Entered CNET Catalog: 03/17/2006
SKU: WDG1C5000N
Manufacturer: Western Digital Corp.
Manufacturer description
They're your photos... your music... your videos... your important files. Make extra room for them, back them up, and keep them safe on WD's My Book Premium. This reliable, easy-to-use external hard drive is the perfect storage solution for all your precious digital assets.Product summary
The good: The MyBook Premium edition is compact, employs an innovative design, has an external capacity gauge, comes with backup software, and is a speedy data reader.
The bad: The MyBook Premium edition is slow to write data, over both USB 2.0 and FireWire 400.
The bottom line: If write speed isn't a top priority, the Western Digital MyBook is a good deal at around $300 for a 500GB drive. It'll look good on your desk or bookshelf, too.
CNET editors' review
- Editors' Rating: 7.0
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 06/15/2006
- Drive type: external hard disk drive
- Available capacities: 160GB; 250GB; 320GB; 400GB; 500GB--all drives have a 7,200rpm hard disk drive
- Capacity of test unit: 500GB
- Cache: 16MB for the 400GB and 500GB drives; 8MB for the rest
- Dimension: 6.8 x 5.6 x 2.2 (HLD in inches); 2.6 pounds
- Notable design features: backup button; book-like design
- Connection options: FireWire 400, USB 2.0
- OSs supported: Windows 98 SE/Me/2000/XP or, Mac OS X 10.2.8+
- Software included: EMC Retrospect Express Backup and System Recovery Software (on drive)
- Additional features: capacity gauge: the backup button features an LED that indicates how much space is available on your drive; the drive turns itself off when not in use
- Service/support: one-year warranty; toll-free phone support: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT on Saturday; e-mail support via an online form; Web site has a searchable knowledge base, FAQs, downloadable drivers, and software.
On CNET Labs' test bench, the 500GB MyBook was very sluggish when writing, via both FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 connections. The drive took almost 36 minutes to write our 10GB test folder, about three times slower than other hard drives with the same specs. On the other hand, in the read test, the MyBook drive took slightly less than 10 minutes to get the job done, which was the fastest among all of the external hard drives we've tested.
The Western Digital MyBook comes in a very sleek design that is shaped like a medium-size book and weighs about the same. It features a button in front that activates the bundled Retrospect backup software. The coolest thing about the MyBook drive is that the button has a round, blue LED ring around it that indicates the amount of space available on the hard drive.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83
User Rating: 
3/10
Frustratingly undependable; seeking an alternative.
Pros: The capacity when it works.
Cons: It is undependable.
User Rating: 
1/10
Absolute garbage
Pros: Good price at Costco
Cons: I bought two MyBook external drives at Costco, one 500MB and one 1TB. They both died within a year. Before they died, they both repeatedly became unviewable in Windows. Worst garbage I've encountered in many years of buying computers and peripherals.
User Rating: 1/10
2 i TB drives crapped out within 4 months.
Pros: Fast and light unit
Cons: Seems like the connections don't last. The drives were on did not show any connections and repeatedly did not connect after initial problems. I see the unit is on and does not connect to any connection.
Updated on Sep 9, 2009sorry for the errors in grammar!
User Rating: 
2/10
Terrible product and terrible tech support
Pros: Can't think of any.
Cons: Tech support. We've had nothing but problems with this unit and tech support has been less than helpful.
User Rating: 1/10
Bad decision to purchase My Book
Pros: No good common about Western Digital's design and their support at all. I have encountered bad experience with them and their product. Never buy WD product or computers that use their products again.
Cons: My WD5000D032 doesn't boot up any more. It doesn't allow me to debug or data recover. I stored valuable pictures and videos taken from my young baby, friends and families. I'd appreciate if anyone can provide a clear instruction on data recovery.
User Rating: 2/10
Doesn't work if copying from on PC to another
Pros: Price was good and appearance looks like book sitting on shelf.
Cons: Bought to copy hard drive from old desktop to laptop. When I connected to laptop nothing worked. Customer service said because I already loaded onto one PC I can't load to another. Returned old unit bought new "revised" unit still doesn't work.
User Rating: 2/10
Died after one year
Pros: External hard drive
Cons: Died after one year,
User Rating: 1/10
Hot Buttered Crap
Pros: For the first year it was great. After that, not so much.
Cons: The drive dies after NORMAL use any other drive would handle with flying colors.
