Customer Reviews

Western Digital WDG1SU5000 My Book Premium ES Edition 500 GB USB/eSATA External Hard Drive

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Description: The WDG1SU5000 MyBook ES Edition drive is an external 500GB hard-drive with two interfaces - eSata and USB2. It has a led display at the front ("capacity gauge") which is supposed to indicate the remaining free space.

Functionality: the drive was instantly recognized when I plugged it into the USB2 port. When the computer is turned off the drive automatically goes into "sleep" mode.

Noise: I had to change the first drive I received. It was vibrating so strongly that when placed on a table it made a rather loud and irritating low-pitched humming noise. I placed the drive on a sponge to prevent the table from resonating. In order to keep the drive from falling (it is supposed to stand on its narrow side), I laid it down on its wide side, which the WD web-site claims is OK to do. After two days, while still functioning, the drive started making annoying buzzing noises. Placing the drive back on its narrow side stopped the noise for about two hours and then the noise came back again.
I replaced the drive. The second one I received and still possess does not vibrate so strongly and can be placed on the table without humming noticeably. However, when the drive head jumps back and forth (while reading, for example), the drive makes rather strong creaking noises. I placed it again on a sponge and it became quieter. I do not try again to lay it down on its wide side.

The LED capacity gauge: I have installed the gauge driver as required. it is very hard to notice anything on the capacity display. The "gauge" consists of two rings - the outer ring indicates that the drive is working and the inner is supposed to show how much free space remains. The problem is that the outer ring is not isolated from the inner one and its light actually illuminates the inner ring from the inside, making the free-space display too hard to read and practically unusable.

Support: I have posted a question on the Western-Digital WDC site concerning the capacity gauge and received a list of automatically generated links which have nothing to do with the question. I tried to get their attention on the web and through emails, filling forms as required and replying to automatic emails as indicated, but to no avail. Finally I gave up.

Pros: USB2 and eSata interfaces (I have not tried the eSata). Auto "sleep" mode. Price.
Cons: somewhat unstable and noisy. Difficult to get support. Capacity gauge is only a gimmick. Does not get its power from the USB port - needs to be plugged into the electricity.

Same story like some other customers:
After less than 1 year of usage (used it to store TV movies) the drive started to make strange noises - no way to get XP recognizing the drive anymore (tried several computers).
Got a new drive from WD, however, this one is not working as well. I wrote to customer support three times and didn't get ANY response for about five weeks now.
What else should I say?

Decent hard drive,a little slow with USB. Originally purchased for TIVO HD expansion, the model number looks the same but it is not supported by Tivo. Do not try to link with your DVR, but it does make a good Time Machine back-up for my Mac.

It was pretty cool. Plugged it in it worked straight no issues till I tried to store a file that was 7 gigs it would not support that. So I moved my iTunes library to it instead. Im not unhappy kust mildly dissapointed because it wont do what I wanted it for. But if you only intended to store file smaller than 6 gig this is for you.

The WD premium 500gb harddisk is compact, has a good amount of storage space and is fast and reliable. It has a nominal 7,200 RPM speed and 16mb buffer. Noise/ heat emanating from the unit is low. There is a handy AUTO sleep/ wakeup feature.
The difference between this and the Essential edition is the FireWire 400 and capacity guage in the Premium edition.

However, as many others have mentioned before, the inner blue ring meant to be the Capacity Gauge gets a lot of background light from the outer ring, and hence its function is still in doubt for me.
But, considering performance, reliability and storage-this is a great drive to archive files-for students, professionals and home users alike.

This unit isn't small enough for travel use though. So, I use a 120gb WD Passport for that. The real difference is the USB powerup in the passport (but slower R/W speed) vs the Power cord in the MyBook (with higher transfer speeds.)

