Product Uses: backup

Review:Was not able to use the ESATA connection with computer. Works well with USB wire.

Product Uses: homee media storage

Review:Great Harddrive

Product Uses: backup

Review:The drive does what it is supposed to. Bought it for my mom to backup her work and pictures. You can never be too safe. Setup Windows 7 Backup to do the work.. runs every Sunday. Tis a breeze.

Product Uses: Music & Movies, School, Finances, Presentation, business

Review:Pros:

The drive works well. Works out of the box.
I have used all interfaces on the drive.
No performance issues although it is a little slow. Caution: "Green" = Slow Rotational Speed = Slow Transfer Rates

Cons:

Big One: eSata interface connection on the drive prevents full cable insertion. A standard eSATA cable will need to be shaved with an exacto blade to prevent the cable from butting up against the plastic drive enclosure which limits full cable insertion. If your system does not recognize the drive, hold the cable in and it will likely work.
WD's knowledge base does not mention this but it's all over the web.

Small One: Drive comes with the Owners Manual preloaded on the drive. My drive was preloaded with the WD MyBook Studio Manual not the WD MB Home Manual which leads you to believe you were shorted a cable (you were not) and that the drive is formatted for MAC (It's not) Go to WD's website for the correct manual.

Overall like the drive with no failures to date.

ProsWorks with Vista ultimate 64 bit

ProsPrice and that's about it...
ConsNothing against Dell because they have great products but they drop the ball on this one. This drive is horrible. I purchased the Western Digital because they have a good reputation, but the need to get back to the drawing board and fix the many issues with the drives. The drive is extremely slow and when I said slow, I mean sloooooow and that’s transferring small files. Once I tried to copy files over 2 GB in size the drive froze, requiring a force shutdown of my computer. The problems are the same using USB 2.0 or Firewire…. I have 3 more external drives, one is a nas drive from new egg and the other two I put them together myself. My other drives are blazing fast and never lock up the computer. I did a lot of research last night and I came across hundreds of unsatisfied WD customers with similar drives. They all have the same issues…

Review:Do yourself a favor and google it before you buy.... Maybe I got a brick but I am not willing to take the chance... I will try a Iomega drive... good reviews

ProsGood stuff! Easy to install,easy to use!

ProsRuns blazingly fast using ESATA on my Vista 64 system (see other thoughts). The drive powers on and off automatically with my PC. No problems waking the drive from sleep mode. All that space with all that speed is great!
ConsGoes into sleep mode and spins down after about 10 minutes of inactivity. My issue with this is that there is no configuration available to change this time frame. I find this unacceptable. I would have given five stars had configuration been possible.

Review:When I first received the drive I updated it to the latest version of firmware right off the bat, and then reformatted to NTFS. Updating the firmware can only be done using a PC running 32 bit XP or Vista, so this was done on my wife's PC as I run Vista 64.

I am running Vista Ultimate 64 bit and using ESATA without any issues. The ESATA ports on my PC are cable connected the internal SATA ports on my motherboard, so are using the motherboards SATA controller. The BIOS sees the My Book drive as a standard SATA drive.

Pros1) Very large drive (1 TByte). Capable of holding large Music/DVD libraries, software or files (i.e. for travel/backup).

2) Separate power source. Doesn't need to use Laptops limited USB power source (note: 4-pin Firewire and eSATA PCMCIA card have no power option).

3) Competative pricing. Twice as large and half the price of smaller Passport drives. With an eSATA connection (I use a PCMCIA eSATA card), data transfers up to 3x that of a USB 2.0 connection.
Cons1) WD Drive's Firewire doesn't work with 4-pin converters. Although I prefer the eSATA speed anyways, I am unable to get WD Drive's 6-pin Firewire connectivity to work with my Inspiron 4-pin Firewire port (despite using a 6 to 4-pin converter). I have been informed by Western Digital that it MUST be 6-pin to 6-pin Firewire.

2) Incorrect drive Cache specifications. My WD Drive only has 8 MBytes of Cache, NOT the 16 Mbytes, as advertised. Dell has been informed of this issue with the Drive Cache specifications (still indicated as 16 MBytes). In fact, Western Digital informed me that they randomly install 3 different Caviar Drive's, depending upon market forces. The actual Cache size can range from 8 MBytes to 32 MBytes. You can confirm the Drive's Cache size by running WD Diagnostics and looking up the results at Western Digital's website.

3) Possibly incorrect Drive Speed specification. I have also been informed by Western Digital that the Drive's speed can vary from 5400 to 7200 RPM, depending upon market forces. However, although I have not confirmed my WD Drive speed, I am pleased with it's apparnet performance with eSATA data transfers.

Review:I have tried a USB 2.0 powered External Hard Drive, in the past, but had insufficient power with my Inspiron 8600 USB laptop ports (even with 2 ports powering the drive).