Customer Reviews

Western Digital WDG1U3200 My Book Essential Edition 320 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I purchased the Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 320GB External Hard Drive this week, and within 15 minutes, it was up and running providing more storage for my system.

It really was as simple as unpacking, plugging in the included USB cable, plugging in the power, and that's it. The drive automatically powers on and off with your computer, or you can alternatively shut it down manually using the button on the front.

When you first attach the drive, XP will see that there is an autostart on it, and prompt you to run some programs. The Essential version comes with several Google tools (desktop, toolbar, picasa), and the Western Digital Backup utility. You can choose to install these, or ignore them for the time being (I ignored them since I already have the Google tools that I want to use).

The first thing I did was copy the WD Backup Utility off of the drive, then format the entire thing as an NTFS file system. FAT32 has space limitations, so if you want to take full advantage of the drive without partitioning, NTFS is the way to go.

My recommendation is to do a non-quick format, only if you have the time. If you want to start using the drive immediately, quick format will do, and usually with a fresh drive, full format is not especially necessary.

Just like many hard drives, there are a couple performance settings that you may want to tweak. Go into the drive properties in the XP device manager, and turn on the Performance setting. This allows write caching to the drive, and will improve the performance, but it does mean that if you want to disconnect the drive, you have to use the Safe Remove in XP. Personally, I always opt for performance option, because I don't plan to ever remove the drive.

The Essential Edition has one green ring on the front of the "book", which will flash on heavy disk activity, letting you know that something is going on. Otherwise, it just stays green letting you know the drive is powered on.

Like many disk drives, the unit will stop spinning after lack of activity, to save power. It's pretty fast though, so when you need to use it again, it spins right up (audibly).

Differing from the more expensive edition, this one does not have FireWire, only USB 2.0. It also lacks the second green ring on the front which is a capacity meter. Personally, I don't need the extra ring showing capacity, and USB 2.0 works fine for me, so the price difference was not worth going for the more expensive edition.

Form Factor is pretty slick, it looks like a book on your shelf, albeit, a black plastic book with a green light ring on the front. The top looks like a punch card, and vents the head from the drive. Watch for dust accumulation inside the device (use an air blower to clean it now and then).

All in all, it's a very quiet and unobtrusive drive, that was very easy to install, and runs like you would expect a Western Digital to run. An excellent purchase.

Bought this after my LaCie took a crap. Apparently there was a defective heat problem with it...regardless it conked out and I made sure to replace it with one that could handle heat effectively and that would most likely last longer than a year. Western Digital has a good rep for drives, and this particular model has more holes in it than a cheese grater, which really helps disperse heat. So far it has worked great, runs quiet, smooth and independently. I love the auto/off feature...it really is nice not having to worry about turning it on and off. It is an external hard drive, but acts like its an original part of my laptop (turning on and off with it, and being recognized with no problems).

This drive is everything taht I thought it would be. It is extremely quiet (which doesn't really matter anyway), a huge amount of space for such a low price, and great for storing anything. Drive comes preformatted in Fat32, but a quick switch to NTFS allows full utilization of all the space this drive has to offer. One of the best features is that this drive stops spinning after about 10 minutes of complete inactivity. This should help to improve drive life by a substantial amount. Once you return to your computer and click into the drive, it spins back up and is ready to use in a matter of seconds. As for heat, there is decent ventilation on the top of the case and the drive does not (from what I can tell) feel "hot to the touch". The drive comes preloaded with Google software, and WD's self-diagnostic tools both of which can be deleted without any problems. All in all.....amazing.

I have three of these: a 320GB Essential (the first one I bought about 2 years ago), a 500GB Premium and (lately) a 750GB Professional. (I avoided the 1TB version due to the universally bad reviews it received). Their different colored lights help me keep my files separate and organized - and always backed up.

I have mostly good things to say about all of them: they are stable, silent enough to operate at home and can be formated to either Fat32 or NTFS to suit one's needs. I formated to NTFS before using it (but make sure to back up the contained files and utilities first).

My only complain is that when more than half-full, it takes some minutes for my PC to verify all the files contained and be able to use them. Utilizing the FireWire only slightly improves the time delay.

Regarding the complains about crashes and data losses: there is of course the possibility of this to happen to any data storage medium. Had I not had a flawless experience with my previous MY BOOKs, these concerns would had prevented me from expanding my...library. However, keep in mind that this is NOT a PORTABLE External HDD. It does not contain a solid-state flash drive, but instead a regular HardDisk Drive. So, moving it from place to place, shaking it (and even carrying it in a backpack) may not be the best way to ensure smooth operation.
On this note, can anyone trust any delivery service or company NOT to shake or drop it during shipment?

RECOMMENDED!

Worked flawlessly for about two months. Today it's blinking on/off in a very fast infinitely repeating cycle. From Answer ID # 1314 on WD Tech Support, it means it either isn't getting enough power from the power strip/surge protector (ruled that out), has had a power supply failure, or a drive failure. And to make this sweeter, I didn't make the DVD backups of my data like I should; I grew too trusting of my WD. Well, I've been cured of that. The honeymoon is over, and it ended with a bang. Not literally, but it might as well have been.

This is a great product. Im very happy with it. Its refurbished, but It looks like new and it works like new. What i like about this product is that its not big at all. I thought it was going to take a lot of space in my desk and the price is good too. perfect buy!

I bough one last year working great. and I bought another one 2 month ago
working great. Recommended.

The western digital is PLUG AND PLAY. because of this, we can transfer information from his mac to my microsoft.
when the computer turns off or goes on sleep mode, the hard drive does the same - automatically. i have to do that manually on mine.

inshort, it is a great item. it was a lot smaller and square than i thought it would be and it works great.

After reading the reviews on Amazon, I took a chance and bought one at Staples. It crashed everything... In two days! Misery is all I can say I'm suffering from!
J

I have bought drives for military and corporate accounts since Windows 3.0 was the "New Thing". I bought my MYBOOK Essential 320GB drive about eight months ago, and it worked fine until a month ago. The power cord was the first issue. I replaced it...and lo and behold...ALL OF MY DATA WAS LOST!! The drive kept defaulting me to reformat it, saying there was nothing on the drive. Zip, Zilch, Nada, ZERO...!! What's worse is that, like others have reported, it only shows 298GB at full capacity...NOT the 320GB it advertises. For us Old School cats, that's a lot of lost storage. Where did it go? Please don't tell me its a swap file incorporated into the specs of the drive! False advertising is what I call it.

Jazz