Western Digital Mybook Series (external HDD)

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-- Western Digital Mybook Series (external HDD)

Posted by RenderedDream on Jul-10-2006 02:09:

Western Digital Mybook Series (external HDD)

I'm considering buying Western Digital Mybook 500gb Essential Edition (WDG1U5000)
( http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Prod...asp?DriveID=232 )
I've been reading some user opinions and tech reviews and i've found some mixed results.
The vast majoraty of users are satisfied with the product and their con point is that the case is weak plastic looking (which could be very robust i don't know).
Only a few tech sites don't rate it high because of speed performance issues.
One other low is that the case cannot be open, so if the hdd fails i cannot reuse the case on other disks.
The use for it is archival and what i want the most is reliability and error-free operation.
I would like to know your guys opinions.

Some specs:

code:
Performance Specifications
	Rotational Speed	7,200 RPM (nominal)
	Buffer Size	16 MB
	Average Latency	4.20 ms (nominal)
Seek Times
	Read Seek Time	8.9 ms
	Track-To-Track Seek Time	2.0 ms (average)
Serial Transfer Rate
	USB 2.0
	Serial Bus Transfer Rate (USB 2.0)	480 Mbits/s (Max)

Posted by kadomony on Jul-10-2006 02:43:

ive seen it but honestly, id go with a seagate external drive.
ive heard some baaaad things about WD

Posted by DrunkenMaster16 on Jul-10-2006 02:46:

ive owned 2 WD's in my life.. both have faild with in 3 - 6 months of ownership.

segate or maxtor

Posted by Ted Promo on Jul-10-2006 02:48:

xbox360hax

my WD external has lasted forever. Doing dandy too.

Posted by LiquidX on Jul-10-2006 02:50:

I have the WD MyBoo 160 GIGS for 50 bucks.. Ive had it for a few days, kust back ups purposes.. its cool.

Posted by Ted Promo on Jul-10-2006 02:53:

quote:
Originally posted by LiquidX
WD MyBoo

Posted by Gillis maximus on Jul-10-2006 03:18:

I have the 160 My book external also. Works fine.

Posted by DJ E-s*it on Jul-10-2006 03:28:

just got the 250G last week for $100 even..nice deal ,good drive.

Posted by mezzir on Jul-10-2006 05:18:

got a wd 160gig hd in my friend's xbox, works like a charm
haven't bought any other hard drives in a while
i was looking at that exact model(i think) in best buy a few weeks back and i just didn't feel secure with it

Posted by ahway26 on Jul-10-2006 05:44:

Ya...dont rely everything on one harddrive..be safe..get a smaller one. If it breaks down at least u didnt spent big bucks on it

Posted by jdat on Jul-10-2006 08:24:

I have had a WD 80 gig since 2002 or so and the thing works like a charm.

You have to keep in mind that despite the case being aluminium, plastic or what not it still contains a hard drive, and that is what's fragile.
Drop the thing, regardless of the casing and you could damage the hard drive real easilly.
I say that but honestly I have no clue. I wonder if there have been real tests done ??!!?? Like how much drops can a hard drive take when it's in a plastic case versus an aluminium?

I have never dropped mine and it looks as new apart from scratches on the case from being in backpacks and stuff.

Posted by Sunsnail on Jul-10-2006 08:27:

To be honest there's probably not much difference in hard drive companies. Sometimes people get one or two bad hard drives in a row from a certain company and they will hate them forever

Posted by jdat on Jul-10-2006 08:53:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
To be honest there's probably not much difference in hard drive companies. Sometimes people get one or two bad hard drives in a row from a certain company and they will hate them forever

I have had a hard drive from every company under the sun and not one has failed me or had bad clusters.

Perhaps I am one of the lucky few out there.

Posted by DeRangedMind on Sep-22-2006 16:50:

quote:
Originally posted by jdat
You have to keep in mind that despite the case being aluminium, plastic or what not it still contains a hard drive, and that is what's fragile.

The reason for thin aluminium because these produce heat?