I've had this for a little over a year, notice only a one year warranty comes with it. PLEASE do not store anything you really don't want to lose on it. I had about 250 gigs stored from my photography company, luckily I run more than one machine. It died, oh, it comes on and the USB port shows something there, but the device is clicking like a tap dancer on speed. Try to use one of WD's data recovery preferred partners with price starting at $595.00. I will be moving up to a more reliable brand after I try to get all my stuff off of this dead one. THANKS WD!!!

I initially bought a SimpleTech SimpleShare 500Gb drive. Copying the files on the network took forever and on the second day there was some serious knocking which lead to a total crash of the drive. I decided to switch back to a USB HDD . . . the research lead me to this WD MyBook hard drive. It is a very quiet device, great speed, great looking too. I love it.

My first drive worked properly through USB for a few months. While it worked, it was typical for an external drive. Though it has a capacity gauge on the front, it didn't work very well and required a system tray program to function at all. To me, the system tray is hallowed ground which should be inhabited by completely necessary programs only, e.g., the virus scanner. If WD wants to put a gauge on the drive, it should work without eating up my RAM and CPU time.

Then, I purchased an eSATA to SATA cable so I could use the faster transfer capability of the SATA interface.
The first cable didn't work at all.
The second cable worked, but after a few days, there were terrible data problems with the drive. Disk Check would run every time I booted up, scan the drive for several hours, and throw out large amounts of data. Of the files that were left, some of them were corrupted and unusable. At this point I sent in a support ticket and received an advance replacement (they send you a new drive, then you send them the old drive in the same box). I didn't attempt to use the eSATA cable with this drive, fearing that the implementation was buggy somehow. I should also note that Western Digital does not pay for the return shipping of the broken drive, which in my opinion is idiotic (I have returned iPods, two Nintendo DS consoles, laptops and monitors to various companies and have NEVER been charged for it). What they offer you is a $1.50 discount off of $7.99 UPS Ground shipping. Ridiculous.
After two months, the USB interface in the second drive completely failed. The drive could no longer be recognized in Windows XP or Vista on two different computers. I complained to WD support a second time, requesting that I be sent an internal drive instead, as I have rarely had problems with WD internal drives. They refused to accommodate this and offered an upgrade to the 500 GB My Book Home Edition. Although that model has a FireWire interface (my PC has no FireWire port), is slightly smaller than the Premium ES edition, has a different capacity gauge light, and has slightly updated software, I see no tangible benefit from "upgrading" to it. I am merely hoping that this model does not have the USB connection flaw, and I can see from other reviews here on Amazon that I wasn't the only one with this problem.

At first, when the second drive died, I thought it was completely gone, but when I read other comments on this site, I saw that only the USB connection was unusable and the data might still be intact on the drive. So, I tried the eSATA to SATA cable again, and it worked, allowing me to quickly transfer all its data to a second replacement drive. I then deleted everything, not bothering to check if the eSATA use had corrupted the data again. The data on the new drive seems to be OK, but I haven't checked it all yet. I'm hesitant to use the eSATA to SATA cable with it, either.

Western Digital was always very responsive to my requests for support, but aside from the previously mentioned return shipping nonsense, their e-mail responses usually take anywhere from one to five days, the first response being automatically generated and useless. Also, their warranty is a year from the original product purchase and is not renewed if you get a replacement, which means that the original drive could have failed anywhere in the first 364 days and I would have been covered, but this new drive only has four months before I'm screwed if it fails.

All this trouble combined with the fact that I know others with non-WD external drives that have never failed mean that I will never buy a Western Digital product again. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that I don't have problems with the third drive, but that doesn't mean they won't happen.

The drive worked flawless for 7 months then started to die. First the USB interface started getting errors then completely failed. I switched to the eSATA connection to get my data off which I was able to then it started to give me problems as well. I was very lucky to recover my data off this drive. It's still under warranty so I will get a new one, however I am forever skeptical about their external Mybook series drives. I have always owned Western Digital hard drives and they have never let me down and have always given me countless years of use. I recommend staying away from the mybook series hard drives until WD gets some of these flaws worked out. Their internal hard drives are excellent and have never failed me. Better luck next time.

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