After I finally got my data off, I started to reformat the drive and it wouldn't even get halfway through before it just stopped. I certainly won't be using it ever again. My other external HD (Acomdata) has been working great since the day I bought it 5+ years ago. Looks like I know which HD I'm going to buy to replace this piece of junk WD drive. Anyone need a paper weight?
User Rating: 2/10
I have the home edition and it sucks!!! POST never saw
Pros: NONE NONE NONE
Cons: EVERYTHING! Computer never saw it : USB/firewire/esata!!!
User Rating: 1/10
Product Is NOT Worth Your Money Has Power Supply Issues
Pros: I didn't find anything useful other than it was on sale.
Cons: Power supply gave up on me only after two months of use.
User Rating: 1/10
product died and there's no support
Pros: aesthetics and storage capacity
Cons: Stopped working after less than 2 years. Customer support is abysmal.
I asked if this product has experienced similar problems and he asked if I started my computer with the external attached, which I have. He stated this is very bad for all externals and was likely the cause of my failure. I've had 2 other externals that are older than this one and still work to this day. I'm now left with a very expensive paper weight.
After that call, did some research on the web which brought me here. Appears I'm not the only one that's having problems with this line of product. It's a shame that they didn't accept the blame for producing a crappy product.
Bottom line, I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER WESTERN DIGITAL PRODUCT AGAIN!
User Rating: 1/10
Terrible! BEWARE!
Pros: Nothing this is a terrible piece of equipment
Cons: Its slow, it does not always load to your computer unless you restart and a couple of months after the warranty was up it stopped loading completely and i lost all of my information on it.
User Rating: 1/10
dies suddendly when warranty expires
Pros: Nothing is good about this product. It will die and make you loose all your data.
Cons: Everything; piece of garbage
User Rating: 1/10
Cheap in cost, but cheaper in construction and service
Pros: They're relatively inexpensive (but not the cheapest by any means)
Cons: Mine lasted a couple of months past the lousy 1 yr warranty. Western Digital's customer service wasn't helpful at all since they said it was out of warranty. They say there's no way for me to open the case to try to recover data off the drive either.
Mine couldn't be accessed by the computer just a few months after they say the 1 yr. warranty expired. It powers up, and doesn't make any ugly noises, but none of the computers I've tried subsequently can recognize it. It's probably just a problem with the electronic controllers, but, because the warranty was expired, their customer support just wasn't interested in even trying to help.
Add to that the fact that they tell me the case cannot be opened to access the drive, so I can't even open it up to try to replace the contorller myself or even to try to recover the data.
Bottom line: Seagates and LaCies, for example, are less expensive AND last longer, much longer. There are plenty of other brands that are decent quality too, even if they seem a little more expensive at first. The Western Digital MyBook will costs twice as much when you realize that you have to buy two of them to back each other up for when they crash in 18 months. If you don't need the data, then just don't save it. If you need the data, then you need something better than a MyBook.
User Rating: 
5/10
Look for another band
Pros: when this hard drive is working properly it is great. However, it does not work for long
Cons: Stops working without a valid reason
User Rating: 1/10
worst buy ever
Pros: nothing at all
Cons: worked for just over a year, maybe used 10 times...look at the other reviews, this is a common theme...bought at costco, crashed and no support. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME...look for another company that is willing to stand behind their drives
no constumer support or willingness to help
there is a reason for a 1 year warranty...the failure rate is significant after that time....my 15 year NEC hard is more reliable then this POS
how can a new drive have so many issues with so little use and why can't a company own up to the fact so many ppl have complained.
I WILL NEVER PURCHASE anything from Western Digital
User Rating: 2/10
Good until it stopped working
Pros: Price. Easy to hook up.
Cons: Worked for about 1.5 years, started buzzing, then clicking, then no longer recognized by the OS. I've got another WD (pre-my-book) 250GB and it's still going strong. Seems like the quality took a dive with the MyBook series.
User Rating: 1/10
Died after ~2 years.
Pros: Easy to set up
Cons: Fails - multiple reports on the web of external My Book failures (unlike WD internal hard drives which are fairly reliable). Usually with clicking but not showing up on desktop.
I then read about others who removed the hard drive from the external unit and mounted the drive internally so I decided to try this.
