Product Description
Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. This hard drive is simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter. It is powered directly through the USB cable. Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is no CD to install. The included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in. Sharing large files between office and home, between Mac and PC Backing up your existing notebook hard drive for extra data safety System Requirements - Windows 2000, XP, Mac OS X 10.1.5 or higher, available USB port Dimensions (LengthxWidthxHeight) - 5.110 x 3.14 x 0.590 Inches / Weight - 0.23 Pounds
Customer Reviews:
Too Many Glitches.......2007-12-30
A lot of glitches:
Claims incorrect files sizes. An 8 kb graphic, listed at 64 kb, a 1 MB file listed at 8 MB, etc.
Open your webpage from the disk offline, yes, but try to reload it, and it loses the original link, and says the page (it just loaded) doesn't exist.
Works on Tiger with Mac OSX but not on Panther. Does not work either if the computer is offline, and seems to spend a long time trying to get an internet connection for some reason.
Don't recommend buying this!
Defective USB Port.......2007-12-28
I bought this hard drive a couple of weeks ago and after 5 or 6 times of use the USB Ports got damage. Both the USB Port and the cable that comes with the unit are very poorly built.
I tried to contact Amazon, and they told me to contact the third party seller (J&R) which told me to contact Wester Digital. At the end I was told that they could replace the unit but that I needed to take care of recovering my personal data from the hard drive using any of the partners they have listed on their website, which will cost up to 5-6 times the price of the hard drive!!!
I'm very frustrated with this. I can't believe no one (Amazon, J&R, WD) is taking the responsibility of paying for recovering the data from the hard drive. Losing data is a big deal they should be more serious about that. Probably they are expecting us to have a backup of the backup X(
I wouldn't buy this unit again.
Great HD.......2007-12-27
Very portable, very reliable, lightning quick, and lots of storage right in your pocket. Price is great, so light weight and non space consuming. No power source required so less clutter. Very fast (with my OS X 10.5 Leopard anyway) Backed up all my data and use it for my time machine back ups. Flawless.
Compact, neat hard disk.......2007-12-26
It's compact, it's cute, looks very nice. But actual HD size only about 112, which is a let down. When they advertise 120, they should provide 120 GB. Sometime you plan for 120 GB and if it is less, it can be a bad let down. Delivery was efficient, and both pc and laptop detected the hard drive without any problems. I have had it for only a week, haven't used it extensively, no complaints so far. Hope they send me the link again after about 2-3 months so I can give some real feedback about it then!
Get what you pay for.......2007-12-25
Great size and weight, it's almost perfect to move a lot of personal or work info depending on your field of work of course, many may need more space, but this is good enough for the standard user. A carry on bag or sleeve may be necessary as an additional must have for this small gadget.
Product Description
This sleek compact drive connects to your PC's USB port for quick and easy data transfers. The drive draws power from the USB port; you won't even need the power adapter. WD Sync synchronization and encryption software lets you save your critical data, and take it with you. Plug your drive into any PC, edit files, read e-mail and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. Dimensions (LengthxWidthxHeight) - 5.110 x 3.14 x 0.590 Inches / Weight - 0.23 Pounds
Customer Reviews:
Fast and very portable.......2007-12-31
Nice and small! Fast and doesn't need a separate plug and connection for power. Does both connection and power from the USB port. This brand is one of the top ones for external hard drives also from what I've read and hear from my techno geek friend. I only wish I had shopped around on price a bit more or waited a little longer, but such is technology. These are so hot these days it seems the price drops more every week.
Simple and Fast.......2007-12-30
I have had this 160 Mb drive for about a month now. I have used it without any hitches on three laptops, a 3 year old HP, a 4 year old Dell, and a current Apple Macbook. It is fast, simple to operate and I would recommend to to anybody looking for a backup drive. One good thing about this drive is that it is powered off the USB port so it has no power cable and bulky adaptor to plug in. The Macbook accesses the drive easily and can read any of the info copied off the PC's onto the drive and visa versa.
My only complaint is that I wish they had other colours instead of black!
Excelent but..........2007-12-29
There are basically 2 reasons why I didn't give this product 5-Stars:
1. The surface is very easily scratched; even as new, the product was already scratched.
2. The product came with a 10cm (4 inches or so) USB cable which is pretty much pathetic. I had to purchase a decent cable afterwards. (Which is like $2 at the most).
