Western Digital 160 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive with Dual Option Backup

by Western Digital

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 6.4 x 7.9 inches ; 5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0006PWOGW
• Item model number: WDXUB1600BBNN
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 8, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

High-speed storage, conveniently placed buttons and easy-to-use backup features make the 160 GB WD Dual-option external USB drive an ideal solution for that much-needed additional storage and a perfect place to back up your valuable data, music, photos and movies.

Features

• Dual-option Backup -- choose how and when to back up your data, automatically or on-the-spot
• USB 2.0 interface -- high-speed connection for maximum throughput
• Front-mounted power button -- equipped with WD’s exclusive Safe Shutdown feature that ensures all data has been safely transferred before shutting down the drive
• 7200 RPM rotational speed
• Preformatted; simply plug it in and go
• Designed for near-silent operation with WD’s whisper-quiet hard drive
• Fast, easy connection to PC or Macintosh computers
• Cool, heat-dissipating case
• Stands vertically or horizontally
• Stackable

Applications

• Back up your existing hard drive
• Archive the music stored on your MP3 player
• Add plenty of space for digital video capture and editing
• Save and organize your digital photo collection
• Back up your valuable data from notebooks
• Easily share files between computers
• Add virtually unlimited storage with multiple external hard drives

System Requirements

PC Users

• Available USB port
• Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP

Macintosh Users

• Available USB port
• Mac OS v9.2.2 or Mac OS X v10.2.8+

Kit Contents

• 160 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive
• 6 foot (1.8m) USB 2.0 certified cable
• Software CD including Dantz Retrospect Express backup software
• AC adapter with power cord
• Vertical stands
• Feet for horizontal placement
• Quick Install Guide

Product Description

High-speed storage, conveniently placed buttons and easy-to-use backup features make the WD Dual-option external USB drive an ideal solution for that much-needed additional storage and a perfect place to back up your valuable data, music, photos and movies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Drive... Horrible Software... Mediocre Support, September 7, 2005

By 

MonkezUncle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Western Digital 160 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive with Dual Option Backup (Personal Computers)

In our office we have several external hard drives and I can say that this particular WD model (the 160GB External) is so good we bought two. But... don't stop reading here... make it to the bottom of this review before you buy it.

About the drive: Very quiet drive, easily recognized by Windows and works great for hot swapping. I LOVE the fact that it will not let you turn it off until you unmount it from your computer... that feature should be mandatory on all drives. For all those who remember when WD sucked... they have definitely come back on top!

About the software: The Software that came with this product is Dantz Retrospect. Not only is it one of the most confusing software products I have ever seen but Dantz refuses to support it b/c it is a "bundled" product. We use Bounceback Pro from CMS... Much much better. Personally the sooner Dantz gets bought or goes out of business the better.

About WD's customer service: I agree with the reviewer who lamented their poor tech support... I agree with that. However I have found that the 2 drives I have work flawlessly as drives so their lack of tech support is a wash given the advantages of the drive.

A couple additional notes, if you are computer savvy enough to figure out how to use Amazon you are computer savvy enough to use this drive. It is well worth the investment. However, and my sympathy to the reviewer that lost all her data... External Drives have ALL of the potential problems of internal drives PLUS the problems of floppies and other media combined. DO NOT EVER TRUST AN EXTERNAL DRIVE TO BE THE ONLY BACKUP SOURCE. Use 2 drives in combo but never leave unbacked-up data on an EHD... you're asking for a problem.

Final Assessment: Buy it. Make sure you get another set of backup software (there are a bunch of freeware ones) and make sure you do not pay more then $0.75 per GB.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall, October 11, 2005

By 

Tatil Sever (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Western Digital 160 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive with Dual Option Backup (Personal Computers)

Backup software: 'Retrospect' is not very intuitive, but the manual on CD explains the operation, options etc. very well. I'd say 'almost professional' quality. Dantz, the maker of this software is owned by EMC, a famous storage products company. If you have files that you're gonna have a copy on this HD only, then you'll like the software, because it backs things up in ~650MB pieces (by default, no need to play with settings) so that you can back them up on CD-Rs or DVD+-R's.

USB: If you use a built-in USB-2.0 port, it works well, but I use a PCMCIA card (otherwise I only have USB-1.1 ports.) Unfortunately, this hard disk cannot communicate with my laptop through that card very smoothly, it took an hour to copy 1.5GB of data. Granted, this is not my only device that does not like this setup, but -for example- Sony DVD-writer had no problems, it wrote 4.5GB of data in 17 minutes. Hence, USB chip in this WD hard disk is not the best.

Format: Comes in FAT32 format. You need to format it for NTSC if you think you'll have files larger than 4GB. It is easy to do through Windows XP control panel. (Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management) I think new generation Intel-based Macs will be supporting NTSC as well.

Size: Slightly larger than others, but I guess they need the larger size to dissipate the heat as it does not have a fan. However, absence of a fan makes it very quiet.

Reliability: I own for about two weeks, so far it works. Still, keep backups if you have files that are stored only on this hard disk. Any hard disk may fail, even the ones they put in big and expensive servers.

Aesthetically pleasing design with a nice blue LED shining behind the power button.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderfully quiet hard drive, January 23, 2005

By 

D. F. Curran "dfcurran" (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Western Digital 160 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive with Dual Option Backup (Personal Computers)

I love this hard drive. My LaCie and others have loud fans and since I bought them for digital video the sound when taping is annoying ( to hear over or tape over). This unit is quiet and has worked without a problem for me. The only thing I'd change on it is that the power plug can be knocked out if tugged on ( if your wiring is all tangled like mine--my fault). Other than that this is drive to buy.
An Update 3/16/06: Do not ever let this drive system get wet. Mine did and died. Fried the circuit board of the system--not however the hard drive which is safely tucked in a case inside. The company was not much help. Said, you can send the drive far away to a data recovery place. I did what they said you couldn't do. Bought an entire new drive system identical to the one I had. Put tons of stuff I wanted to back up onto the drive. Took the new drive out of the new system and tucked it in a safe place, and then put my old drive from the fried system into the new systems box. And I had my old drive back good as new, with a back up drive will tons of my data safely tucked away.