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

My Book sits securely on my desk with its reassuring tiny light blinking, absolutely quiet. It has ridges on the bottom so it can ventilate from the bottom as well as the back and top, so Im not worried about placing it anywhere or about it overheating. Right now, I only use it to store photos. Im not well organized and take lots of photos so I need a place to dump a lot of them without worrying about overloading my computer. So Ive just been selecting whatever photos I might want to use for free-lance assignments from my card reader and sending them to My Book. Then I could erase my memory chip and start shooting photos again. I then search the photos in My Book to pick the 1 to 20 photos Ill submit for my assignments and if theres any mess of photos, its not taking up my memory on my cameras memory chip or my computer. When I get time Ill start checking out My Books other capabilities, like backing up my computer. So far, My Book hasnt registered any memory used despite several weeks of downloading photos that fine quality digital photos that take up more room than raw photos. So Im very pleased. Its just what I needed.

external hard drives have become kind of mundane, but some are better than others.... useful hint: if you are technical, theres a free handy drive copy tool called Fastcopy (first hit on Google)... the guy who wrote it does some low level stuff with drive operation to maximize speed and it really works.... I was able to increase this drives throughput on USB2 by about 15% using fastcopy instead of just drag n drop.... back to this product Pro: - WD brand.... Ive had much better luck with WD than Seagate and others the last few years... they are all fragile devices, so dont spike them, but it seems like WD has been more reliable lately - it doesnt force you to use the onboard software which is awesome because Im a techie and dont want to use wizard BS. - has a monolithic supermodern look with no BS which I like - performance is good to great on USB 2.0 at 23MB / sec write, 35MB/ sec read... max possible is about 45MB/s but Ive never seen a 2.0 drive do even close to that ... Ill post 3.0 speeds when I can - it comes with WD SmartWare for windows and mac which is a wizard type management, encryption and continuous backup software.... looks like it can do the job, but I didnt try it.... search gH9Qj57PPgA on youtube to see a demo - no bright leds etc so it doesnt distract next to a TV or wherever... - 3TB size is nice n big - its a 3.5 Sata drive inside, so if you really need to, you can rip it apart and install in a PC in a pinch Con: - its a 3.5 drive so after you get the casing around it and all that, its large and not very portable, in comparison to smaller laptop hard drive based external drives, but they dont make them in 3TB versions yet - uses a new custom USB cable... so dont lose it and expect to pull one out of your spare parts easy.... overall it does the job, is well priced, and didnt force me to use its software... so I like it.... enjoy!

I got this to be used on my home network to replace a smaller one I had. it was hooked up plugging in the power to a power strip and the USB to the back of my router. come to find out it was never made to work like this but for some reason it did. I hooked the new work book up the same way and was never able to get it to work. So I called WD tech support and found out it couldnt be hooked up that way, It would have to be connected directly to the computer .. the thing is I never seen it in the disruption on amazon telling me It had to be hooked to my PC only and could not work with a router made for external had drives. I never seen it not to say that it is there its just that I never seen it. I am keeping it and am going to hook it to one of my PCs and just share the drive it is on. The drive is nice and a lot smaller than I was thinking it would be

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.

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

Purchased the WD My Book Essential 2TB backup drive because various astronomy web cam and flip videos were taking up too much space on my computer hard drives. I plugged this Hard Drive onto my Dell XPS 400 via the USB2 port and let the computer install the drivers. I then formatted the drive since I did not want to use the WD supplied backup software. It took 6 hours to reformat the 2TB Hard Drive. Windows XP indicated it had a capacity of 1.81TB (2,000,364,236,800 bytes). I took a few more hours to transfer my videos. I did a comparison of USB2 to USB3 ports on my HP laptop with this backup Hard Drive by copying the same 2.05GB folder from the backup drive to the local drive. The USB3 port was about 3 times faster than the USB2 port (22 seconds vs 57 seconds). You have to read WDs pdf file for instructions on how the My Book Essential functions (no printed manual). The power button on the rear only works when the WD SmartWare software is installed on your computer. The white LED on the front is on steady when idle, flashes 3x per second when active and flashes once each 2.5 seconds when in standby mode. So far (1 day), all is working as expected.