Otherwise, this is an excellent HDD for this price and if you don't care about those two points, I highly recommend it.
Good Product at great price!.......2007-12-27
After checking around, I found this to be a good product at a great price.
2 failed WD drives within 6 months........2007-12-23
DO NOT BUY -- I had two WD drives fail within 6 months. I'd give this zero stars if it were an option.
RUN from this company.
Product Description
Light and rugged, the Passport USB Portable Hard Drive is easy to carry and no external power adapter is needed. Sync & encryption and Google software is included. Carry important files and e-mail between work and home or on the road Share large files between office and home, between PC and Mac Back up your existing notebook hard drive for extra data safety
Customer Reviews:
Don't believe the doubters about power consumption issues.......2007-12-31
All good reviews, but don't believe the issues with power. WinXP SP2 blocks the use of the drive because it thinks it draws too much power. But there is a simple procedure to override this (from WD site):
"Problem:
Under Windows XP, an error message of "Power Surge on Hub Port" or "USB device has exceeded the power limits of it's hub port" is displayed when connecting a USB device to a USB port on a computer or Hub.
Cause:
Under some computers, USB devices are only allowed to draw a maximum of 500 milliamps (mA) per connection from the USB port on the computer system or from a USB hub. Under the Windows XP Operating System, with the release of Service Pack 2, if a device attempts to draw more than this (500 milliamps), a USB port balloon message is displayed to indicate this over current condition. When connecting a USB device that draws power from the USB bus, a very brief over current condition is sometimes detected by the OS, and the warning message is displayed.
Resolution:
This message has no affect on the functionality of the USB port. The USB hard drive should still function correctly on the USB port regardless of the error message. To prevent the USB Power Surge Alert message from displaying, please complete the following steps:
Click on Start.
Click on Control Panel.
Double-click on the System Icon.
Click on the Hardware Tab.
Click on the Device Manager button.
Click on the + next to Universal Serial Bus Controllers to expand the selection.
Right-click and select Properties on any listing that displays USB UNIVERSAL HOST CONTROLLER.
Click on the Advanced Tab.
Check the box that says: Don't tell me about USB errors."
This works fine, and the drive works fine afterwards. I suspect it actually draws less power than they say. Maybe it has a brief power draw spike on startup, but it's running power seems less. In any case, it works fine without the Y cable. I do think it is tacky that WD doesn't give the cable for free, since my $7 Sabrent 2.5" Hard drive enclosure came with a y cable.
But most likely the drive will work fine for you. It is a lovely quiet drive, and takes up no space at all.
PS I just tried it on my IBM X31, which is several years old, and it worked fine. So I think the power issue is really a non-issue, but if you really are worried about frying your usb port, then buy the Y-cable.
Nice.......2007-12-31
Great deal,
It comes with a cool software that lets you backup your computer files and settings.
Small.
Fast.
I have an 80GB HD. I compared it with this WD 250GB one,
the 250GB WD is even lighter than the 80GB.
That I liked about this product. I would buy more if I needed to!
If you're asking "Should I buy this product or not?"
My answer to you is YES, OF COURSE!
Great External HD.......2007-12-29
This HD is great for traveling with a laptop computer. Small, lightweight and classy looking too! I have seen some with issues in being powered by the USB connection, but have not had that problem myself. The speed of the drive is relatively fast - no problems from my perspective. The 250GB capacity is perfect to carry my large collection of digital photos and music wherever I go.
Nice but easy to be damaged.......2007-12-29
I tried many types of external hard drivers, and most of those were different brand names with non-original mass box. They are all sharing a major problem which is the safety of removing device from computer that causes sometime losing data. WD has the same issue which makes the whole component is made together "Hard drive and mass box" therefore had to be completely secured from losing data.
WD passport 250gb.......2007-12-28
This is one of the best external hard drive i ever been used for long time, I am always fan of Western Digital hard drive, and so far I got 4 of them, they all works wonderful, I just need another one with my new MAcbook pro-since the other using for PC- in order for running Time Machine but without any power requirement so this is the best with biggest storage, light weight and nice design in this line so far. It run perfectly quiet and compliment my mac so much.
