WD My Book 1TB External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 File Backup and Storage

Were in kind of a weird situation at the moment: The WD MyBook Essential external HD (2TB) is selling for thirty dollars less than a bare 2.0TB hard drive (WD Caviar Green)! I think its just because a spike in HD prices hasnt caught up with the old inventory price for the MyBook, but heres an opportunity to make a few bucks-- strip out the drive and sell it on eBay. You may not want to though. The one I bought failed after nine months. Im not sure if its the drive, the connector (see other reviews here for broken USB 3.0 connector woes-- I dont think thats the problem with mine), the cable, or something else; but Windows 7 hangs whenever the drive is connected, and eventually reports that the drive must be formatted. An attempt to format it always fails, whether from the dialog it presents or from Windows Disk Management utility. On the other hand, it saved my bacon more than once while it was alive, so I cant give it fewer stars. Three seems about right. The first thing I did was to make a system image onto the drive using the Backup & Restore control panel, and have automatically updated that once a week. This system image helped a great deal when a buggy ATi video card driver update hosed my whole system. It often fails when done automatically, so when I remember I do it manually. If I get a replacement, I think Ill shut off the automated backup utility (SmartWare) and just use the native backup tools during times when Im away. I never recovered a file using SmartWare, but it seemed to chug along efficiently and not get in the way (until the big failure, of course). Im using it with a USB 2.0 port and the speed was neither impressively fast nor torturously slow. Ive submitted a support request and hope WD will honor it, either with a refund or a replacement. UPDATE 5 Dec 2011: After a few weeks of back-and-forth, they did indeed send me a new drive. I installed the firmware update and SmartWare update without problems, and now we see whether this one can outlast the previous model. Cross fingers. I *do* like WDs products-- most of my system builds have used their HDs-- and I can see that the occasional lemon gets released.