Mine differed from these enclosures:
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/7/t819501-how-to-take-apart-your-wd-mybook/
http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-mybook-open-case-recover-data.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlySnyJ0CQ
It is closest to this one:
http://www.sigg3.net/b2perma.php?p=1185&c=1 but no rubber band - only glued on metal cover.
I had to destroy the case to get the hard drive out as mine differed from the ones described above (and they are not built to take apart!!!!). First there are no external screws. Pry off the metal perforated grill that covers the back of the unit. This is just glued on. Instead of a rubber gasket, my unit had vinyl that was all part of one piece so I couldn't peal off the gasket. Taking off the metal perforated grill reveals 3 tabs on the bottom (these were covered up) plus the readily apparent 3 tabs on the top. Press these down and hold them down by wedging something in the perforations. On the long edge close to the connectors, pry outward with a screw driver since there are tabs here that prevent you from sliding the hard drive out. Then try to slide out the hard drive away from the metal skin. This method is based on the disassembled unit. I had to pry the whole plastic unit away from the metal front casing so if the above method doesn't work, try brute force (just don't pry on the hard drive.
One you get the plastic holder away from the metal front piece, take out every screw you can see. Be careful with the flat screw that holds the on/off switch (if your unit has one) since this is easy to strip. Take out the 4 screws holding the SATA circuitry to the hard drive and unplug the wires, the 3 screws holding the front switch, and the 4 screws holding the hard drive to the plastic piece. This allows you to remove the metal holder and the hard drive. Now take off the 4 screws that hold the hard drive in place. Then pry off the silicone washers. This releases the hard drive which is covered with a metal film. Carefully pry/peal this off. Don't damage the controller board.
This revealed a WD5000ks caviar drive se16 which is a SATA drive made April 22, 2006.
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
No jumpers were installed.
I installed the drive into the internal slot of my PowerMac G5 and it now shows up on the desktop. I rebuilt the drive with Disk Warrior (it had minor errors) and checked it with SMARTReporter which reports that the drive passes the SMART tests.
It's has been up for 5 hours and works fine, no data loss.
So, I think that the problem was with a defective SATA connector/circuit. If you catch the drive early when it begins clicking (don't leave it on long with it clicking as this may mess up the hard drive heads), you can remove the drive and use the SATA circuits in your computer to mount the drive.
Hope this helps. Again, my advice is the minute you hear the clicking sounds, try fixing via usual techniques but if these don't work, take the hard drive out of the enclosure (sooner rather than later) and try it internally. This will void your warranty but might allow you to save your data (and maybe even the hard drive).
User Rating: 1/10
Never Buying Westner Digital
Pros: Size and appearance
Cons: Reliability
User Rating: 
4/10
My Drive just disappeared
Pros: Cheap method of backing up information
Cons: just lasted over the warranty time
I found by googling 'MyBook Problems' that many people are having this problem with this drive and it seems a lot of people are having the same problem. I've spent about 2 hrs trying various methods I've learned that other people have done that has fixed the problem, but so far anything that has worked for other people to solve their 500 gb Mybook problems have worked for me.
The MYBook is being recognized as a 'USB Mass Storage device' and not a harddrive. I can't access the information on it, and the unit is very noisy, metal clanking sounds. It may be toast, and I hardly ever used the drive that is the bad part.
User Rating: 1/10
"Click of death" - now I know what it sounds like
Pros: The only thing I am looking for from a hard drive is reliability. I did not get it with this one.
Cons: The drive died after less than 2 years.
User Rating: 2/10
Only lasted 14 14 months.
Pros: Good when it worked.
Cons: Barely lasted longer than its warranty.
User Rating: 1/10
Inconsistent at best!
Pros: Ease of use.
Cons: You never know when it will work or when it will not.
User Rating: 1/10
Terrible product!
Pros: I really can't think of anything positive to say.
Cons: The drive failed shortly after my one-year warranty was up.
I recently plugged it in to do the regular weekly back-up and got a message saying the drive needed to be formatted. I called Western Digital and they were not helpful at all...told me the drive had failed and to Google for a free data recovery program.
That didn't work, as the drive wasn't recognized by the program or my computer(kept getting format message), so I called a data recovery service. They said much of their business these days is recovering data from failed Western Digital Books. I am now paying them a lot of money to recover my photos, music, etc, from a hard drive that lasted little more than a years.