Product Description
The Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Internal Hard Drive is a next-generation SATA hard drive. It features up to 500GB of storage and a 16 MB cache for lightning-fast performance. The drive is fast and reliable, while delivering advanced acoustics and cool operation. It's designed especially for high-performance computers, multimedia and gaming systems.
Customer Reviews:
Replaced 2 of 4
< 1 year.......2007-12-30
One of two from 22-FEB-07, one of two from 08-MAR-07 orders went bad. WD replaced first with WD5000AAKS, waiting on second. Be sure to register your drives with WD when you get them. One remaining drive (not replacement) making recurrent sound of winding down but no obvious performance problems. Ran WD boot CD diagnostics (short version) on each drive before 2nd drive went bad but nothing showed up.
Caviar 500 GB SATA Hard Drive.......2007-12-28
Western Digital WD5000KSRTL Caviar 500 GB SATA Hard Drive Only one word describes this drive. Excellent. Just plug in and drive is ready. I am using two of these drives in D-Link DNS-323 in RAID 1 configuration.
I'm sold on SATA!!.......2007-12-26
Strange title, I know.
I come from the old days of required jumper settings and IDE cables. It's been years since I touched the inside of a desktop tower so this was a total shock to my system. BTW, it's a Dell Inspiron 530. It already has a 500GB drive, which I've effectively filled up, which was why I bought this drive...to store some of my extra stuff, but also to act as a backup location for my laptop.
Installing the drive was a snap. Dell set this tower up to accommodate this type of drive. Just slide it into the HDD1 bay, use the WD SATA cable into one of the slots on the motherboard - just like HDMI, actually - and then give it power. Its assignment showed up in the BIOS right away. That's the hardware side. I left the jumper off (Default), and it's perfoming fine.
Next, the software side. Vista Premium picked up the drivers right away and got them installed. Next, Disk Management, initialized the disk, then set up the simple partition. Total install time was about 15 minutes, give or take a few minutes.
As a side note, if you have a home network and you're not performing scheduled backups of your primary computer's data, you need to start, and this drive is a great way to get this done.
quiet and fast.......2007-11-25
This drive is very quiet, and very fast. I am using it in SATA 150 mode since my motherboard doesn't support 300 speed. So I can't comment on how much faster it would be.
This harddrive is awesome!.......2007-11-07
I purchased this harddrive in order to have more space for my music and pictures. it is very quiet and also very fast. I use it as my new C drive now and I did not expect just a fast harddrive to accelarate my system this much. Booting and picture browsing so much faster now - even though I copied the files from my old C drive 1:1. It also comes with a SATA cable. I can highly recommend this product.
Product Description
Pack up your office files and take them home. Carry thousands of songs or pictures. This hard drive is simple to use, light and easy to carry, and require no power adapter. They are powered directly through the USB cable. Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is no CD to install. The included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in. Sharing large files between office and home, between Mac and PC Backing up your existing notebook hard drive for extra data safety System Requirements - Windows 2000, XP, Mac OS X 10.1.5 or higher, available USB port Dimensions (LengthxWidthxHeight) - 5.110 x 3.14 x 0.590 Inches / Weight - 0.23 Pounds
Customer Reviews:
Power Problems.......2007-12-31
I bought the 80 GB drive, it was a great price, very cool and a useful product when it works; I have a ton of pictures, music and files in needed to back up. It looks great and performs well when you can get it to power up. The major problem with the drive is that it does not work with all USB ports. I have a laptop with a docking station and the drive won't run off the docking station. I have to undock and then directly connect it to my laptop. I have had similar problems with other computers. This can be annoying when trying to transfer files.
I don't know that I would buy another one...I think I will spend a little more money next time to try and get more reliable performance. Although, I have heard this is a consistent problem with other drives as well. I thought because of the small size I would not have this issue.
Easy to use, Nice portable size.......2007-11-26
I use this portable drive for my business. I have several other larger Seagate hard drives, but this one is a nice portable size I can throw in my briefcase. I have had no problems with it so far ,as others have mentioned. I use it between a laptop computer that is XP operating system and a desktop that is Vista Operating system. I would defienetely recommend.
Caution to desktop users........2007-11-03
I bought this to use as an external backup drive for my desktop computer. It's very plug-and-play, so it needs no setup time--just plug it in and it's ready to go in an instant. Drawbacks are that the USB cable is extremely short--only about 8 inches long, and there's no on/off switch. The short cable might be fine with laptops, but is a problem for my tower. I ordered a longer cable ($9 direct from the manufacturer), but the longest one still is only 21 inches long. The lack of an on/off switch means I have to tie up a front USB port (the rear ones are too inconvenient to reach) if I only want it running occasionally.