For some reason most of the reviews shown to me when I select the 3 TB drive are for other smaller versions of the drive. Heres a review thats actually about the 3 TB model. Ive got two of these 3 TB drives and am close to adding a third. A lot of video data is taking a lot of disk space, and there really arent many 3-TB drives available at this point. Id like to add an esata drive to the mix, but Im only aware of a couple of 3 TB esata drives, and theyre twice as expensive as this unit. I started out using these drives on USB 2. Of course data transfer was slow. I subsequently switched to USB 3 on a new laptop, and added a USB 3 hub to expand the use of that single port. No problem with two of these and a Seagate 1.5 TB GoFlex on a single hub. Inerestingly, I havent noticed a slowdown in the transfer rate between a single drive direct in the USB 3 port and three drives in a hub. While its not exactly instantaneous to move 10-100 gigabytes around at a time, the data transfer rate is reliably about 5X faster than USB 2 was for me, and I can see it burst sometimes at outrageous speeds. You might ask, why dont I just get an array? I started out with one, actually, from a company which shall remain unnamed, but it failed me utterly. Two different arrays (after the first was exchanged) lost all my data three times. Fortunately I didnt trust it at all after the first time and had 100% backups. Its not easy to keep backups of terabytes of data, though, so thats why I ended up with the first of these Western Ditigal drives. At this point, I dont trust desktop RAID setups. So Ill just split my data between these drives, which isnt hard for this particular application. I had no serious problems getting these drives to work with Windows 7 64-bit. The OS initially failed to see the second one, which is a quick fix in Disk Manager, Ive seen this before with other identical drives where it seems to realize there are two separate drives but somehow considers them the same drive as well, and you have to click online to solve this strange little problem. So that happened. I also noticed that one of the two drives has a tendency to not be seen by the OS until I unplug it and restart it, upon reboot. I havent seen this problem for awhile, so I suspect I solved it as part of a general issue with too many powered devices hooked up upon startup (I have a lot of stuff hooked up to three USB hubs, and now I just unplug one of the USB 2 hubs during initial boot). The software that comes with this drive is both terrible and unnecessary. Its unnecessary because Windows 7 sees the drive without it, and I had trouble even understanding what some of the other reviewers were complaining about, like the guy with the catch-22 about not being able to get to the advanced drivers. I dont know what advanced features one would need with this drive. I plugged it in, it shows up as a drive, I put data on it, the end. But if those advanced features are the backup software that comes with it, I agree with all the other reviewers who urge you not to install it. I installed it and had a problem which I havent seen in these reviews but which was all over the WD forums, namely that one of the background utilities has a tendency to run your CPU up as time goes on, apparently analyzing your files for the next backup or something. Totally unnecessary and very problematic. I immediately uninstalled the WD backup software, might as well just use the one that comes with Windows or any of the million others out there. It was also annoying that the latest WD software doesnt work with older WD drives, so when I had smaller, older WD drives mounted, there were two completely separate sets of WD utilities running at once. I used those utilities to update the firmware on all my drives, then uninstalled them and am the better for it. I have some smaller seagate drives to take on the road and I like the GoFlex system a lot. But I dont really trust seagate drives, theyve always been the least reliable in terms of the actual drive hardware throughout my career, which began before hard drives even existed. I mention this because the 3 TB Seagate GoFlex drives are just about the only other 3 TB USB 3.0 drives out there right now. So far these WDs have been working fine for me. So I rate the drives 5 stars and the software 2 stars, not 1 star because heck, it probably actually works as a backup program if you installed it and suffered through the CPU cranking problem (the solution last I checked: frequent reboots). Ill never know, because Ill never install it again. But I run the drives 16 hours a day, and no problems yet. I dont know what the guy meant who thought these drives feel cheap. Theyre professionally designed and built, and solid enough for plastic enclosures. Itd be nice if they were in metal cases, sure. If that jacked the price up $100, Id probably risk the Seagate. Id pay $50 more for metal, though. So now I have to decide whether to get another of these or the G-drive esata. Im a little afraid of putting four drives on a 4-port USB 3 hub, and esatas as fast as USB 3 in real terms on this machine, per my unscientific testing. Maybe Ill get one of each. It chaps my hide, though, to pay twice as much for the same capacity in a pretty metal case with a deadended technology interface. Thats more of an Apple fan club kind of move.

Ive been using these for years. If you have Windows: -Plug power adapter into Hard drive, -Plug USB cable in, -DO NOTHING: You will get a message saying it did not install correctly, -IGNORE WARNING: It doesnt matter. Go to My Computer and the drive will be there, -Copy and/or Cut and Paste your data If this does not work for you, you are doing something different than I have on four different Windows computers/laptops. I have the 2TB self-powered, 3TB cloud, and many other WD drives and they ALL INSTALL THIS EASY. If you are reading about a failed install; beats me, but the above has worked. Every time. Every Windows OS. Ever tower and or laptop. 4TB sounds like a lot, its not. Back up your data. We assume our computers wont die and take the data with them. Happens every day. Back Up! Daily if important! Buy two and be redundantly redundant! WD is my Go To for storing data for a DECADE. Trust it. USB 3.0 is FAST!!! Its great transferring large files in minutes instead of hours. This is USB 2.0 Compatible. BUT, It wont get super fast unless drive AND USB PORT are BOTH USB 3.0 Either way its a lot of memory for not a lot of money. I already am using two of the 4TB drives.

A little sceptical before ordering this drive with all of the bad reviews. I think that most of them concern the software which I do not use anyway so lets talk about the drive itself. It just works and it is fast. I added the WD USB 3.0 PCIx card in my 4 year old system along with an SSD and this external hard drive and it is like I have a new machine. I am very impressed with the speed and how easy everything was to set up. Basically I installed the software for the PCI card, installed it and then plugged in the drive. It was recognized instantly and worked just fine. I copied the software off of the drive then did the firmware update and then cloned my USB 2.0 drive to this one using Paragon HD suite. No issues what so ever. The software is not as bad as the reviews say. I was able to install just the portion I needed that gave me the ability to turn the sleep state off and now it turns off when the computer powers down. Why just four stars? I have only had it for three days!