I've learned two lessons...to have two media storage sources and to never buy another Western Digital hard-drive
User Rating: 1/10
unit has little limited lifetime
Pros: looks nice
Cons: quality of disk poor
User Rating: 1/10
they are garbage
Pros: none literally none
Cons: too many to describe, read other neghative reviews all accurate
User Rating: 2/10
drive is going into hybernation during backup process
Pros: In view of failing in its main task I consider it a complete failure as a hard drive. Imagine your car is going into hybernation during driving.... So zero pro
Cons: Same as above: In view of failing in its main task I consider it a complete failure as a hard drive. Imagine your car is going into hybernation during driving.... So zero pro
User Rating: 3/10
SLOW with UNINSTALLABLE SOFTWARE
Pros: Large capacity
Cons: Slow, CPU hog, Backup software impossible to remove. Support is awful.
I purchased this product because I wanted to upgrade from a 200MB external drive to a bigger one. I chose WD because that is the brand I had for the smaller drive. I had no problems with that one until I tried to move the data to the new drive. Now even the old one stopped working.
The new HD does work, but it is unexpectedly slow. Very often it stops being recognized by my computer which is Dell 9150 running WinXP. I have to power down the HD and re-connect to computer or reboot the computer to get access. Never had to do that with the older drive.
Look for something else with better review. This one does not pass the smell test.
User Rating: 1/10
Became disfunctional in about a year
Pros: Cheap, easy to use
Cons: Slow, sudden malfunction, TOTAL FAILURE in just little over a YEAR [1-yr is the factory warrenty provided]
Although during regular usage i found it to be little slow than what i expected, but it was OK. Someimes
I found that the external drive wouldn't show up in the explorer, which, i found that, comes back with a
hard power cycle.
But the main nightmare happened when the whole drive became disfunctional one day. I could hear 6 clicking
noise when trying to access it, then the HD appears losing any internal motion. I lost many valuable data
stored there. Honestly it appears to be a scam, while you are lured to buy a cheap hard drive, and in turn
the system crashes, and the data recovery takes about thousand. Thenk twice before buying My Book!!!!
User Rating: 1/10
BUY THE SEAGATE!
Pros: Compact Design
Cons: HIGH FAILURE RATE!
It is UNRELIABLE and may fail at any given moment! I had one sitting on my shelf for almost three years, to back up the data in my old Dell. The Western Digital My Book failed, but the hard drive in my old Dell is still working. I will be buying a SEAGATE with it's (5) FIVE year warranty for my future back up storage.
Forget about Customer Service a Western Digital, the guy in India was more help.
User Rating: 4/10
good while it worked
Pros: easy to use & install
Cons: dead. only lasted for just over a year
User Rating: 2/10
Died for no reason
Pros: Easy to setup, good transfer rate
Cons: It just died for no reason
User Rating: 1/10
too unstable for data storage or backup
Pros: works fine
Cons: until your electricity goes out
User Rating: 1/10
Stopped working after 16 months
Pros: Nothing that other external drives dont also have.
Cons: Short lifespan and shorter warranty period.
User Rating: 3/10
MyBook FireWire daisy chain is very flaky.
Pros: Distinctive book-like design; disks are reliable so far.
Cons: Often they do not connect with the computer.
User Rating: 1/10
It's a WD. What did you expect?
Pros: It's pretty.
Cons: Serial number defaced, loud, slow, heavy, vibrates a ton, board failed
Let's start with the first and main problem: The board died. WD won't touch it because the serial number doesn't match the drive's model. The serial number reports a 300 GB internal hard disk, and mine is an external 250. Being me, curious, I took it apart because I couldn't get service. I've found which chip it is: it's a ST Semi power controller that's getting very, very, very hot. it left a small red mark.
When it actually worked, it was very slow to read and write. The processor is a simple oxford semi, and it's not too fast.
It put off a lot of heat and for the first couple days a burning electrical smell that was sickening. Had to have a fan beside it.
It made horrible vibrating noises and it was very loud.
Go get a seagate or a LaCie or a SmartDisk. WD is awful.
Western Digital. Because we hate you(tm)
User Rating: 5/10
Not Impressed
Pros: Design is good
Cons: Speed was average
User Rating: 5/10
Hit and Miss
Pros: Good Price/Size ratio
Cons: Unreliable, I had to return it.
