book - If you want a shortcut icon on your desktop home screen then right click the My book folder and select create shortcut - If not then just open it from the computer tab.... your choice - Then after you open the My Book folder, you can now start creating New folders for you to start transfering files into. Just drag over any files or folder that you want to back up. Simple.. Now, I know what some of you might be saying to yourselves right this very moment. i.e. What???? I have to do what again??? I have to drag over each folder??? Isnt the software supposed to do that for me??? Like I said before the software SUCKS. I will explain. Trust me when I say that its not as bad compared to what I had to go through along with many other people that have gone through the same pain. ***It really doesnt take that long to transfer folders over. Most people already have their folders pretty organized in their computers. You have your Picture folders, video folders, documents, music folders or games folders. Those are your main catagories anyway. Most of your stuff will fall under one of those catagories anyway. So just drag over the entire folder over to My Book and thats all there is to it. But over all there really isnt an explanation to excuse for that drawback on the software except for my explanation in my conclusion for this product. Conclusion: This was my first external hard drive purchase so I did a lot of research reading reviews just like your are doing right now. What I have found is that every product out there has some flaws. Its up to the buyer to do their homework and weigh the Pros and Cons and decide what suits them the best for their needs. I did just that. I read reviews for many different brands of external hard drives and based on those reviews I was made aware of what I might encounter with this particular hard drive. ***I wish that I had paid more attention to some of the advice given but alas. Having said that, after doing much research I decide that this one stood out the most out many other brands available. Even with the minor inconveniences, this one is still a better choice i think compared to some other brands where I saw some bad reviews for their hard drives. Some of the things I read where of drives crashing, just stopped working out of nowhere, bad software issues etc, etc, etc.. ***I found that out of all the other brands or models out there, this model has the least amount of problems or flaws at a reasonable price. OH and I just saw that the price dropped too. Now this drive may have a minor issue with their software BUT at least you have an option where you can still use the hard drive without it. Plain and Simple. I hope this review helps you to make a smart decision on your hard drive purchase. Good Luck!!!

I was excited to upgrade from my 1TB version and figured 3TB would give me the future storage I needed. Based on price and my other MyBooks I thought this was a great value. Instead I almost lost all my photos, video and music. Install: Sets up just like any other external drive. Plug in the power cord, plug in the usb and poof, you have the drive show up on your computer. You can use the software on the drive for backups, format the drive altogether or use your backup of choice. Also, like any external drive you can use it for storage. Use: Everything worked as normal for about 6 hours. I was transferring about 1.5TB of data to the drive via WIFI, then the drive malfunctioned, stopped backing up and lost most of my files. Keep in mind my 1TB version has been running non stop (still using it today) for almost 3 years. I use it for Time Machine backups on 2 Macs and work from home so its being written to for at least 10-12 hours a day. Conclusion: Thankfully the program Disk Warrior was able to get my files back. The drive reported a hardware malfunction and after mounting would not allow me to add files to it. I promptly contacted Amazon and they allowed me to return it for a full refund. I then started reading reviews looking for similar issues and it seems many others had this problem as well. Theres something wrong with the 3TB drives. I ordered a 2TB version, ran the same setup and so far all is running smooth. If you have sensitive data that you cant afford to lose I would stay away from this unit until they upgrade the internals. Im still a fan of WD My Books, just not this model.

Tomorrow the 28th of February 2023 will give this hard drive 10 years and it still works like a charm.

I just got this a week ago, so I cannot speak to its durability. I have limited technology experience, so this was recommended to me by a trusted source. I was looking for something that was simple and plug-and-play; this was almost it. It didnt boot up automatically when connected to my Windows 7 Machine. My machine asked what I should do with the autoplay settings. There is software on the drive to tell you what to do, but you have to root around. Included in the box is a how-to to hook the thing up, but there is no indication on how to use the drive to back up you r files. Odd, since that is why I bought the drive. There is a manual, but its a PDF on the drive. I only found it by clicking on the icons that are poorly named; what they are is not obvious or explicitly named. Once I found the software, everything was cake. The problem is that took long enough that I had the thought Forget it and envisioned sending it back. Overall, it takes a couple steps, but its worth is there. It will be even more valuable if my machine decided to die.

Great deal and fast delivery on a piece of computer hardware that everyone with mass quantities of data, like myself, could find more space than the average person would ever know what to do with. I maybe should have read a bit more cause I was a little disappointed in myself for purchasing one that requires its own power source via outlets instead of an independent that just plugs usb and is recognized and ready to take on all the data i can throw at it. For 2 tbs i suppose its worth the risk, Im just a generally green individual that tries to avoid that when I can. No issues with the product so far otherwise, its exactly what you expect, although 2tbs is rounded up from 1.82, not really concerned with that missing 100 something i doesnt actually have since 1tb is a chore for people to fill and requires the dedication of a music, video, and computer game junkie to fill and even then you can find space when all those parties have had their turn, you never have too much space for hoarding data thats essentially useless and unnecessary for any average human too have for nothing other than safe keeping the personal collection and never having to replace in man hours from the beginning again when the next eventual computer purchase takes place. Plus I like to rotate an extravagantly large music collection around from laptops original hard drive to a separate storage device as the mood dictates a different selection and can keep it all on one source now instead of trying to remember where i put my collection of flash drives and sorting through them until i find the files im looking for, just a convenience that I expect to last, at least, through a couple laptop upgrades before I need seek an upgrade but it may work the rest of my life and I dont need another hard drive for all my data. Well worth the investment after a weeks worth of use and helpful in sparking a goal for size of collection someone like my self will compete with memory to get everything Im desiring as far as music, movies, tv,series, and games are concerned.

The only two external hard drives i can swear on are Western Digital and Segate both these companies make super HQ products the only done side the newer HD dont have any on/off switch but, its no a massive deal The WD My Book 2tb HD is perfect for anything but, its a must have to add to your XBone you can usually get a 2tb hd on sale for around $90.00 maybe even less sometime you can get the 3tb hard drive for $110.00 it all depends on sale and where you go Ive never had any major problems with any WD Products (as far as the external hd if you aint using it just put the USB cable up and away or away where its safe the usb cable is the only major problem its a bit fragile but, as long as its out of the way youll be fine One other thing some WD My Books offer a chunk of cloud storage (Ive heard a mixed reaction as far as there cloud service) Havent used it most companies that use there own cloud storage are usually hinky! But, what do i know 10/10