The 2TB WD External Hard Drive (EHD) arrived a couple of weeks ago and it was a snap to attach to my computer. It is USB 3.0-enabled, but it is USB 2.0 compatible, so it attached quickly and easily to an available USB 2.0 port. It is REALLY DIFFICULT to find the best EHD (or anything else, for that matter), since one tends to see lots of pro and lots of con reviews. This particular EHD seemed to have a reasonably good ratio of pro to con, so I ordered it. So far, it has performed well -- i.e., it has not failed (as did my Seagate -- which the WD replaced -- very early in its career). However, the WD-provided backup software is a major drawback. Pros: * Attaches easily to an available USB 2.0 or 3.0 port * Starts up when the computer is started up * Operates silently and transparently * Good capacity for the $$ Cons: * The included backup software is very, very poor -- in fact, it is worse than useless. It does not allow one to choose specific files or folders to backup; instead, one is forced to choose the type of files one wants backed up to the EHD. This is sort of like picking up pennies wearing boxing gloves, i.e., awkward and frustrating. But it is actually worse than that -- the WD-provided software does NOT actually back up all of the files of the selected file types. Consequently, utilizing this backup software is a really bad idea if one is serious about reliable backups. The software included with my defunct Seagate drive (Seagate Manager) was significantly better. In any event, I have acquired third-party backup software as a work-around. * When the computer powers off, the WD EHD sits and flashes its light. It SEEMS as if it has spun down, but it would be nice if it completely powered down -- as, once again, my defunct Seagate used to do. (To be fair, I suppose I should give it 10 or 15 minutes to see if it eventually completely powers down......)

I have 4 My Book Essentials (USB-3.0) and one My Book 3.0 (USB-3.0). The Essential all seem to have an improved plug support bracket. It goes completely around the end of the plug. The 3.0 has just a simple side support tab. The latter looks really weak. I have been using a black/white epoxy to reinforce the plug to circuit board on 5 of 6 sides. It is thicker than the clear stuff, which started to wick into the plug of the first one I did, the My Book 3.0 drive (I managed to pick that out with a needle while still soft). Ive glued 4 of the 5 drives so far. 3 of those 4 use different, removable, circuit boards. This holds the plug and some other stuff. They all have a std SATA (serial ata) connection/plug for the hard drive itself. While I have not tried it, Im pretty sure that if you were to damage the plug you could swap the sub panel from a similar drive, perhaps any of them, long enough to recover data stuck in a drive w/a bad plug. The one gripe- the drive(s) are all 7% smaller than advertised.

external hard drives have become kind of mundane, but some are better than others.... useful hint: if you are technical, theres a free handy drive copy tool called Fastcopy (first hit on Google)... the guy who wrote it does some low level stuff with drive operation to maximize speed and it really works.... I was able to increase this drives throughput on USB2 by about 15% using fastcopy instead of just drag n drop.... back to this product Pro: - WD brand.... Ive had much better luck with WD than Seagate and others the last few years... they are all fragile devices, so dont spike them, but it seems like WD has been more reliable lately - it doesnt force you to use the onboard software which is awesome because Im a techie and dont want to use wizard BS. - has a monolithic supermodern look with no BS which I like - performance is good to great on USB 2.0 at 23MB / sec write, 35MB/ sec read... max possible is about 45MB/s but Ive never seen a 2.0 drive do even close to that ... Ill post 3.0 speeds when I can - it comes with WD SmartWare for windows and mac which is a wizard type management, encryption and continuous backup software.... looks like it can do the job, but I didnt try it.... search gH9Qj57PPgA on youtube to see a demo - no bright leds etc so it doesnt distract next to a TV or wherever... - 3TB size is nice n big - its a 3.5 Sata drive inside, so if you really need to, you can rip it apart and install in a PC in a pinch Con: - its a 3.5 drive so after you get the casing around it and all that, its large and not very portable, in comparison to smaller laptop hard drive based external drives, but they dont make them in 3TB versions yet - uses a new custom USB cable... so dont lose it and expect to pull one out of your spare parts easy.... overall it does the job, is well priced, and didnt force me to use its software... so I like it.... enjoy!

