Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAF0020HBK-NESN | 
| Brand: Western Digital Category: CE
List Price: $209.99 Buy New: $124.99 as of 7/30/2010 21:57 CDT details You Save: $85.00 (40%)
Rating: 166 reviews
Format: CD Color: Black Media: Electronics Autographed: No Memorabilia: No Operating System: Windows XP Professional Edition CPU Manufacturer: Intel CPU Speed: 2.10 CPU Type: PowerPC G4 Processors: 1 System Memory: 2000 Hard Drive Size: 2000 Size: 2 TB Shipping Weight (lbs): 3 Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 6.9 x 7.9 Warranty: 2 years warranty
MPN: WDBAAF0020HBK-NESN Model: WDBAAF0020HBK-NESN UPC: 718037751290 EAN: 0718037751269 ASIN: B002JN554C
| |
| | | Price | Store | Condition | Availability | Ready to buy? | | $124.99 | cdgameexchg111
1629 reviews | New
1 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $124.99
| | $130.00 | Teaberry Co
14 reviews | New
1 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days
| $130.00
| | $135.00 | Clater Stores
 Trusted Store | New
10 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $135.00
| | Too low to display | Amazon.com
 Trusted Store | New
In Stock | Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| Too low to display
| | $139.00 | Scorched
7 reviews | New
1 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $139.00
| | $147.00 | Connect Buy
223 reviews | New
1 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $147.00
| | $148.00 | 17th Street Photo
6637 reviews | New
3 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $148.00
| | $149.00 | J&R Music and Computer World
75870 reviews | New
383 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $149.00
| | $149.00 | Beach Camera
44470 reviews | New
4 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| $149.00
| | $149.72 | Wholesale Connection
82 reviews | New
30 Available | Availability: Usually ships in 4-5 business days
| $149.72
|
|
| Features:
| | Automatic, continuous backup | | | Visual drive control center | | | Password protection and 256-bit encryption | | | Illuminated capacity gauge | | | USB 2.0 interface |
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
Our best-selling My Book external drive is an elegant, high-capacity storage solution for all the chapters of your digital life. Our latest edition now features visual, easy-to-use, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. At last, beauty, brains, and simplicity together. Elegant design. This book-like shape takes up minimal space on your desk and allows two or more My Book drives to nestle neatly together like volumes on a shelf. | See your life safe in one place. WD SmartWare software - A visual control center with a single screen view of all your data. From it you can back up, retrieve, and secure your files. | Password protection. An extra level of security with password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. | 
| 
| 
| Features at a glance - Automatic, continous backup
- Illuminated capacity gauge
- Password protection and hardware encryption
- WD SmartWare software
- 2-years limited warranty
|
| Smaller, sleeker, more streamlined design - We've made these award-winning drives even smaller, sleeker, and more elegant. As always, this book-like shape takes up minimal space on your desk and allows two or more My Book drives to nestle neatly together like volumes on a shelf. WD SmartWare™ - A control center for your drive that gives you the power to: -- Protect your data automatically - Relax, your data is secure. Automatic, continuous backup will instantly make a second copy whenever you add or change a file. -- See your backup as it happens - Seeing is believing. Visual backup displays your content in categories and shows the progress of your backup. -- Bring back lost files effortlessly - Retrieve your valuable data to its original location whether you’ve lost all your data or just overwritten an important file. -- Take control - Customize your backup, set drive security, run diagnostics, manage the power settings, and more from the WD SmartWare control center. Find out more about WD SmartWare™ Drive lock - Gain peace of mind knowing that your data is protected from unauthorized access or theft with password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Illuminated capacity gauge - See at a glance how much space is available on your drive. USB 2.0 interface - Powered directly from the USB port on your PC. No separate power supply is needed*. * An optional cable is available for the few computers that limit power from the USB port. Power miser - My Book external drives are designed to save energy. WD GreenPower Technology™ lowers internal drive power consumption by up to 30%, a sleep mode reduces power during idle times, and a power-saving feature turns the drive on and off with your computer. Planet friendly - We designed a small box from recycled materials to minimize waste. We encourage you to recycle it. Ready to plug-and-play with Windows PCs - If you're a Mac user, check out our Mac version of this product. Ideal For - Protecting your data with automatic, continous backup
- Retrieving lost data effortlessly
- Adding extra storage space for photos, videos and music
- Securing private or sensitive data
Compatibility Formatted NTFS Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7 Mac OS® X Tiger®, Leopard®, Snow Leopard™ (requires reformatting)
Note: Compatibility may vary depending on user's hardware configuration and operating system. What's in the box
External hard drive, WD SmartWare software, USB cable, AC adapter, Quick Install Guide. Backup software you'll really use � WD SmartWare Five great reasons to love it: | 1. It's easy - Data backup can be a chore, but it's your family photos, your movies, your music - your life - and it's important to protect it. So we made this software extra easy because we really want you to use it. | | | 2. You can see your life safe in one place - See your content displayed in easy to understand categories like movies and photos. Watch the progress of your backup as it happens with the instant-feedback color bars. Now you can truly be sure that all your stuff is backed up. - A unique visual interface lets you see the drives connected to your computer.
