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Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Model number: WDH1U10000N | SKU: 8475777

Stack this external hard drive next to your PC for 1TB of additional storage space for your digital photos, music, movies and more. Take a product tour.

Average Customer Rating:

4.2 out of 5

47 of 55 (85%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Customer Reviews for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Review 1 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

1.0 5

Should have listened to warnings about WD 01/06/2009
By CassandraComplex from Hollywood, CA

Value for Price

1.0 5

Ease of Use

1.0 5

Performance

1.0 5

Ease of Installation

1.0 5

What's great about it: since i can't find any way to use it - nothing
What's not so great: can't use it

"i've been editing on final cut pro all day. yet when i save to this drive i can't reopen the project. i can copy files from other disks on to this one but not save directly to this drive. i've tried all different connections and configurations.

i'm also not pleased that i had to install the trial software (or maybe i didn't. i just tried everything."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No
Is this product used primarily for business?: Yes

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Review 2 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

2.0 5

Save your money 01/03/2009
By vicious30096 from ga

Value for Price

1.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

2.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Easy to install, price was right
What's not so great: Crash - lost +/- 40 GB of data

"1. Vista pc repeatedly refused to recognize WD drive.
1a. Tech support was helpful.
2. WD drive finally crashed.
2a. Tech support was helpful in assuring me that it was still under warranty and that WD would replace it n/c.
2b. Data recovery would be at my expense [far more than the drive cost initially. Fortunately, most of the data is on DVDs.
3. I'll invest in an internal drive, different brand - wish me luck."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 3 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Awesome Deal! Works great! Fast, quiet, cool 12/22/2008
By Anonymous Reviewer from Augusta, Ga.

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Formats to HSF+ with Macdrive 7 in about 30 seconds. 4GB limit gone then it's perfect for hookig up to Xbox 360.
What's not so great: Nothing

"Easy to format to HSF+ to use with Windows & Xbox360."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 4 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Beware 12/21/2008
By Anonymous Reviewer

Value for Price

4.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Very good price for amount of memory
What's not so great: Lack of Information

"This is a passage from the user manuel included on the drive:

"About Your WD Drive
Drive Format
This WD device is preformatted as a single FAT32 partition for compatibility with all
updated Windows and Macintosh operating systems. The FAT32 file system has a
maximum individual file size of 4 GB."

Despite bieng a great deal, this drive is almost worthless to me because it limits the size of the file it can copy to 4GB!

This was the main reason for me to purchase a TB of memory. To store files of large size.

This information would have been a lot more valubale to me if it had been listed somewhere other than just as an adobe file."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 5 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0 5

1tb external harddrive 12/19/2008
By FRAN1 from Clarksville TN

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: black design, doe not get hot at all. I transfereed 590 Gb to this drive and after an hour or so it was not hot at all.
What's not so great: no cons

"after copying over500 gig to this drive and it did not get hot at all, i would buy another and recommend this to everyone. It is not noisy at all.. It is a perfect drive. I am a certified computer tech and this drive is very useful for all of the utilities etc. i have on it.I wish the power cord was a standard computer plug though but no worries."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: Yes

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Review 6 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0 5

A nice deal! 12/13/2008
By PhOeNiXH from Port Vue, PA

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Good price ($139 after $60 instant savings), beautiful, is not so heavy, does not get hot easily
What's not so great: FAT32 File System (need a full format in NTFS and the performance problems gonna be solved, ~4hrs)

"I bought this External HD in Best Buy on last sunday and I need to say: I'm impressed!

I expected a heavy external HD, loud and gets hot easily, but with a large space and good performance.

But it's light, silent and the temperature is considered normal (100-110 F ~ 40-45 C). The only problem is that external HD come with a FAT32 File System. That'll be solved with a NTFS format, but 4 hours is necessary for that.

The software that come with the external HD don't worked in my Windows XP x64 too, but I really don't care about it, because is really easy to install and use.

If you want a external hard drive for something, you can have sure that will be a good buy!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: Yes

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Review 7 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Does the job nicely 11/24/2008
By Cabra2Sertao from NYC, NY

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Value for the price, easy to use, reliable
What's not so great: Data trasfer speed

"In a few words, I definitely recommend this HD to anyone.

I bought this external HD in July, 2008. Since then no complaining about it. The HD simply does the job. Just plug and play, pretty much like a pendrive. I tested it under WinXP and I heavily use it with Mac OS X, and things were smooth and flawless in both systems.

I use it daily plugged in my Macbook for storage of huge amount of (important) data from my research in the University and at least until now everything has been nice.

From memory I think it comes with some software for backup, but I didn't even consider to have it installed in Leopard, since Mac OS X comes with the (very good) Time Machine built in.