Proceed with caution (replace the cable and don't rule out an iPod).......2007-10-28
I'm replacing the 60 GB Western Digital drive, which inexplicably is currently priced higher than this 80 GB model (perhaps because it has the highest consumer ratings of all the WD USB-powered drives). I'm going with the 80 GB model this time, after a bad experience with the 60 GB model.
First of all, I've learned my lesson. If you plan to move this around a lot, get a soft case for it and handle it with care. I dropped mine (from about 5 feet), and it caused the female contact inside the drive to retract and become inaccessible. It's a long story, but the misfortune would not have occurred if Western Digital simply supplied a longer cable with the drive. The one that comes with the 60 GB model is 6" (I'll resist the sexual metaphors) and, since the 80 GB model is exactly the same weight and dimensions, I would expect its cable to be the same length. That's simply an impractical, unworkable length, expecially when you consider how most notebook computers are used. 12", maybe 18", would be optimal. Better too long than too short. So besides the protective padded case, plan on picking up a longer cable.
As for functionality, the drive performed flawlessly, a no-brainer for Mac-users, since no installation discs are required. But if durability is a major concern, if you're prone to "throw" things in your briefcase and toss your briefcase into the car, you may wish to take a look at the comparable Toshiba. A few bucks more and larger in dimensions, but it just "looks" tougher and more shock-resistant.
The Western Digital cable has a USB connector at the computer end and one of those tiny and insecure camera connectors (not sure what they're called) at the other end. I can see the reason for something so small and potentially problematic for a Canon Elph, but why can't it be a more substantial and solid connector for a storage drive? In fact, you may wish to consider (as am I) the largest capacity iPod, which uses a wide, lock-in connector at the drive end and can even exchange information with the computer via a convenient dock.
Bought a seond one!.......2007-09-27
This is a good product. I now own two of them. Easy to set up and use.
Product Description
With both the popular USB 2.0 and the ultra-fast eSATA 3 Gb per seconds interfaces on board, the My Book Premium ES Edition external hard drive offers universal connectivity and unbeatable performance in one high-value package. The My Book external drive turns itself on and off with Intelligent drive management and Safe Shutdown prevents the drive from being powered down until all your data has been written. Automatic backups of your existing hard drive Archiving the music stored on your MP3 player Adding plenty of space for digital video capture and editing Saving and organizing your digital photo collection Read Seek Time - 8.9 ms Track-To-Track Seek Time - 2.0 ms (average) Dual eSATA Interface eSATA Serial Bus Transfer Rate - 3 Gb/s (Max) Universal Serial Bus (USB) Transfer Rate - 480 Mbits/s (Max) System Requirements - Available USB port, or eSATA port, Windows 2000, XP, Mac OS X 10.3 or later Dimensions - Height 6.780 x Length 5.630 x Width 2.23 inch Weight - 2.90 pounds
Customer Reviews:
Works Just Fine.......2007-12-09
Works as advertised. I haven't been able to get an eSATA cable to try that out yet tho. The only quirk I've had with it is that it will turn itself on automatically when I boot up my computer and with Windows Vista, it hangs before getting to the Windows loading screen. It did not do this on my XP machine. Not sure why it does that, but it's not that big of a deal, and I hope when I switch to eSATA, it will fix that as well.
Not worth buying.......2007-11-27
I bought this external HD in December 2006. Now in November 2007, the unit clicks and clicks and clicks LOUDLY! My computer recognizes that the hardware is attached but does not show the drive in my computer so I can't even use the stupid thing!
I didn't buy at Amazon. I wish I didn't buy it at all.
DO NOT let it tip over..........2007-11-20
runs like a charm, dies like a soap bubble. ADVICE: tuck those wires neatly out of the way. FRUSTRATION: search for diagnostic utilities.
eSATA on Vista 32-bit.......2007-11-16
Worked beautifully. NOTE: you can't install the card, and then connect the drive.
I bought the seperate SIIG card, and SIIG cable. (This drive only comes with a USB 2.0 cable).
