WD 1TB mybook essential

[athenaesword]

thinking of gettin this for only 200bucks. i've heard somewhere before though that it restricts sharing of media files. anyoen can confirm this?

any feedback or recommendations on this is also welcome. if you've got comments on the 500gb as well i'd be glad to hear it.

[clocker]

Although I have no direct personal experience with these things, it seems that we see a lot of people complaining about them, so I'd be wary.

I think the best way to go is just get the drive of your choice and put it in an external enclosure.
That way you needn't deal with the foibles of someone else's software.
If you get a SATAII drive and an enclosure that supports eSATA, your transfer rates will be much faster than a USB interface as well.

Win, win.

[athenaesword]

well it's 200bucks for a 1tb external drive, so i'm thinking it's a pretty damned good deal.

i can remove the enclosure and put it in another one if i wanted to, but i don't see the point. its' mainly for all the HD movies that take up motherloads of space.

what i can't deal with though is that i can't share my files with these. that'd put me in a spot.

[clocker]

well it's 200bucks for a 1tb external drive, so i'm thinking it's a pretty damned good deal.


Indeed.
The cheapest SATA 1TB drive at Newegg right now is @$240 so what quality drive do think WD is throwing at this thing for $40 less (including the enclosure AND software)?

Seems to me that many of these seemingly great external drive deals must be using bottom of the barrel drives to meet their pricepoint.
I would also think that the backup drive would be the one drive you'd make sure was good since you're counting on it to store your data, so splurging here would make sense.

Then again, it's not MY money.

[athenaesword]

well it's 200bucks for a 1tb external drive, so i'm thinking it's a pretty damned good deal.


Indeed.
The cheapest SATA 1TB drive at Newegg right now is @$240 so what quality drive do think WD is throwing at this thing for $40 less (including the enclosure AND software)?

Seems to me that many of these seemingly great external drive deals must be using bottom of the barrel drives to meet their pricepoint.
I would also think that the backup drive would be the one drive you'd make sure was good since you're counting on it to store your data, so splurging here would make sense.

Then again, it's not MY money.

hmm a couple of guys have opened theirs up and they're 1tb sata drives. it's some kind of IT fair here so they're having these promotions. they're 16mb 7200rpm, accordign to the ppl who've opened them up.

[clocker]

Interesting. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014+50001306+103530090&name=Western+Digital)

I wonder if WD is using recertified drives...not that there's anything wrong with that.

[athenaesword]

i think the catch is that these might be 5400rpm drives instead of 7200rpm.

Originally Posted by http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html
(Link (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html))It's quite simple, really. Most of a drive's power is consumed by the motor that spins the disk inside the drive. Reduce the speed of the disk, and you reduce the amount of power required. However, Western Digital doesn't want to say that they're selling 5,400 RPM drives — those became second class in the desktop market years ago. Instead, they rate the drive's speed as "IntelliPower" and take pains to emphasize that there are other factors that affect performance.

Western Digital has caught a lot of flak for withholding the rotation speed of the Green Power, especially when the product was first launched and the marketing material listed the rotation speed as 5,400-7,200 RPM. This led some to speculate that the rotation speed changed dynamically during use — which would have been an impressive engineering feat had it been true. The reality is revealed by a sentence that Western Digital added to the description of IntelliPower: "For each GreenPower™ drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM." In other words, Western Digital reserves the right to release both 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM drives under the Green Power name — without telling you which are which.


however in terms of real performance i don't think we'll see much of a difference. i'm abit disappointed that they're so unwilling to come right out and say it though. but there's no doubt that this's still the highest gb/dollar ratio to be had yet.

[clocker]

Nice bit 'o sleuthing there, Sherlock.

[athenaesword]

ah well i got it anyway. still by far the best 1gb/dollar deal. no point spending that much on physical harddrives nowadays anyway.

[Peerzy]

Until the cheap drive fails and you lose everything. How much is your data worth?

[athenaesword]

Until the cheap drive fails and you lose everything. How much is your data worth?

why does everybody assume immediately that the cheaper drive is lousy?

as i mentioned before, it's likely that it's so cheap because it's a 5400rpm drive instead of the modern standard of 7200rpm for high capacity drives. aside from that, WD has had a longstanding rapport for harddisk quality.

spending an extra hundred bucks on another brand doesn't make it better.

[mbucari1]

[quote=Peerzy;2714230]spending an extra hundred bucks on another brand doesn't make it better.And a brand name doesn't make it good. WD has had their share of lemons.

[clocker]

as i mentioned before, it's likely that it's so cheap because it's a 5400rpm drive instead of the modern standard of 7200rpm for high capacity drives. aside from that, WD has had a longstanding rapport for harddisk quality.

spending an extra hundred bucks on another brand doesn't make it better.
I would never buy the slower drive just because it's slower.
That's a large capacity drive and transferring files (presumably large media files) would be painfully slow...a bottleneck I see no reason to accept.

Also, that kit is saddled with software that may or may not hinder access/sharing of media...why is software necessary at all?

This whole discussion is probably moot however- I'll bet you've already bought this thing, so why not just tell us what you think of it?

[mbucari1]

...This whole discussion is probably moot however- I'll bet you've already bought this thing, so why not just tell us what you think of it?

ah well i got it anyway...

You're quite the mind reader :rolleyes:

[clocker]

Among other things- attentive reader not being one of them, yes.

[athenaesword]

And a brand name doesn't make it good. WD has had their share of lemons.

yeap exactly, so for me, price point is the deciding factor for the day.


I would never buy the slower drive just because it's slower.
That's a large capacity drive and transferring files (presumably large media files) would be painfully slow...a bottleneck I see no reason to accept.

Also, that kit is saddled with software that may or may not hinder access/sharing of media...why is software necessary at all?

This whole discussion is probably moot however- I'll bet you've already bought this thing, so why not just tell us what you think of it?

u do realise that it isn't compulsory to use the software. in fact, it only brings it up the first time you connect. if you don't install it then, and reformat the drive, they never bother you again. it just becomes a regular drag/drop drive.

disc spin speed now is hardly the bottleneck, which can more likely be attributed to the usb 2.0 connection than anything else.
as the article that i posted reads, laptop drives are 5400rpm, and nobody complains about them. just shows that you can hardly feel the difference realtime -- plus, transfer speeds aren't affected by those.

anyway, i've had it for a few days now, and so far so good. only way you're going to get faster transfer rates is via esata or firewire, both of which do not come with this thing. it runs cool and quiet, so much so that my cpu drowns it out, and i barely notice it's there.

i'll report back further if any problems arise. do note though, that i have had a problem with my 500gb version that i bought 3 weeks ago, so these things are definitely not perfect. the drive disconnects itself even though the hdd is still plugged into the power and usb port. i have to plug out the power in order for it to spin down, and replug it in to redetect. someone who's had the same problem suggested that it's the board on the enclosure that's causing the problem. i'll be rmaing this soon.

[THE DUDE]

If you're buying it new from the store I would definitely give it a try, as long as you're sure the store will take it back because of any technical difficulties. I found out the hard way that while WD drive can be reliable they sometimes work on one system and then won't be recognized by the OS of other PC's. I'm not sure why this is but it definitely is the case I had said problem and found there were lots of others in my position and don't expect to get tech help or good customer service from WD it's not their style... so buy beware.

[lolapa]

I have one, and havent had a single problem yet. Its a great HDD and i love it.