I have the Western Digital 2TB, then got the WD 3TB, and more recently got the WD 4TB. Now that the prices have come down, the WD 4TB is really the product you want if you need that much space. I have lost data from a 3TB that was not backed up, and it was a disaster. A corrupt MFT list on my WD 3TB spread while file after file disappeared during a 3 week time period and before I knew it the whole thing was unreadable. Sure, recovery software found most of the files later, but had no filenames and listed 1200 files with numbers from 0001 to 1200 by file size. Not good. Of course after reformatting the corrupt WD 3TB from NTFS to FAT32, and then back to NTFS (using Windows 7 because Windows XP would not do it successfully), the WD 3TB was just fine and is being used again. My advice is to partition your 4TB in half (unless you are only using it on a high-powered PC or laptop) because most HDTVs have little RAM, and even most DVD/BluRay players do not have the RAM or capability to recognize an external hard drive disk (E HDD) that is more than 2 terrabytes (2TB). If you dont have enough RAM in your PC or laptop, your computer will freeze up, just plugging in the USB, or will work sometimes, and will freeze up other times. Right click My Computer then go to disk managment and right click the drive name and format the drive in half (number wise). Format in NTFS (unless you want it for an X-Box). Use quick format. Be sure to NEVER UNPLUG THE USB CABLE when files are being transferred or when the device is still in contact with an operating system (Windows/Mac). Always use the disconnect hardware safely thing, and if it says cannot disconnect at this time, (make sure you dont have a window open in that drive), and shut the computer down if you have to by pressing the power button for 5 seconds. Unplugging the USB cable while it was still connected to the operating system is how I lost 3 terrabytes of data. I got away with it for 6 months, and one day, the data was corrupted and I am 90% sure this is why. Also, never allow any external HDD to be touched or moved while data transfer is occurring. The worst thing you can do it having a HDD moved vertically or unplugged when transfer is happening. Kristanna Loken would not be happy with this. Check to make sure your 4TB is not over-heating. Keep it cool, and only transfer what it can take - even if that takes more time than you had planned on. Even moving 1 TB can take 24 hours when using a PC that only has 4 gigs of RAM. No reason to do it all at one time. Heat can literally melt and kill a brand new external HDD. Cheers from Scotland mate - SCOTTY RULES!!!!!!

I only have USB 2.0 so I cant test how it works with 3.0. But with 2.0, it works the same as any of the 50 or so other USB external hard drives I have. I use my own backup software so I cant comment on any included software. So far, it has been reliable but since I only use it maybe once a week to once a month and the rest of the time it sits in a safe, its not getting any hard use. Edit: Ive been using this drive for a while now and finally bought this USB 3.0 Express Card for my laptop:

This is the third generation of WD My Book external drives that I have had (the first is over four years old and still running fine). The hardware, always good, just keeps getting better. The current drives use WD green drive technology that spins the drive only as fast as needed and slows it down at other times. Saves considerable energy. The drives fall short of my expectations in two ways. First, WD needs to be much more forthright about the security features they provide. Their specs are vague and some would lead you to believe their security feature hardware encrypts the content of the drive. The fact that I can turn it on and off with change of a password and it takes zero time to re-write the disk suggests the feature really is not much more than password access to the drive -- something that is much less desirable from a security perspective. I was expecting hardware encryption. I dont think I got it. Second, WD provides some basically grossly over-simplified back-up software. It provides no ability to control which directories are backed up; all or nothing. Dont bother to install it!