Yea same for me since I have never had any issues with either brand of harddrives I have 400gig SATA, a 160 WD SATA and 80 Maxtor SATA and the my Mactors been through rough shit and not once has it failed on me

Seagates

The have the best internal harddrive out there trust I am luving my 400GB SATA V2 model is so fast

The External harddrives are slow and had the most returns more at my job (Best Buy)Plus the model looks so Ugly

400GB

160GB

Western Digital

Is the average harddrive so there a hit or miss when is comes down to it there external and internal

But they have a Premuim My Book External edition which has Daul looks HOTTT!

500GB
Dual FireWire and USB 2.0 interfaces

The Essential ones are Green color and the Premuin ae blue and red?

Maxtor

The have really good internal hard drives but shoot out kore heat then both Seagate and Western Digital

Now they have the best Extrenal Harddrives and there new Maxtor One Touch III rocks

Maxtor OneTouch III 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

High-speed USB 2.0 interface; backwards compatible with USB 1.1

Maximum data transfer rates up to 480 Mbps via USB 2.0
16MB cache buffer

7200 rpm for fast read/write times

<9 ms average seek time

Maxtor OneTouch technology backs up your files with the push of a button

Maxtor DriveLock protects your files in case of accidental loss or unauthorized use

System Rollback rolls your PC system settings back to a better point in time while still keeping your data current

Automatic data synchronization between 2 or computers

Soft-touch exterior makes portability safe and easy

If you got some dough

Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition 1TB External FireWire and USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Dual high-speed USB 2.0 and FireWire (400 and 800) interfaces; connect up to 62 FireWire devices or up to 127 USB 2.0 devices with USB hubs

High-speed USB 2.0 interface; backwards compatible with USB 1.1

Maximum data transfer rates up to 480 Mbps via USB 2.0; up to 400 Mbps via FireWire 400; up to 800 Mbps via FireWire 800

16MB cache buffer

7200 rpm for fast read/write times

<9 ms average seek time

Maxtor OneTouch technology backs up your files with the push of a button

Maxtor DriveLock protects your files in case of accidental loss or unauthorized use

Includes EMC Dantz Retrospect Express HD backup software with the power to roll back systems to a healthy state, retrieve deleted files and recover individual files

User configurable RAID 0 or RAID 1

Posted by stevieboy32808 on Sep-25-2006 14:57:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
To be honest there's probably not much difference in hard drive companies. Sometimes people get one or two bad hard drives in a row from a certain company and they will hate them forever

There comes a point in time when you have to accept consistent bad quality over coincedental crashes. I've had 3 Western Digitals and all of them have failed on me. Plain and simple WD sucks.

For the threadstarter, get a seagate or maxtor.

Posted by EXTREMUM on Sep-26-2006 21:53:

I've owned WD hard drives, for the last ten years - not one failure.

Posted by RenderedDream on Sep-26-2006 21:59:

quote:
Originally posted by EXTREMUM
I've owned WD hard drives, for the last ten years - not one failure.

good to know!

Posted by igottaknow on Sep-27-2006 00:02:

I thought about getting the WD500gb and read mixed reviews too. Lacie costs $50 more. I've always had good luck with Lacie and they're built well. Of course you have to take bad reviews with a grain of salt since most of the ppl who are happy don't take the time to post a positive review. I've also read that 500gb drives are more susceptible to corruption because the data is packed so tightly together. As far as not being able to remove the drive thats not a big deal because its usually not worth replacing a drive. there are size/type issues.

Posted by Fir3start3r on Oct-01-2006 17:09:

quote:
Originally posted by DrunkenMaster16
ive owned 2 WD's in my life.. both have faild with in 3 - 6 months of ownership.

segate or maxtor

Maxtor?
Oh gawd, those drives are horrible.

Western Digital did a have a bad rep with their >80Gig HDD, that I can atest to but since then, they've seen to cleaned up their act.

Seagate is definately a high recommendation

Posted by TigerClaw on Oct-03-2006 02:15:

I bought the Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 250GB. This is so great to have when backing up all your files, The only downside is that my current system only supports USB 1.0 and transfering files to it takes forever when transfering over 1GB of stuff. These drives perform better with USB 2.0 since 1.0 is 12Mbps while 2.0 is 480Mbps.