You have to have everything installed and connected, then fire up your computer, and it needs to be connected to the internet. Vista downloads and installs the drivers automatically. It works awesome! If you don't have internet access on your box, you can get the driver files from the SIIG website.
SOOOO FAST! Puts FW800 and other interfaces to shame.
(speed only as fast as the slowest drive in your configuration, of course. Example: if you are copying a file from an internal 1.5Gb/s SATA drive to this drive, it is only as fast as the 1.5...)
enjoy
Great product. Just wish it had a FireWire port. .......2007-11-08
This product is a great hdd. It works well and looks great. Once the computer recognizes the external hdd, it transfers data at speeds that will blow you away. My only complaint is that I wish it had a FireWire port.
Product Description
Get extraordinary capacity and extra data protection with this dual-drive, triple-interface RAID storage system from WD. One-of-a-kind features make this the most powerful product in WD's My Book family of external drives and the preeminent storage system in its class. WD's My Book Pro Edition II dual-drive storage system offers RAID mirroring for extra data protection or RAID striping for extraordinary capacity and performance. A triple-interface and a powerful combination of features and performance make this system the storage solution of choice for creative professionals, workgroups, small offices and anyone looking for extra assurance that their data is safe. With one terabyte of storage in this elegant, small footprint design, you have plenty of room to store an entire digital photo library, 125 hours of HD movies or over 75 hours of DV video. The lighting-fast combination of FireWire 400/800 and RAID striping yields the speed you need for fast, smooth video editing, an extra-responsive Photoshop scratch disk, rendering complex 3D objects or special effects and saving huge blocks of data in record time. Data Transfer Rate on FireWire - Up to 800 Mb/sec Works with Mac OS X 10.3 or later and Windows 2000, XP
Customer Reviews:
My Book Pro II/Premium II family great; problems with Vista........2007-12-22
This review covers the family of My Book Pro II/Premium II drives from Western Digital, since the primary differences between the 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0Tb dual-drive models involve the size of the drive pair only, as far as I can tell. I own the My Book Pro II 1.5Tb drive and have only configured it for the factory-default Raid 0 mode, since I wanted as much non-redundant storage as possible.
Anyone not familiar with external USB or Firewire drives may be surprised at the significantly slower data transfer; the USB or Firewire interface is the bottleneck, not the drive itself. For bulk storage at still-reasonable transfer rates and for the purchase price per byte, these large capacity drives can't be beat - as long as they are reliable and the user observes all the rules about making sure the drives are safe to physically disconnect from the computer (I won't cover the rules here; the operating system has its own Help section that can assist the user who is unsure of how to physically disconnect their drive without turning off the computer itself).
OK, back to the Western Digital My Book II drive... when the drive is received, the Raid Manager software package should be installed before plugging in the drive. After I did this and plugged in the drive, I had one problem after another with the drive disappearing in Windows, the fan going very loud when there was no heat issue to make it do so, then the drive would act like it over-heated and shut down. Twice I received replacement drives and both replacement drives acted the same way.
I figured the problem wasn't the drive, so I tried the second replacement on a second PC running Vista; same problems. I next moved the drive to a PC running Windows XP; no problem - the drive ran quietly and reliably.
It turns out there is currently (12/22/07) a problem with Windows Vista and the way it stores driver information. The fix is found in their technical bulletin 1708 (go to www.wdc.com, support, frequently asked questions and enter "1708" in the "Search by Keyword" field. This has solved all my problems with my drive and I can now recommend this drive without reservations, however Vista is due for its first significant "patch", SP1, in the first half of 2008 and these sorts of patches have sometimes provoked new problems. I do think the solution presented in technical bulletin 1708 would still be helpful if the SP1 patch caused further problems, however.
LOUD!!!! .......2007-12-15
"Quiet and cool: An efficient convection cooling system and a thermostatically controlled fan keep this unit reliably cool and remarkably quiet." NOT!
After twenty minutes, you will think you have a hair dryer and a vacuum cleaner on your desk. It also prevents my Kensington mouse from working.
DON'T buy it!
Mine is going back ASAP.
Unreliable drive with manufacturing defects.......2007-12-14
I am now on my second replacement for the My Book Pro drive. That means I've gone through three of these drives, and they've all had the same problems, as follows:
(1) They overheat, fan becomes very loud, and the drive may shut down randomly while you're working with it.
