Western Digital MyBook Premium ES Edition

Reviewed by: Helix

03-13-08

Duration of ownership: 10 Months

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Overall Evaluation: This WD drive died after 10 months of using it for backup with thousand of files and pictures. The WD foreign call center diagnosed the problem over the phone and said it was the AC adapter that failed. They sent a new one, but that was not the solution since the disk still did not spin and the drive was totally dead. The cost to recover the files is estimated to run from $900 to $1,500 (per one of WD's data recovery service providers). While this drive is still under warranty (which means I send the dead drive back and WD sends me a new one), why would I want another inferior product? So I will pay to recover my data, throw the WD drive out and buy a new external hard drive that has a much lower failure rate. Not a pretty story and from what I am reading here, not a recommendable product.

Reviewed by: prushant

Updated: 15-Nov-07

Strengths: Dual Interface

Weaknesses: None so far

Overall Evaluation: This drive is fast with the sata interface and also with the usb 2.0 interface. Like other western digital my book hard drives this one too delivers great performance. also the mybook is the most elegant looking externak hard drives available in the market. The drive package contains all the cables needed to use it with sata and usb. The 8mb buffer makes it easy to watch movies that have been transferred to the drive and there is no pause or lag when listening to music stored o n the drive. Its another great product from WD.

Reviewed by: pbloverforever

Updated: 03-Oct-07

Strengths: Small, inexpensive, large capacity, eSATA

Weaknesses: Unreliable, failed drive/bad sectors, lost data, have to reformat to NTFS

Overall Evaluation: I purchased this HD only 5 MONTHS ago and it has already crashed. At first, I was very happy with the HD (other than the fact that I had to reformat it into NTFS - very odd) and it worked great with no complications, but all of a sudden, the HD crashed on me and I could no longer access the drive nor my files. Western Digital offered to send me a replacement drive, which is in process now, but the real value is the data. I'm still debating whether or not I should spend hundreds of dollars on recovering the data. In any case, BEWARE OF THIS HD!!!!!

Reviewed by: akanie

Updated: 18-Jul-07

Strengths: Plug and play with nice external case

Weaknesses: Didn't get the eSata to work and after reformatting to NTSF drive is only showing 465GB

Overall Evaluation: A nice plug and play hard drive but comes in FAT32 partition. Had to reformat it to NTSF. It's got a nice case but the case seems pretty big compared to some other external hard drives. Did not get the eSata to work but that could have been my eSata card and was a little more expensive due to the fact it's got the eSata connection.

Reviewed by: rosey5758

Updated: 05-Jul-07

Strengths: Easy Plug and Play, and easy to use software; good value for the price.

Weaknesses: Aside from having to reformat after inital startup, none.

Overall Evaluation: I am very pleased with the product in terms of performance, capacity and price. It is easy to use and quiet. The USB transfer rate is about what one would expect and descent.

Reviewed by: frankby12000

Updated: 06-Jun-07

Strengths: fast for USB, eSATA is a nice feature. shows remaining capacity with LED ring, And status

Weaknesses: None that I can think of.

Overall Evaluation: This is definitely the nicest external that I have tried (I have switch the 5 externals I have to My Book Premium ES 500's). It is small, unlike many of the cases that are unwieldy when you're trying to find a place to keep them. capacity And status with LED rings is verry nice.