Western Digital 500GB MyBook Essential Hard Drive
By Amy Nil on
After we began digitizing our home movies, it became apparent that our 100GB hard drive was not going to cut it.We also have a large music and photo collection, so I decided to start looking into options for backing them up.
There were some factors that we considered when picking out a hard drive:
1.We wanted an external drive.With two laptops (one being a Mac), the cost of 2 larger internal drives wasn't worth it.
2.We needed a backup drive that was both PC and Mac compatible.
3.We wanted something affordable, but did not want to purchase a hard drive from a manufacturer we had never heard of.
The Western Digital 500GB MyBook Essential Hard Drive fit the bill.We got it on sale last fall at Best Buy for $120, but I have seen it recently for about $90 after a $40 mail-in-rebate.
I would highly recommend this hard drive to anyone looking for a good backup hard drive.It has a USB 2.0 port, so you just plug it in and you are ready to go.I have had no problems switching between the PC and the Mac.It has been really reliable - no complaints!
I keep this hard drive in the same spot at home, but in my opinion it is not extremely portable.It is larger than the portables I have seen, and just is not designed for on-the-go use.
My only warning would be that it has just a USB 2.0 port (no FireWire or eSATA), so transfers are not that fast. This is fine for our use as a backup drive, but if you are looking for something more similar to a second hard drive, Western Digital also makes a MyHome edition (which has both FireWire and eSATA compatiblity).
Western digital makes good hardrives from what I heard.
Thanks I haven't heard of this, I am familiar with Lacie. I am going to check this out I like the USB Port.
This sounds like a really useful external harddrive. I like the fact that it is both PC and Mac compatible; you don't always find that, and I know many people have one of each. Great detail, thanks!
I don't mind usb 2 speed, but agree that it should totally have fwire as well
I've been considering a backup hard drive. Not too worried about the usb 2 speed especially for the great price you got!
I have heard about this external hard drive & have been wondering it it was a good as I thought. Sounds like it is, for all the extra space & memory you get.
If only it is more portable then it will be a perfect product.
Western Digital supposedly makes really good hard drives. I've been looking for an external hard drive. I'll have to check this out. Thanks for sharing!