Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External H...

Reviews : Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAF0020HBK-NESN

Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAF0020HBK-NESN
Product By Western Digital
Lowest Price : $195.11
Available From 16 Sellers
 

Technical Details

  • Automatic, continuous backup
  • Visual drive control
  • Password protection and 256-bit encryption
  • Illuminated capacity gauge
  • USB 2.0 interface

 

Product Description

The world's best-selling external hard drive now features a new, smart, visual backup solution that protects your data automatically. Smaller, sleeker, more streamlined design - WD has made these award-winning drives even smaller, sleeker, and more elegant. As always, this book-like shape takes up less 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 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 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 . Drive lock - Gain peace of mind knowing that your data is protected from unauthorized access or theft with password protection and military-grade 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 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 to minimize waste and used recycled material. 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.

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 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 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 .

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 for your external drives. From it you can:

  • Customize your backup
  • Set drive security
  • Run diagnostics
  • Manage the power settings, and more...

 

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Customer Reviews

 "Don't avoid this item.." 2009-12-14
By J. K. Rih
After I found some issues around firmware, VCD and smartware figured out recently by WDC, luckily I got this item for less than $90 from a local shop today. Instruction from WDC website was little bit tricky to follow but I was finally able to disable VCD. It looks a great deal if you can get this one for around $90.

 "The backup software is horrible" 2009-12-14
By Seattle User
The drive itself is really good. Looks great, the size is great, and the fact that it is USB powered is awesome.



I wish they had used mini-USB instead of micro USB. Mini is a strong connector, and it has a more positive engagement. The micro connector doesn't seat as deeply and it has literally fallen out while I was moving the drive from one spot on my desk to another.



The cradle does't work well because of the same seating issues. After a while in the cradle the device pops out enough that the connection fails. Oddly enough, the white LED remained on but I heard it unmount in Win7. I pushed it back in and it remounted.



Now, for the real problem with this drive. The software.



I cannot begin to tell you how bad this software is. It's like you've gone back in a time warp to dumbest software you ever used in the early 90's. Backup software should excel at backing up IN THE BACKGROUND and ensuring that when a file is added or changed, it is immediately backed up.



This software consumes enormous amounts of CPU on my superfast machine. So much so that things like browsing and software builds grind to a halt. There is no reason for modern software to cause this to happen.



But the scary part is that the software tells you it has backed up everything when I know that there are new files to backup. Right now the software is telling me it is "ready to back up". I add a few files to folder I know it is watching, and the software does nothing. It's like they don't exist.



Sorry, I cannot trust any backup software that cannot even recognize that a new file has been added to a directory.



WD, you really goofed with this software.

 "not great not horrible - mediocre" 2009-12-12
By Jesus C. Segura (Bellevue, WA USA)
I bought this just as some extra storage on an external device, not looking for anything fancy. As the other reviewers pointed out, yes there was a virtual CD that was mounted when I plugged it in. I too am not fond of the way this was implemented but you can change the firmware and remove the virtual CD [...]I went here, flashed the drive, reformatted the whole thing and no more virtual cd drive. I guess it took 2min of my life I'll never get back just to have a empty external hard drive but no biggie. It's not a horrible product but the USB port on the back of the drive feels a little cheap.

 "I dont get it" 2009-12-10
By Emmanuel (Emmanuel)
Hi, i dont understand why if i buy a harddrive i cannot do whatever i want whit it ... if youre looking for a only back-up and cheap solution is right for you... but i prefer like before that my external harddrive is mine and i do whatever i need ... that i want .... whit it





 "Great Drive for MAC Time Machine / Drive Can Be Password Secured" 2009-12-05
By Jim Walker (NY, NY USA)
Its kind of funny. For all the poor reviews and cursing this 2 TB drive created, it actually is a perfect Mac Time Machine backup device ironically because of its hardware based password security -which of course cant be erased -and is what users are complaining about .



Pros



-Hardware based 256bit encryption based security password security means that my Time Machine Backups are locked up tight. So storing an off site backup of this hard presents no security risks. (assuming of course the hardware security cant be cracked)

-Same sturdy, cheap and simple Western Digital hard drives I have relied on for 3 yrs now as backups.

-Cheap enough (At costco) ($169 w/ coupon) that you you can store a few off site backups and know data is safe.



Cons



-Bloatware non re-movable backup software is useless and eats up 12% of disk space 250 gig of 2TB. They really shot themselves in the foot on this one and makes you wonder how out of touch they are with their customers.

-Western digital should stick to its knitting and just focus on making good hard drives rather than backup software. They have failed multiple times in the past w/ backup software.


All Reviews

 

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