WD My Book 1TB External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 File Backup and Storage

THIS THING HERE JUST PISSED ME OFF COMPLETELY! I purchased it back in October of 2014 for my Xbox One, because my space was in need of an expansion. I decided to put everything on here and just use it as my default HDD because of the massive storage it contains: compared to the 500 GB Internal Hard Drive that comes with the Xbox One. At first I thought it was NICE! It ran quiet, my games transferred rather quickly and the color scheme matched my Xbox Ones! ;) However, I noticed when I put my system in its Stand By state, it made a weird noise. As if it were constantly restarting -or- repeating a start up/ shut down cycle. For the first week I remember unplugging it when I shut the system off thinking it resolved it. Then as time went on it stayed plugged in. I became accustomed to it. Until today. It started making a LOUD clicking noise. Unusual, because it never made any noises while the Xbox was running AND I could hear it over my gaming headset. I decided to unplug it while I ran my errands. Now it isnt being detected. Guess Im back to my internal HDD in the end....Cant transfer them back to the internal to shorten the time & these games are too big and take far too long to download. For buyers interested in this, or to those of you who already bought this for the same purposes as I: To save you time and money I WOULDNT suggest you use this as your default HDD. Id transfer the games not being used to here and keep the ones in use on the Internal HDD. Best of wishes to you all! Game On! ;)

When choosing amongst the different external hard drives out there, I read that this product actually had built in backup software that worked well. I figured that rather than configuring Windows Backup (or a 3rd-party software that I had always used in the past), I would spring for this product with its software. Bad decision. Two majors issues have arisen that are forcing me to uninstall this software. 1) The software does not allow you to configure what directory you would like to back up. This is a big one. All is does is back up your My Documents folder. If, perhaps like me, you keep important files anywhere else on the computer, this program will be useless to you. 2) The backup software continuously runs, eating up 25% of my processor at all times. You can tell it to go into a more passive mode, but the active mode (really, the selling point) is so resource hogging as to cripple your system if you multitask. These two issues are non-starters for me. I have uninstalled the backup utility, and would advise anyone who is interested in buying this drive for the program to look elsewhere. As for the drive itself? It is a fine drive, and will make a good external hard drive. However, from a cost-standpoint, there are cheaper drives that work just as well, but to not come prepackaged with software that isnt particularly useful.

I received this as a birthday gift from my dad and I couldnt be happier. I have never used an external drive and setting this up was super simple. I also revived it in the nick of time since my computer was having issues and the mother-bored needed to be replaced. 3 tbs is more then enough of space for my music and Sims. I havent had an issue with the USB being flimsy either as I just leave it plugged in at all times and when I must unplug it I unplug it from the computer, not the drive itself. I have to say though I was a bit shocked at the size because I expected it to be bigger, not small. But that isnt a huge deal to me. So if you arent computer savvy and need the extra space (like me) then this product is for you. **Update 5/08/2013** I still love my external drive...except that I have had to reformat it a few times since I first plugged it in. I currently at this time am in the process of reformatting it. Fingers crossed though this fixes this issue, but if not I think it will be time to send it back in exchange for a new one v.v **Update 9/03/2013** So after almost a year and a constant error I had finally gave up and sent it in. WD makes it a huge hassle just to send in an item.. However, as soon as they received it they shipped out a refurbished one and I have had it all of maybe 2 weeks...and I still get an error about the drive, letting me know the recycle bin is broken. I am not sure how to get rid of it because even reformatting my other one over and over..the error still popped up. Dont get me wrong..I still love my drive..but after this experience I wont be buying from WD again.

I had 2 of these My Books. 1.5TB and 3TB. They both have worked very well for sometime now. No complaints there. I needed another 3TB because both are full up, so I made the purchase of another 3TB thinking... these things are great. I connected up the new one and copied over a lot of personal files just for backing up. I also moved over a lot of recorded TV shows that we have saved to watch later. (My wife watches allot) Thats why I have so much need for these external drives. Thats most of the data we have is multimedia and pictures etc. After 2 days, the little white light on the front of the case was constant on, and the drive would not spin up. Come to find out, the USB controller piece inside went bad. These drives have some sort of hardware encryption that is integrated into the controller that encrypts the data even if you do not install the software. (I did the research on-line; you should check it out before purchasing) So I took the hard drive out of the enclosure, thinking I could possibly recover the data by connection via sata cable. The internal drive is really just a green drive that can be used internally on a PC. I did this and the drive spun up and was recognized by the PC. Perfect!!! Maybe I can recover the data on there. NOT!!! The data was encrypted by the stupid controller that WD puts on these things. So no go on recovery of my wifes TV shows. The other personal data I have in several places so no big deal. But those TV shows were lost. People, Im in the hot seat now with her! Bottom line, these things work great when you get a good one, but when they crater, your done. Unless you want to pay a data recovery vendor to pull your data for a couple hundred dollars. WD will give me another one to replace this bad one, they are good about that, but Im returning it and getting the Seagate Back-up Plus. It doesnt encrypt your stuff unless you tell it to in the software. Sorry WD, but these external drives lost you my business. _______ 15 minutes after posting this, my wife told me to change the stars to 1 because she hates it. I just didnt like it. Maybe this will help my cause.