Been using these for a couple of years and love them. I just add a new one whenever I need space. There are a couple of issues that are not for the faint of heart, but are easy to correct with a bit of googling. A few tips for success: 1. These are DESKTOP EXTERNAL drives and are not meant to be portable or routinely traveled with. Plug them in and leave them stationary, just like the name says. Get some small portable drives if you need to hand transfer data. I have 6 or 7 portables for that reason. 2. Ensure they get good, clean air flow and space to breathe. The cases dont run especially hot, which I suspect means they are overly insulated and dont shed enough heat. 3. Take some time to get to know and customize the software they ship with. Its not bad, and somewhat better than similar products Ive used from Seagate and Buffalo. Customize it so it only backs up what you want, when you need it. You can even specify file types and set file versioning, which is very useful. Also be sure to do the software and firmware upgrades through the management software. 4. Set the power management appropriately. If you hit the disks often, you dont want them to drop to sleep mode every 15 minutes. Match it to your workflow. I personally do all my backups to one drive and treat the others as giant write space for archives that arent catastrophic if I lose them. 5. You may discover an issue with Windows 7 not recognizing more than 2 of them concurrently. It will manifest as only two mapping drives and the third not being recognized. Its a quick fix, just google and follow the instructions. Great little drives and ample storage for the price. UPDATE 7/3/13: I just purchased my fourth drive and added it on with no problems. The software -which has been updated to a very nice new interface- recognized it and had it working immediately. The drive shipped with the latest firmware and is visually identical to previous models. Still a great drive and value for the money.

These drives work great for backups and media storage. I use mine to backup my pcs using Acronis. I also have one hooked to my htpc to store large video files. My only complaint is they are a little slow to spin up when you first browse to the drive in Windows Explorer. However, movie playback works fine. I would _highly_ recommend the USB3 interface. The speed difference is very noticeable, especially when transferring large files. The speed of USB3 is 2-4x that of USB2 Below are some raw performance number with this drive, using USB 2 and USB 3: USB 2: Sequential Read : 32.182 MB/s Sequential Write : 29.459 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 22.090 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 27.316 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.549 MB/s [ 134.0 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.971 MB/s [ 237.0 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.488 MB/s [ 119.1 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.927 MB/s [ 226.2 IOPS] USB 3: Sequential Read : 128.565 MB/s Sequential Write : 116.392 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 48.893 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 63.969 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.596 MB/s [ 145.4 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.909 MB/s [ 221.9 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.502 MB/s [ 122.7 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.904 MB/s [ 220.6 IOPS]

I only trust my important data to Western Digital or Seagate. I picked this particular product because while everything is going to have its issues, the issues this model had seemed less catastrophic than the issues the competing Seagate was having. People have talked about the control board and the plug itself having problems, but so far so good for me (about a month of use), Mine tends to stay plugged up and in the same spot anyway though. Reliable, good speed. Im consistently getting around 28 mb/s on a USB 2.0 port. The only thing I dont like is the sleep mode / head parking feature that a lot of drives have these days. Its a good idea, but not so well implemented IMO. I can understand head parking when its completely shut down for added transport safety, but doing it after 15 or whatever minutes idle time seems like unnecessary wear and tear and it makes it take twice as long for the drive to spin up. I cant fault the company for trying, but that isnt useful to me. Edit 3/3/16 -- Still have this drive, but now I only use it for backup as intended so the head parking is a non-issue. Still works fine.

I absolutely love Western Digital products. They perform well, last forever, and are a fair price. (Usually. . .) This drive met or exceeded all of my expectations in every way except one: that stupid looking USB socket / plug. Really, I do love this drive. And as the tech go-to guy for all my friends, I would recommend it to anyone. You just need to be careful with the connection on the back. It is fragile. Do not bend it or drop it onto the connector. And be careful when inserting and removing the USB plug from the back of the hdd. I did not get a chance to actually test the read write speeds, but I did copy 200 MB onto the hdd and it was faster than I expected. (If I get a chance I will run a simple random access test and post the results.) Overall, I would definitely recommend this hdd to anyone who is looking for a large storage solution.