(2) The drive is falsely advertised to work with FireWire 400, but it does not. I've tested multiple cables and computers. It doesn't work.
(3) The drive may crash your computer if you have a Mac with Leopard. I've confirmed this repeatedly. It's the drive, not the computer, which works great when the drive isn't connected.
If you end up getting an RMA replacement drive from Western Digital, beware of the fact that you may get a crappy, scratched and scuffed drive. They DO NOT care about the aesthetic appearance of the replacement drives and will send you anything just to shut you up. I kept my drive in pristine condition and got an ugly replacement that looked like it had been through a battle zone.
Bottom line: buyer beware! This is not a drive you should spend your money on, unless you enjoy being extremely frustrated.
So loud that I can't hear myself think!.......2007-12-13
The main issue is the decibel level of the machine. It has a fan which at low rpm is tolerable, but quickly will rev up to the point that you don't want to be around the thing. Unless you have it situated in a place where sound is not an issue, then go ahead and purchase it. Otherwise, the drive does what it is designed to do and is a good value for its specs.
The NOISE, Somebody Stop the NOISE!.......2007-11-21
This unit is the worst peripheral I've ever attached to a computer. I went as far as stuffing it behind my desk and covering as many holes as possible between it and the room. I still can't stand it. My WD 500G drive is blissfully quiet. This 1T is akin to using a hair dryer. I use it on my Mac with Time Machine and other manual backups from other external drives. I shut it off as soon as possible. It's so loud you'll hear it over your videos and music! Don't waste your money.
Product Description
Speed is what you need when for video editing, big design projects, or managing photo shoots and thats what this drive delivers with FireWire 800 and eSATA connectivity. With our automatic backup capability your creative masterpieces will be backed up the minute you save them.
Customer Reviews:
DO NOT BUY! .......2007-12-17
I generally don't write reviews but felt compelled to in this instance because there's something peculiar going on with these new My Book drives. I've gotten two of these exact model (500GB) back to back and had to return both because they would die out the same day I got each of them. In each instance, I checked the AC plugs, all the ports, and could not get the drives to spin up again. Like the other reviewer noted, the issues with this particular drive are known and should be avoided. Shame really, as the new drives look quite nice. However, reliability is the only factor you should be looking for in an external drive. I'll be downgrading to an older version of their My Book line to be safe, until WD works out the kinks with these new ones. (PS. These were used with Macs).
ONCE AGAIN, MY FRIENDS, DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE.
Great Product and cheaper on Amazon than I have ever seen it. .......2007-12-15
This product is great, especially now that it is engineered for Mac. It is as cheap on this site and for more storage space! We have been really hapy.
I really WANT to like this drive, but..........2007-12-09
Like it says in the review title, I really WANT to like this drive. Unfortunately, I can't. I don't. And I probably won't. Ever. Why?
I bought one of these from another vendor (sorry Amazon, their price was better). I installed the drive on my 24" aluminum iMac (which I DID buy from Amazon, good job, guys). The drive recognized fine on firewire 800, and I set Time Machine to use it for backups.
Then the problems started. The drive would "freeze" when it went into suspend mode, and it wouldn't come back. OS X is too stupid to stop trying to access a "dead" drive, so the suspended/frozen drive would hang the system. The only solution was to power down the drive (if possible), or remove the firewire cable. Worse, sometimes the drive wouldn't power down using the power button, so I had to pull the power cord. NOT good.
Once the frozen drive was out of the firewire chain, the OS would recover semi-gracefully, with a "Device Removal" error. I figured it was a fluke, so I put the drive first in the firewire chain. No luck. Then I changed cables. No luck. Okay, try the drive as the ONLY firewire drive. No luck. It would still freeze, and still hang the system.
So, I figured I just had a defective drive. No problem. I already had another on order, so I sent the first back to the vendor and waited for the second to arrive.
Same problems with the second drive. I used every connection available: firewire 800, firewire 400, and even USB (iMac's don't come with eSATA, so I don't know if it's a problem too). No luck with any connection, OR any cable (I have several available, which work with other drives). The My Book Studio drive still hangs AT LEAST once a day, usually several times.
So the second drive is going back for a refund, and I'm going to call the other vendor and just have them refund my money for the "defective" drive already in transit as a return.
Now, why do I want to like this drive?