User Rating: 4/10
Not reliable
Pros: Worked well while it lasted
Cons: Did not last long
User Rating: 1/10
Worse External HD on the market
Pros: Pros are be smart find another brand
Cons: dont waste your money
User Rating: 
9/10
Good drive
Pros: Very fast when reformatted to NTFS
Cons: Slow as standard.
User Rating: 1/10
Horrible device, do not buy.
Pros: Cheap to purchase.
Cons: Data loss, powers down on it's own, slow.
Again, do not purchase this device. If you want an external drive, get one with a power switch.
User Rating: 
10/10
Fast and easy to use
Pros: Fast, easy to use and quiet
Cons: Setting up takes time
User Rating: 1/10
myBook Flaky disappears from computer during backup
Pros: None, its not dependable Therefore not worth anything
Cons: It's not dependable; cannot trust it will remain 'on' for an entire backup cycle
I cannot image they where unaware that the disk would unexpectedly turn itself off or something, it happens so often. The computer reports the device is working correctly, although it also thinks it has 0 disk space, and no files to display.
Western Digital should be ashamed that they allowed a crappy product like this on the market with their name on it.
User Rating: 1/10
I can't believe they sell this
Pros: Nice looking
Cons: But don't bother trying to restore anything
Hah! There may be room, but just try restoring any data. Guess what? You can't! Both systems were running Windows XP SP2, yet computer B couldn't work with computer A's backup files - the software (which is EXTREMELY unfriendly and uninformative in failure mode) kept either throwing bad memory reference errors, or telling me that the backup was in an invalid format, depending on which way I tried to restore.
I finally made the call to tech support who couldn't open a proper case for me, sorry, because they couldn't open a case or authorize my credit card because their "computer was down". I finally got to a manager (after being on hold for 15 minutes) who was compassionate enough to help. He talked me through a couple of things that weren't very obvious (I've been a software engineer for 30 years - believe me, they're WAY beyond non-obvious) and we got off the phone 45 minutes ago, and just now (as I'm writing this) the restore software (from a backup on the current machine which we were trying just to eliminate problems) tells me that it's ready to proceed with a restore of 20 GB worth of backup, which it has taken just shy of an hour to get ready to do. Speedy, it ain't. And it takes about the same amount of time to get ready to start a backup - you can't just select the files or drives you want to backup, click "go" and walk away - noooo, it's got to build a detailed file list FIRST, and then you click and walk away. So if I start the backup at midnight, I can't go to bed until 1:00, because I've got to wait for the stupid file list to build.
The real show stopper, however, is this inability to restore files off another computer to a new computer. The support manager's take on this was "well, sounds like you should have done a copy and paste, ha ha ha".
Lucky for him I couldn't reach through the telephone. What do you purchase a backup system for? Restore after catastrophe, do you think? Unbelieveable... do NOT purchase this product.
When attempting to preview this rating, I received a warning from CNet that I should be pretty sure what I'm doing by giving a rating of "Abysmal". I do not choose this rating lightly. I reviewed the definition standards. "Abysmal" is merited when "The product has no redeeming qualities and worse, may actually harm you or your productivity". Well, it certainly has harmed my productivity in this instance. I thought my data was safely backed up AND RESTORABLE. It may have been backed up, but if I cannot restore that work (and I have now invested over three hours in attempting to do so), I am - how do you say it? ah, yes: HOSED.
User Rating: 2/10
DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!
Pros: Lots of capacity.
Cons: Sudden death in13 months.
User Rating: 1/10
DON'T BY IT. It's junk and support is non-existent
Pros: Good concept
Cons: It doesn't work and they won't fix it
User Rating: 2/10
You're a shnook if you buy a My Book
Pros: Geat when it's working (IF it's working)
Cons: Disaster when it dies (and it probably will)
But nothing is worse than being betrayed by something you love.
Over a period of maybe ten months or so, I put somewhere between 200-300 GB of data on this thing. Then, one day, it just up and died. Mechanical failure, I believe. Yes, after less than a year of use and no kind of abuse, it just died on me.
Now, I?m looking at paying well over $1000 for data recovery, which is not covered under the warranty, of course. That?s assuming the data is still there and wasn?t destroyed.
I also need to buy a new external HDD. It certainly won?t be one made by Western Digital.
DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!!! (or anything else made by this useless company)
User Rating: 1/10
Don't Buy This
Pros: There are no pros.
Cons: The drive is fried, I lost everything.
User Rating: 4/10
Makes easy stuff easy, anything else too difficult..