- WD SmartWare will automatically scan your computer and find all of your personal files, including e-mail.
- Content category gauges show how much information you have to be backed up in each category. You can even mouse over a category to see a file count.
- Simply click Run Backup and WD SmartWare will automatically start backing up your files.
- As your backup is running the category gauges will change color showing you the backup as it happens.
- When finished, you’ll see a status screen and information about your backup. You only have to do this once. After the first backup your files will be backed up automatically every time you change or add a file.
| | | 3. It's always on the job - WD SmartWare is always watching your computer, so when you change a file and save it, create new files, add new pictures, movies, or songs, WD SmartWare will instantly back them up. | 4. You can bring back lost files effortlessly - If you ever accidentally delete an important file, or need to get an earlier version of a file, you can find and retrieve it in seconds with this easy-to-use interface. - Restore files and folders by categories – photos, music, video, for example.
- Find a lost file with the search function.
- Go back in time to retrieve an older version of a file.
| | 5. You're in control - WD SmartWare software is also a control center for your external drives. From it you can: - Customize your backup
- Set drive security
- Run diagnostics
- Manage the power settings, and more...
| |
Product Description Smart backup and storage.The world's best-selling external hard drive now features a new, smart, visual backup solution that protects your data automatically. Our best-selling My Book external drive is an elegant, high-capacity storage solution for all the chapters of your digital life. Our latest edition now features visual, easy-to-use, automatic, continuous backup software and drive lock security protection. At last, beauty, brains, and simplicity together. Smaller, sleeker, more streamlined design - We've made these award-winning drives even smaller, sleeker, and more elegant. As always, this book-like shape takes up minimal space on your desk and allows two or more My Book drives to nestle neatly together like volumes on a shelf. WD SmartWare - See your life safe in one place. See your backup as it happens - Seeing is believing. Visual backup displays your content in categories and shows the progress of your backup. Protect your data automatically - Relax, your data is secure. Automatic, continuous backup will instantly make a second copy whenever you add or change a file. Bring back lost files effortlessly - Retrieve your valuable data to its original location whether you've lost all your data or just overwritten an important file. Take control - Customize your backup, set drive security, run diagnostics, manage the power settings, and more from the WD SmartWare control center. Drive lock - Gain peace of mind knowing that your data is protected from unauthorized access or theft with password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Illuminated capacity gauge - See at a glance how much space is available on your drive. USB 2.0 interface - A simple connection that offers convenience and compatibility among multiple computers. Power miser - My Book external drives are designed to save energy. WD GreenPower Technology lowers internal drive power
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 166
Highly Reliable July 29, 2010 J. Kent I use portable hard drives often at work as a cheap means of backup. I have between 50 and 60 mybook drives of various generations and have so far only had one drive failure. I have also dealt with most of the mybook variations.
The software that comes with these drives is a little annoying, as is the virtual drive setup. However, a quick search will allow most users to hide the virtual drive. The older generations of drive used an old file system (FAT32) to be compatible across platforms. This file system has a file size limitation of 4GB, to escape this limitation the drive would have to be reformatted, removing its platform interoperability. The new drives use a newer file system (NTFS - the windows file system); they need to be formatted for use in Macs.
These drives are about par for the course as far as speed goes, but they are affordable. They also have no fans in them so they are relatively quiet. They are well suited to backing up your data and being kept on a shelf for later.
Great drive (so far); crappy software. July 27, 2010 Allen C. Huffman (Des Moines, IA USA) I have about a dozen Western Digital drives right now hooked up through all kinds of drive enclosures (Drobos and such), but sometimes you just want a nice, easy to use "all in one" external drive for a specific purpose -- like dedicated backup, or a travel drive.
I recently acquired two WD My Passport Essential pocket drives (500gb laptop drives) and so far really like them (see my review elsewhere). So, when I had a chance to get this 1TB desktop drive, I thought I'd try yet another Western Digital drive.
And ... no surprises. This is a nice, roomy 1TB drive with a two year warranty (not as long as I'd like; some WD "Black" drives have a 5 year warranty and the "Green" drives are 3 years. I have no idea what kind of drive is actually inside this enclosure).
It plugs in with a standard USB cable, and uses a round DC power plug (12V, 1.5ma) for power (which should be easy to replace via Radio Shack if it ever goes out). There is a power switch (HUZZAH! Most inexpensive drives do not have a power button so you have to hope they shut down on their own or pull the plug). There is a light on the front indicating activity (read/write), lock (encryption/more on this in a moment), and how full the drive is (a series of four bars, from empty to "buy another drive soon!").
The design isn't real rugged -- kinda on the medium quality side with plastic that pushes easily on the top air vent -- but it looks REAL nice. It stands vertical like a book (thus, the WD "My Book"). It is a very quiet drive, and speeds via USB (the only interface it supports) were similar to the My Passport drive (30K/25K-ish). Tests were done on a MacBook using AJA system test (free; google for it). Decent speed on a standard USB type device.