I partitioned the HD with the Mac's Disk Utility in two parts: 200Gb for backup with Time Machine, and the rest for storage. Again, everything was perfect.

Finally, just a few considerations I should make. It comes with just an USB connection which is not the most speedy one available in the market. So if you need to fast transfers of data you should go to some fireware port. The next point is that this HD is a bit noisy -- you just realize it when you turn it down. So you gonna feel like "wow, now it is away better!-- I didn't know what was irritating me". But after a couple of weeks you become accustomed so your brain go keep in charge to turn it off into your head -- my case."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: Yes

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Review 8 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Greatest Upgrade to ALL my computers 11/12/2008
By Bodykast from Tampa FL

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Size, Storage, ease of use
What's not so great: Not powered by USB

"For the size and storage space, this thing is PERFECT.

I now have the one HDD that goes where I need it.

I am a music producer, and own 2 of these to store and transport tracks I am working on. I managed to take the 4x 250 count CD books I had FULL of CD's that contained only samples, and put them on one drive. Now I have everything at my fingertips, and dont need to spend 1/2 a day flipping through CD's to find that sound I am looking for, everything is in a proper order, and takes seconds to find.

My other drive now hosts all my photos. I finally can take all the SD cards I had stored with pictures, and keep them in one place. Already I am 60% full, and about to get my 3rd drive.

The only thing I dont like about these external HDD's is that they are not powered by the USB port. I have high end pro audio equiptment that will run off the USB, yet this wont. So I have to bring a power strip with me just for my drives, and that is rather annoying.

Other then that, its perfect."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: Yes

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Review 9 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Top 250 Contributor

Customer Rating

5.0 5

ANother great WD product 11/09/2008
By 412PCHOMichigan from Metro Detroit, Michigan

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Lots of storage for little money, dependable

"Western Digital never ceases to amaze me with their hard drives. I have tried a few other brands b/c they run specials and are sometimes cheaper, but due to faults in the other guys' hardware I always come back to WD as being my brand of choice for a sturdy and dependable drive. So when I filled my 500GB WD drive, I decided to upgrade to the 1TB. It runs surprisingly cool and quiet for such a high capacity drive and has a great seek time to boot. This drive is a great plug and play device, it works right every time. I highly recommend this product for the recreational user who has a large storage demand but not a huge speed demand. For those with a faster speed demand, there are other versions of this same drive that incorporate firewire, esata, or even ethernet connections that can achieve up to 3GBPS."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 10 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Great Drive 11/02/2008
By horrorific from Stockton, CA

Value for Price

4.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Easy set up, great value
What's not so great: Has to be handled with caution

"Perfect for easy file transfers and system backups. If you want to send massive files from 1 computer to another, with this its quick and easy.

But be careful, don't block the vents and keep it upright. Or you may get problems."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 11 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

2.0 5

Beware 10/16/2008
By WoodlandsJeff from The Woodlands, TX

Value for Price

2.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

2.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Easy to install; cheap
What's not so great: You get what you pay for

"Like several others that have reviewed this device, mine worked fine for about 10 days. And then suddenly one day it started disconnection/reconnection for no reason. I thought maybe it was a bad USB cable, so I replaced it. Same problem. I plug it in, my PC recognizes it, and then after anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes, it gets disconnected. I think it's overheating but I'm not 100% sure. Unfortunately it won't stay connected long enough for me to "save" the vital data that I had copied to it. So I get to go to the additional expense of having a professional extract the data from it. This is the first Western Digital product that I have been disappointed with."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 12 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Easy Use 10/12/2008
By LuwaChrisOriginal

Value for Price

3.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Easy to set up and use
What's not so great: price

"This was a great purchase it was so easy to use and has worked wonderfully since I hooked it up to my computer. so far I've been using it to transfer files from my windows xp desk top though I plan to use it to transfer files from my vista notebook next. All in all I feel this was a very good buy though I am upset that it's now on sale for $10 less then the sale price I payed for the unit."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 13 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

4.0 5

a smart buy 10/12/2008
By grayapache

Value for Price

4.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: massive storage space
What's not so great: counld be cheaper priced

"this book is great for storing up to 250 movies, or creating backups for computor"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 14 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Top 250 Contributor

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Great protable storage unit 09/30/2008
By danyo9090 from Waukesha, WI

Value for Price

4.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Has a ton of storage space
What's not so great: have to plug into the wall to power it.

"I use this storage device all the time. I have all my music, movies and programs on it. So if ever my computer hard drive goes I have a back up. I also have people asking me to help them with their computer issues and I have so much storage on this thing that I can back up my friends hard drives onto it without any worry of space."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 15 for Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Excellent Space!! 09/13/2008
By alks

Value for Price

3.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Performance

4.0 5

Ease of Installation

4.0 5