Pros: Very basic operations are easy
Cons: Anything but basic operations is extremely cumbersome
However, I do a lot with my computer that doesn't fall into WD's predefined backup file types. I need to use the advanced backup feature to avoid uncessary backups. Bizarrely, this feature can remember my file type preferences, but can't remember folders preferences. End result: no quick backup or incremental backup for me.
Details on files: This packs your files into a proprietary format. Backups are a split into multiple files of <= 2GB. Fortunately, the backup created always includes a restore utility, so this is not a problem.
User Rating: 3/10
Didn't Last Long ...
Pros: Nice Design
Cons: Failed after a few months, didn't like the software
First problem was the software it came with. It was clumsy and I ended up downloading a 3rd party free product and didn't bother with the software they provided.
Worked well for a few months, and then just stopped working entirely. I can't get my computer to recognize it anymore, and when it turns on it makes this strange sound like something spinning down over and over.
I've only had it for 3-4 months so I am giong to try to get it replaced ... but I have concerns that it wont last even if they do fix it. I don't recommend this line (MyBook).
User Rating: 1/10
Backup WD MyBook Drives - they fail quickly
Pros: nice design
Cons: firewire port fails within couple of weeks; usb port fails next
User Rating: 9/10
Long Lasting Reliability I have found
Pros: Quiet, Power Button, Reliable, Backup Software
Cons: Crapware; price
User Rating: 1/10
Piece of junk!!!!!
Pros: Looks cooll
Cons: It dies in a flies lifetime!!!!!!!
User Rating: 2/10
Didn't last 6 months
Pros: Nice looks
Cons: Doesn't last
User Rating: 2/10
3rd drive in 9 months
Pros: Disk drive OK
Cons: Interface Sucks
An additional irritant was spending 45 minutes with support trying to straighten out my warranty.
Throughout the years I've always had excellent luck with WD drives, and I believe that the drives in the My Book enclosure are fine. The interface electronics seem to be the weak link on this product.
My next external drive will be in an user serviceable enclosure, and it for darn sure won't be a WD.
User Rating: 
7/10
First one so...
Pros: Design, small footprint, quiet, cool (running).
Cons: Is slow on sytem back-ups.
User Rating: 1/10
Biggest POS on the market!
Pros: The device looks nice
Cons: Reports that files are there, then magically they disappear
User Rating: 1/10
eerie coincidences
Pros: the light on the front looks pretty...
Cons: WD is dangerous
I had this drive for exactly 4 weeks, just enough time to load the only copy of THOUSANDS of media files from various computers in my house in order to clear space. Today, it died the exact same way as the last one... no trauma, not even plugged into the wall, but when I went to turn it on, I got a light and nothing else. Just a random death without warning, much like a S.I.D. except for a hard drive not a baby. Scary stuff, I know...I took the drive to Computer Builder's Warehouse, who confirmed it was completely dead in every way, and I called every data recovery service approved by Western Digital. It's okay, they assured me, no matter what the problem is the cost would never exceed $3,750!!!!! Unbelievable. So unless you're planning on keeping two hard drives with identical information, or unless you bankroll enough loot to put away a few grand for hard drive data insurance, I would stay away from the WD.
R.I.P. to my peace of mind and to my half-terabyte of media...
User Rating: 
8/10
My Favorite External HD
Pros: Best looking HD, alot of storage space
Cons: A bit Slow :\
User Rating: 7/10
how to reformat hd to ntfs?
Pros: the footprint is nice and small
Cons: why use fatfat32
User Rating: 9/10
I bought this to store music and scanned files, it is a bottomless pit for what I am using it for, I
Pros: Easy to install, doesn't take up much space on my computer desk, maintenance free.
Cons: I really haven't found anything I don't like about it yet.
User Rating: 1/10
Died after a few months.
Pros: Cool blue light thingy
Cons: Died after a few months.
User Rating: 8/10
It is a great, cheap external hard drive
Pros: Well, it's 500GB.. has dual interface... and had 2 FW ports to allow a chain. Good for computers with limited ports.
Cons: The blue light on the front won't turn off.. Ever..
User Rating: 5/10
Nice drive, but crashed after 6 months
Pros: Easy to set up and use
Cons: Not very fast, crashed on me after 6 months
Good thing I have most of my data backed up somewhere else.