So, overall no real complaints with the drive itself based on design.
The coolest feature is the ability to lock and encrypt the drive, meaning no one can access your data without entering a password first. When you enable this (and assign a password), the drive will not mount, but a CD will appear (it tricks the Mac or PC in to thinking it has a CD mounted). There is an unlock program you run and type in the password then you have access to the data. This lets you unlock and access the drive from any Mac or PC, even if it doesn't have the WD software installed. This is cool, but keep in mind if you use it for an emergency boot device, you can't use this feature. During startup, there would be no way to unlock the drive and boot off it.
The worst part of my experience was the WD SmartWare software. This clever (nice looking) backup software tries to autostart any time the drive is mounted on my Mac, and I had been using it on my Passport drive to test it out. It seemed to work well enough (but it was annoying seeing it pop up even when not installed every time the drive was mounted). The problems started happening after using the Passport a few weeks. My system seemed slower, and I noticed a WD process was running in the background on my Mac using as much as 15% of the CPU time, EVEN WITH THE DRIVE NOT PLUGGED UP!
I tried to remove the software, and it errored out. I was eventually able to remove this software manually (deleting system files, restarting, dangerous fun there) and get rid of it completely. If you have a PC and have no other backup software, or have a Mac running old Mac OS X before Time Machine backup, then maybe you can use this -- but for everyone else, I suggest just avoiding it completely. The software does the job, but just doesn't seem to play nice with my Mac.
The true test of this device will be seeing how long it lasts. If it dies on me, taking all my data with it, I will hate the device. If it runs for a few years (until I buy a new drive and move the data off this one, before it dies), then great. I cannot review that aspect of the device.
So, overall: Nice design, speedy, quiet, pretty, and has a power switch and front indicator lights (cheap devices miss alot of these features). Downside seems to be the WD software.
Enjoy!
Nice little drive, with a few problems July 27, 2010 Randy Rathbun (Independence, MO) This is a nice little drive. But, don't consider it to be portable by any means.
First, the thing is not really little. It is, in fact, quite large. Not humongous by any means, but it is not small. You are not going to be taking this thing many places. And, if you do decide to take it many places.....
Second, this case is pretty flimsy. It is not going to withstand the rigors of being transported very much. It is lightweight plastic that seems to be pretty thin and cheap. I could see this thing tipping over on a desk and cracking at some point in the future.
I am also not that much of a fan of where the really cheezy feeling power button is located. It is on the back and it does not stand out that it is a power button. It is hard to see the thing.
The lights seem to be more of a gimmick than anything.
It is not real speedy either. Seems to do fine feeding HD video out of iTunes to my Mac, but you don't want to use it for video editing - which, let's be honest - you don't want to do with any USB drive.
I do have one final gripe. What is with that stilly WD backup software for the Mac? The Mac line already has the most awesome backup software ever, so why does this drive insist on wanting to install something else? My advice for Mac owners.... go grab the crummy WD backup software install tool and run it on this drive as soon as you open the box.
Died after two years July 27, 2010 Christine Beatty (Los Angeles, CA United States) I saw this item at Costco and was impressed with the price and was also impressed (wrongly) with the WD brand. It began to die on me a few weeks ago, just dropping entirely off the system. It could be brought back on by unplugging both cable but then would die after after an hour or two. Upon bootup XP told me it had lost sectors at some point and neither the WD utility nor Norton Disk Doctor could bring it back. Thank *God* I had the presence of mind to make a mirror copy of it to another machine or I would be an even unhappier camper right now. I'm hoping I can get Costco to accept it as a return after two years so I avoid the dance I have little doubt WD will put me through (paying for shipping, waiting a month for a repair or replacement...
This will be my LAST purchase of a WD product.
Lasted approximately 6 months and then came the scam July 22, 2010 Tommy Wright Jr. (Jersey City, NJ USA) Once I got passed all the unnecessary software Western Digital tries to shackle you with it worked really well.
Right up until it didn't.
One day I couldn't get either of my PCs to read the drive. I searched online for possible solutions, came up empty. Now here's the best part. I call WD support and the person I spoke with recommends that I plug it directly into the wall (as opposed to a power strip). I had already figured this out on my own. After having me try one other solution he tells me that I need to send it to a data recovery center and can look on their site for the recommended center.
I do that and what does the estimate come to? $700 - $2700. For 6 months of storage I now had to choose between 500 GB of media and a boat load of cash. I'm not saying the data recovery process isn't labor intensive but that's the best WD can do? Fortunately a friend of mine was able to take the My Book apart, get the actual hard drive itself to show up on his equipment, and transfer the data to a Toshiba Canvio Plus 1.0 TB.
The first lesson here is make sure you have two external drives in case one flames out. The second lesson is to make sure those drives are not Western Digital.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 166
|
|
|