Pros:
- It's good-looking
- It's quiet (because it's fanless)
- Quadruple interface (nice!)
- It's small
Cons:
- It just doesn't work... do I really need any MORE cons?
When the drive started giving me problems, I went looking for a solution (updated firmware, updated Button Manager software, SOMETHING). I found several people on the Apple Discussion Forums with the same problem, which made me realize that the drive itself was the issue.
Google for "my book studio freeze" and you can read the Apple Support discussion, which will lead you to more problem discussions.
That being said, I love Western Digital, and they're my first choice for external drives. I just think they have some MAJOR teething pains with the My Book Studio line. And since other Mac users love them, I suspect that WD Studio drives simply don't like the new iMacs. But since I spent $2000 on my computer, and $200 on the drive, the drive is the one that gets returned. Sorry, WD.
If you want a good, reliable drive for your iMac, I've had lots of luck with LaCie, and I've heard really good things about OWC drives. But if you're a tried-and-true WD fan... stay away from THIS drive.
A-mazing.......2007-11-30
I love this HD and It looks very cool. It might be a little noisy but gets the job done. Defently one of the best HD i've ever owned.
The perfect pairing for Time Machine.......2007-11-28
I recently bought a new iMac and immediately fell in love with the Leopard operating system(I'm someone that uses both Vista and Leopard now, and as much as I hate the advocates on either side, I'm finding myself using the Mac all the time and only using my Vista box when I'm forced to). One of the features I was looking forward to using was Time Machine, which for those that aren't familiar is a new program in Leopard that automatically(automagically?) backs up your entire Mac and then does hourly backups of any changes that occur thereafter. Wow. Erased an email yesterday that all of a sudden you wished you had today? Go to Mail, click on Time Machine and then go back in time to when that email still existed on your machine and recover it. Awesome. Simple. So enough about that.
Obviously you need a drive to do this, and I didn't have one until the other day when I bought this WD My Book. I plugged it in and immediately Leopard spotted it and asked me if I wanted to use it for Time Machine. I sure did! It's quiet, it's cool to the touch, and it looks cool as well! It matches my Aluminum iMac. The only downside is I hate the light on the front, which is easily solvable...I turned it around!
Now if my Mac ever crashes, I can be back to exaclty where I was within 15-20 minutes. Brilliant. Thank you WD and thanks Apple for making this software a part of your base OS.
Product Description
The 250 GB 7200 RPM SE16 Caviar SATA Hard Drive from Western Digital is a feature-rich drive, ideal for desktop, business, and consumer electronics storage. It boasts a high storage capacity of 250 GB, enabling users to store large amount of data. It also offers a rotational speed of up to 7200 RPM and an average seek time of 8.9/10.9 ms (read/write) for fast disk access. This drive incorporates Data Lifeguard, an expanded set of data protection tools including shock protection, environmental protection system and embedded error detection to make hard drive management diagnostics and repair simple and worry-free. The incorporated WhisperDrive technology minimizes noise to levels near the threshold of human hearing. Additionally, features like SoftSeek and ShockGuard make the Caviar SE16 hard drive cool, quiet and fast. Data Transfer Rate - 300 MBps Sound Emission - 28 dBA Transfer Rate - 300 MBps (external) Interfaces - 1 x Serial ATA-300 - 7 pin Serial ATA 1 x internal System Requirements - Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, SATA host adapter card or SATA interface connector on motherboard, 3.5-inch internal drive bay Dimensions - 4.0 x 5.79 x 1.03 inch, 2.54 cm x 14.7 cm x 10.2 cm Weight - 0.6 kg, 1.32 pounds
Customer Reviews:
Had to return.......2007-12-13
I bought this harddrive for my sister to replace one that had gone bad. After I got it, the person that was going to install it told me that it wouldn't fit. And I would need and IDE harddrive. Returned Item and got a full refund within a few days.
Excellent Drive!!.......2007-11-19
It's a great disk, it's very silent, easy to install and it has a very good price. The only thing that a didn't like is that it doesn't came with the SATA power connector but it can be found in the accesories of the motherboard. Great Hard Drive!!
Not A Bad Drive.......2007-08-18
I installed a clean version of Vista on this drive and haven't had any problems that I'm aware of. The only thing I didn't like was when Vista went to format the drive- It only showed about 230GB free out of 250GB advertised so- not sure what's up with that? I suppose I could of manually entered more GB to format, but I prefer the O/S do that for me...or at least let me know how much is really available out there.