User Rating: 
6/10
Bug: Can't daisy chain 2 or more of these
Pros: decent speed, nice looking
Cons: daisy chain problems
User Rating: 9/10
Good value for the money
Pros: Both Firewire and USB connections
Cons: Comes formatted for FAT32
The only complaint I have about this drive is that it comes formatted to FAT32 in order to be compatible with older versions of Windows, such as 98SE. I'm running Windows XP Pro.
The instructions for formatting the drive to NTFS leave something to be desired, as it is DESTRUCTIVE. It is better to reformat the drive using the Windows Command Line method, as it is non-destructive. That is, if you already have some files on this drive and you forgot to format it to NTFS, using the command line method it will not erase your data already on the drive.
The drive is daisy chained via the firewire port to another generic external drive, and finally to my digital video camera. Though I was initially concerned about this, I have not experienced any reliability issues doing this. It all plays nicely together.
I highly recommend this drive to anyone looking to boost their storage capabilities.
User Rating: 3/10
Could not create bootable drive for Mac
Pros: for sale everywhere, competitively priced
Cons: lacks functionality of other firewire drives
User Rating: 1/10
Customer Service is the Worst!
Pros: Looks good sitting on a shelf
Cons: Customer Service
Western Digital customer service said they would only replace it with a refurbished model.
I bought it new and 3 days later I only get a refurbished replacement??
Buy Maxtor
User Rating: 8/10
Basic plug-and-work drive
Pros: Simple, easy, quiet, just works.
Cons: Speed not fantastic.
Lastly, the green light on my oldest one (6 months old?) is significanly faded compared to newer ones, so they don't match - but that is a minor cosmetic beef.
User Rating: 6/10
Does not play nicely with others
Pros: Price, looks
Cons: FireWire does not daisy chain well
I should add that I had no problems running the daisy chained drives on my old XP system, so maybe the problem is with Vista? Wouldn't be surprising.
I moved the MyBook to the end of the FireWire daisy chain and it responds better to Acronis operations. However, running an Acronis operation on the first (LaCie) drive in the daisy chain still produces strange behavior: the MyBook whines a little louder, and the DVD drive is powered on and off intermittently and clicks. Turning off the MyBook while the LaCie drive operation is in progress stops the problem.
User Rating: 1/10
Return it and get your money back ! No security to protect the contents if lost or stolen .
Pros: Powers off automaticly when computer is turned off
Cons: No security to protect the contents if lost or stolen , other makes of external hard drives has
Powers off , even while computer is on and on idle ,cannot power up unless unpluging the hard drive and rebooting computer .
My old Maxtor Onetouch III did not have this problem .Plus Maxtor has security software .
User Rating: 5/10
Don't judge this book by it's cover
Pros: Stylish and quiet
Cons: Speed (it's slow), lack of true Vista Support, WD Support is non-existant
The drive is slow and lacks true Vista support. It will work in Vista, but Vista frequently pops up a window informing you of driver compatiblity issues. In addition, the bundled WD Backup software is a joke. It won't run in Advanced mode (in Vista) and when a backup is scheduled, no file changes are detected... kinda defeats the purpose of having a backup drive.
User Rating: 1/10
Major Firewire Problmes!
Pros: It looks cool
Cons: Unreliable. No daisy-chaining of firewire possible!
Not wanting to throw in the towel, I googled and googled until I found I found this thread:
http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=periphs&Number=800344&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1
Apparently it has something to do with the Firewire ID's not being unique, or something to that effect.
DO NOT BUY THESE DRIVES! Good looks, but useless!
User Rating: 9/10
Great Cheap External Hard Drive
Pros: Cheap, fast, good build quality
Cons: Large, extra chords, some versions are loud
User Rating: 6/10
No Vista support available yet..
Pros: Styling, capacity, price
Cons: Not compatible with MS Vista
Western Digital does not provide technical support or drivers for our products installed under Windows Vista at this time. We will be releasing updated software utilities and drivers for selective Western Digital products in the near future. However, at this time we do not have any ETA on when software or drivers maybe available."
User Rating: 8/10
If you want speed, reformat the disc as NTFS
Pros: cost and Firewire/USB 2.0
Cons: have to install with USB to install firewire driver
Then I noticed that it was shipped formatted as FAT32. I reformatted it as NTFS and the increase in speed was amazing.
Now we will have to see if the product is reliable.