Well, the USB connector on my drive seems solid, but given the other reviewers comments, I am being very careful with it. I am using the drive as a backup device for my desktop, and so far it is quiet, cool and quick. I am running it off a front panel USB 2.0 port and backups are averaging around 25 to 30 MB/s. I am using ShadowProtect 5.0.1 for the backup chores, and it is also recommended... fast and efficient, the backups are even mountable, which I think is GREAT. I am used to external hard drives that are slow and hot -- this one isnt like that at all, and it has tons of room. When I first got it, I copied off all the WD software and used the quick formatter that they provide (on the drive) to reformat to a clean NTFS volume, took just a couple of minutes, not even time for a cup of coffee. Highly recommended! I see the price has gone up since I made my purchase, +20 bucks, but still a bargain for a 4 TB drive... expecially one this good.

Western Digital is the only brand of external drives I buy. I have a 3TB and this 4TB and they work flawlessly. Prior to these, I had a Seagate and it made a lot of noise and then died, taking all my stuff with it. I saw a gold box deal about six months after that, and figured that since Seagate drives get good reviews, that the one that had failed on me must have been an anomaly. Four or five months later, my computer started to have trouble communicating with the second Seagate, and then it, too died. Thankfully, I had learned my lesson and was backing everything up to a cloud as well so I suffered no loss, but still I felt like an idiot for buying a brand that had let me down big time twice. You couldnt give me a Seagate. The happy part of the story is that the two Western Drives I have now are absolutely dependable, they dont complain, i.e. making strange sounds, and they have earned my loyalty by their track records. They are two solid work horses that interface seamlessly with my cloud back up service, and are as accessible as the hard drive in my computer. I could not be more satisfied with them, especially since they are priced so fairly.

I recently lost my computer and I last backed up my files a year ago. So I only lost a year of information. Not any more! Small and stylish. Easy to use software that allowed me to back up 3 of my computers. The only down side is that My desktop computer has 2 ports with a 500GB and 2TB external drive. When My Book is on it will monitor the other external drives and not let me undock the drive when needed. I have to shut off My Book then turn it back on after I release the other external drive. I still like My Book better than my other external drives for back up because it automatically backs up files when added or changed. My other external drives only work manually.

I am a compulsive media hoarder and have been running out of space for my digital library. I also wanted something portable to take on road trips or when visiting friends and family. I bought a 1TB MyBook back in the day and it was everything I needed so I picked up this 3TB since the price was excellent for the amount of storage. Ive moved over just about everything I have over to this drive and it is extremely satisfying to see how little a dent that has actually made in its total capacity. Also the speed of the data transfer is pretty impressive for a traditional hard drive, I managed to get everything on it much faster than I had anticipated. The only problem I have with the device is that the small light on it blinks when I have it hooked to my computer and put it to sleep. Im usually do this when I go to bed so its a bit distracting. Easily solved by unplugging the USB or turning the drive off, just seems like an unnecessary step.

I have used several WD external drives, but this is the first one that required an external power source. The others were all passports (which I really like as well) powered by the USB (for laptops on the go). It was extremely easy to setup, and as my first USB 3.0, I love the speed at which it performed my complete backup. The 3.0 speed is really not so necessary after the initial backup unless you frequently store items in excess of .5 GB. It runs nicely in the background, uses minimal system resources, and I like that the included software lets you customize things like how many iterations of each file you want it to keep. I am good about using save as, but it is nice to have that extra added security knowing the odds of an original you modified is still in-tact are high. It automatically recognized multiple machines, and stores each backup separately. I considered wiping the drive of its proprietary back up software and letting windows manage my backups to the drive, but the windows auto backup does not allow for storing multiple versions of the same file, or continuous backup. Great drive, WD would have to mess up pretty big to lose my consumer loyalty.

This is for the most part a pretty good hard drive, and Ive loved having it for extra storage on my computer. I havent even filled it up yet despite having lots of videos on it. However, I have two bones to pick. For one thing, this hard drive is a bit big and bulky, even for a 3TB. I realize its a full sized one that plugs into the wall, but they couldve slimmed down the casing considerably and made it much less bulky. Thats more just an asthetic thing though, and I still have plenty of room for it. My other gripe, which is even more annoying, is that it takes forever to load content from it. I have two passport drives that are 1 and 2 terabytes and they load almost instantly. However, this drive every time I bring it up on my computer, takes 30 seconds to a minute or sometimes more to bring up my data. This is aggravating because it happens every time. Whats even more frustrating is when Im watching a video on it and then I have to pause it for a period of say more than 10 minutes. Every time I return to it, I either have to bring up the drive again or wait a minute or so for the video to load again after taking it off pause. Lately I have elected to bring the drive back up in Windows Explorer. The ridiculous thing though is that it still does this even if the drive is already open in Explorer. It should not take this long to load my data! If you dont mind the annoyances Ive pointed out, then this could be a good drive for you packed with lots of space, but if you want access to your data in the blink of an eye, find yourself a better drive or go with a Passport or two.