I was also hoping to see a quiet/or high performance option under the device manager properties- not there. It's a little more noisy compared to my other original SATA drive from Dell- but nothing that will keep you awake while its doing virus scans.
It does however have an "advanced performance" option(beyond the 16MB cache option) for systems running on a UPS -I'm not really sure if this setting makes my system run any faster, but I have it checked since I am running on clean UPS power. Overall for the cost- not a bad drive.
good HDD.......2007-08-02
runs fast and cool. lots of storage.
at this price i recommend buying it. using for 3 months now and have no problems. decreade my loading times for certain games from 20 secs to 9 secs.
a must buy.
excellent.......2007-06-19
Excellent product. The package was very good to protect the disk. The cable conectors made easily all the process. And the backup software may be very usefull. great product about the price.
Product Description
Keeps more of your data in high-speed memory for unsurpassed performance in its class. Fast 7200 RPM spindle speed and next-generation SATA 300 MB/s interface. For even higher performance, consider WD Caviar SE16 SATA 300 MB/s hard drives. Cool operation results in the highest reliability, even in intensely hot environments such as digital video recorders. That's why these, the coolest on the market, are the drives of choice for the world's leading consumer electronics and PC manufacturers. WhisperDrive technology minimizes noise to levels near the threshold of human hearing. To cut seek noise, SoftSeek technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in more efficient operation. With high-performance family and business computing, these drives easily handle photo editing and data-intensive multimedia applications. For even higher performance, consider WD Caviar SE16 SATA hard drives. Average 21.0 ms Full Stroke Seek 300 MB/s Buffer To Host Transfer Rate 748 Mbits/s Buffer To Disk Transfer Rate Unit Dimensions - Height 1.028 x Length 5.787 x Width 4.00 Inch Unit Weight - 1.32 Pounds
Customer Reviews:
A little pricey for its capacity, but a solid hard drive.......2007-03-26
As the review title says, this is a pretty good buy insofar as quality. It was somewhat of a necessity for me because I wanted to dual boot Windows XP and Vista--the free Ubuntu Linux partitioning tool would not work on one of my computers, so I had to consider other options. Rather than purchase a third-party partitioning tool to be used once and never again, I decided to buy a second hard drive, which in the case of the WD1600JSRTL ended up costing only a little more than the partitioning software.
So far, I have had no problems. Installation was about as easy as my HP m7640n Media Center PC allows--it's a tight fit, but that's not Western Digital's fault. Your individual results will vary in this capacity, though the actual act of fitting the SATA and power connectors is not terribly difficult. That having been said, the end of the connector that connects to the drive fits somewhat tightly and requires a little force to be properly inserted. After physical installation, it's simply a matter of powering up the computer, installing the included software, and then configuring the drive in the manner of your choosing.
Configuring the drive as a boot device is a little less than intuitive, though; somehow I ended up screwing up my boot order and making my copy of Windows XP MCE unbootable. But such is life; I guess I'm stuck with Vista now, good or bad. I strongly encourage those reading this review to research the topic of installing an OS on a second hard drive very thoroughly before performing this action. It's probably a simple thing I did to end up in the situation that came about, but I don't want it to happen to anybody else.
It is in fact much easier to configure the drive to serve as information storage. Simply select that option using the included software, and the drive will quickly be recognized and formatted however you wish.
As far as price/performance, though the drive itself offers pretty good performance, it's a little pricey when one considers the cost-per-gigabyte. This comes out to about fifty-six cents per gigabyte, which is not particularly cost effective. However, higher capacity hard drives cost somewhat-to-considerably more than the WD1600JSRTL, even if their cost-per-gigabyte is lower. So if you're in the market for an inexpensive hard drive for light to medium storage and/or need a second drive to dual boot two operating systems, then the WD1600JSRTL is worth a look.
Very nice hard drive.......2007-03-09
These hard drives are very good. They installed very easily and quickly. The data transfers fast and there in not much noise. Overall, it is an excellent product.
Great Hard Drive!.......2007-01-09
It is important to say that these is my first SATA Hard Drive, but I can absolutely recommend it. These hard drive has an excelent perform.
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