If your system is running NTFS on your internal drives, you can realize a singificant performance gain by reformatting the Western Digital MyBook Premium Edition 500 GB External Hard Drive from FAT32 (as shipped) to NTSF. If you are running FAT32 or your internal drives, do not make this change. Also, before your reformat to NTFS copy the Western Digital Files and folders to another drive before reformatting and replace them after. However, if you forget to do this, you can download these files from support at the Western Digital Site.
User Rating: 8/10
Works very well, it does the job
Pros: Small, stylish, very quiet operation, easy to use
Cons: WDBackup software does not have system backup and recovery
User Rating: 9/10
It works well, and it looks good
Pros: Looks cool, turns off when computer turns off, durable, pretty quiet, led in middle is pretty sweet (inner tells capacity, outer tells activity), stackable
Cons: Pricey, tries to tell you that you need to install some software
Overall this product is well designed and its only flaw i see is the price...but like anything that will go down with time
User Rating: 8/10
Stylish, handy LED
Pros: Good storage, good price, stylick
Cons: Slow writing, not super-portable
It's somewhat large, so I was worried about taking it with me somewhere, but it's proven quite sturdy so far.
User Rating: 7/10
500gb for $199 at BestBuy til I think 07/29/06
Pros: It works- its an external HDD that stores stuff- I put videos, photos and music on it. It's CHEAP too.
Cons: It writes slow and according to plex has some power issue- he must've bought from some refurb co.
User Rating: 9/10
Sleek, Slim, and Sexy for an External Hard Drive
Pros: iPodesque Design, Capaity and Usage Lights, Easy "Plug and Play" Use, Firewire and USB Connectivity
Cons: Expensive for an ExHDD, First Uses are Choppy, Power Down Problems
First of all, let me say that this is an amazing looking device. The entire device is lined with morse code holes. This gives the external drive its "book" like feature. It is undoubtedly the most best looking external hard drive on the market today, and it is really nice to have on any desk in your home or office. It also is very small, and fits in even the smallest of spaces, which is also a very well thought out feature for this drive. Of course it is not pocket sized, but for such a large capacity drive, it is very small.
Another feature I really liked with this drive is its two-ringed capacity and use lights. This helps you know how much memory, first of all, is left on the drive, which can be very useful, and also lets you know if you have power and/or connectivity with your computer. While they may seem very useless, there are actually a very nice feature to have.
The drive also funcitions very nicely, for the most part. For those of you listening and planning to buy this drive, listen to this very important advice. The two rings also double as a power button for the device, so BEFORE YOU PLUG YOUR HARD DRIVE INTO YOUR CPU, WHETHER BY USB OR FIREWIRE, TURN ON THE HARD DRIVE BY PRESSING THIS BUTTON!!!! Otherwise, functionallity is very lack-luster, and can be very slow and unbearable. The drive has a hard time to spin-up with computer start-up, so this is very important. If you do this, however, you will find this hard drive to work perfectly. This drive is also formatted at FAT32, which is a great file format, but personally, I recommend changing the file system to a NTFS format. It, at least for me, seems to run faster and function better with this type of format.
This drive is also extremely fast when it comes to the "import and export" of information and files. As a person who loves music, photos, and video editing, I can tell you how fast this drive really is.
This is really my perspective of this drive. As I stated, it is a bit pricey, but is very much worth it. While first uses, as I stated, can be a bit choppy until your computer really starts to recognize this drive as another hard drive, it really funtions very nicely. I am very pleased with Western Digital's MyBook, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a new external hard drive for their laptop or desktop computer system.
User Rating: 2/10
Western Digital Confirms HUGE Problems
Pros: Small and Fairly Light for 500GB
Cons: Western Digital Confirms Power Off Problems
The first call agent got a "senior manager" who then claimed that it's only happened to "one or two drives" but that there was a dedicated support agent for this specific problem with this drive -- this seems highly unlikely as the support agent wouldn't have any work to do.
The level two support guy also said that this dedicated support agent couldn't call me back until tomorrow because he was so busy on calls -- where do they get these people? My three-year-old daughter can make up a more internally consistent fabrication than this guy.
He asked me not to take it back and to instead wait a day or two to have a call agent explore the issue with me. I told him that if they were going to compensate me as part of their support staff, I'd do it, but otherwise they should try to hire a few extra people to test these things before they ship them.
Unless you too want to volunteer 20 hours of work for the Western Digital support department, don't buy this drive.
