Would you buy this WD external drive?

[John]

Hi all,

I am thinking about buying a Western Digital My Book Premium 500 GB
External hard drive. I will be able to get it for about $200 + tax.

Has anyone had any experience with this this model or heard pro's or
con's. I have a Dell 8400 with 160 GB internal drive and Windows XP.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have.

John

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi all,

I am thinking about buying a Western Digital My Book Premium 500 GB
External hard drive. I will be able to get it for about $200 + tax.

Has anyone had any experience with this this model or heard pro's or
con's. I have a Dell 8400 with 160 GB internal drive and Windows XP.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have.

From reading this group here, and the fact that stock WDs are
too unreliable for RAID, I would say: "Don't buy WD or Maxtor",
since significantly better drives are available (Seagate, Samsung,
maybe Hitachi).

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

I am thinking about buying a Western Digital My Book Premium 500 GB
External hard drive. I will be able to get it for about $200 + tax.

Has anyone had any experience with this this model or heard pro's or con's.

The main con with all these packaged external drives is that you only
get a 1 year warranty. If you buy the case separately and put a standard
hard drive in it yourself, you get either 3 or 5 years warranty on the drive.

I have a Dell 8400 with 160 GB internal drive and Windows XP.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have.

Even obscene ones ?

 

[jesse]

The main con with all these packaged external drives is that you only
get a 1 year warranty. If you buy the case separately and put a standard
hard drive in it yourself, you get either 3 or 5 years warranty on the drive.

So what would you suggest for a case for a 500GB drive?

Thanks.

 

[Rod Speed]

jesse wrote

So what would you suggest for a case for a 500GB drive?

Dont have any suggestion.

I'd personally go for one that supports both eSATA for normal
use so you can do stuff like monitor the SMART data easily,
and the temperature, and which has USB2 as well for the
occasional use on systems that dont have eSATA, and one
that has decent fan cooling of the drive, with a big thin fan
that covers most of the bottom of the case, with decent
slots to let the air circulate thru the case.

Unfortunately that combination isnt that common at all.

 

[Paul Rubin]

I'd personally go for one that supports both eSATA for normal
use so you can do stuff like monitor the SMART data easily,
and the temperature, and which has USB2 as well for the
occasional use on systems that dont have eSATA, and one
that has decent fan cooling of the drive, with a big thin fan
that covers most of the bottom of the case, with decent
slots to let the air circulate thru the case.

I haven't even seen any plain-USB2 cases with cooling like that.

 

[Art]

So what would you suggest for a case for a 500GB drive?

Thanks.

This one gets high ratings:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145660

Art

 

[Paul Rubin]

This one gets high ratings:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145660

Nice fan, but does it support eSATA? It looks like it might have
what's supposed to be an internal SATA connector on the outside of the box.

 

[Rod Speed]

I haven't even seen any plain-USB2 cases with cooling like that.

I have seen just one. Dont have a link to it tho,
likely its marked in the newsgroups I read.

Havent done anything more than notice that one tho, havent looked for others.

 

[Rod Speed]

Nice fan,

Yeah, that's one of the ones I had noticed before.

 

[Rod Speed]

Nice fan, but does it support eSATA?

One of the reviews says that you have to use a eSATA cable to get
the full speed tho a normal SATA cable will fit, so it looks like it is.

It looks like it might have what's supposed to be an
internal SATA connector on the outside of the box.

Doesnt fit with that review comment.

Main downside is that its not all that cheap.

 

[jesse]

Dont have any suggestion.

I'd personally go for one that supports both eSATA for normal
use so you can do stuff like monitor the SMART data easily,
and the temperature, and which has USB2 as well for the
occasional use on systems that dont have eSATA, and one
that has decent fan cooling of the drive, with a big thin fan
that covers most of the bottom of the case, with decent
slots to let the air circulate thru the case.

Unfortunately that combination isnt that common at all.

Thanks anyway Rod. They all seem to be valid points.

 

[jesse]

This one gets high ratings:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145660

Thanks Art it looks interesting.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I haven't even seen any plain-USB2 cases with cooling like that.

And its not allways needed. I posted a review here of a 500G
Samsung and passively cooled USB/eSATA enclosure that has no
overheating problem.

Arno

 

[Frodo]

Newegg.com has a Western Digital 500GB External for $179

Western Digital My Book Essential WDG1U5000N 500GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0 External
Hard Drive - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136025

 

[varois83]

Even obscene ones ?

LOL!