Western Digital WD Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDE1UBK10000N (Black) by Western Digital
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Digital camera reviews of Western Digital WD Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDE1UBK10000N (Black)
Digital camera Review: A Superior Drive
Summary: 5 Stars
Many years ago I purchased a Western Digital WD1200B external USB drive for backing up my computer systems and files. Recently I just purchased this Western Digital Elements drive to replace the former which had a capacity of only 120GB. I noticed a number of improvements Western Digital made since the old drive was manufactured, notably:
1. The new Elements drive has over eight times the capacity.
2. It has a smaller footprint.
3. It is much quieter, in fact, it is practically silent. The old WD drive has a significant hum as the platters spun.
4. And, I got it for $10 less than what I paid years ago for the 120GB drive.
The drive comes formatted as FAT32. When I first started backing up files, the backup suddenly stopped and Windows gave me an error message saying the drive was full and that I needed to make more space. Since I realized this was nonsense, I investigated the issue only to find that the real problem was that I was copying a file greater than 4GB which is something FAT32 does not support. Instead of converting the file system I did a complete reformat of the drive to NTFS. This served as a sort of burn-in since it took a few hours. I then proceeded to copy about 90GB of files from the old drive. When this was finished I used the Vista Backup and Restore utility to create a backup image of my Vista system. Everything worked well, and I encountered no problems whatsoever. Well, I guess what I am saying is that the drive did exactly as advertised. I found no complaints in this drive.
This is my fourth Western Digital drive. I've had two external USB drives, one internal (a replacement for a crashed drive from another vendor), and an NAS drive. So far, I not had any issues with the Western Digital products. Nevertheless, I always do my research before purchasing anything which includes checking what experience other people have had with the product. If I did my homework well, the purchase should merit five stars as it does in this case.
Digital camera Review: A Workhorse, Simple and with Unbeatable Value
Summary: 4 Stars
This is probably the simplest and cleanest external hard drive installation I've done in my life. The drive comes with nothing inside, just formatted and that's it. No back-up programs or any type of bloatware, just the disc as I believe a good external hard drive should be. This guy is not fancy at all but works marvelously, a simple black metal rectangle with two rubber holders at each of the small sides, an USB connector, an AC connector and a on-light well positioned on the back so it doesn't bother you at all. There is no off/on switch and none is needed either. This drive complies pretty well with the old adage that the best technology is the one that does it work and you don't even notice it
The only real downside I noticed is the speed. This guy is slow. I compare it with a Western Digital My Book Essential I had, and I think this one is slower. It took me over 6 hours to format it to NTSF (it comes on FAT32) on Vista, and it took Acronis True Image over 4 hours to create a disk image of around 300GB of data. I never formatted the My Book but disk images form Acronis were done at least at half the time. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Not sure. Anyway, speed is not essential for me as back-up or formatting is barely noticed on my system, if noticed at all, but maybe people with lower end systems would have an issue with speed
For the rest, it works warm as some said here but this is expected on mechanical drives, and sometimes a somewhat loud clicking noise can be hear coming from it, but nothing really annoying and it's not constant.
Overall a great external hard drive for a price and quality not easy to find on other brands
The Good:
1.- Simple set-up, works out of the box
2.- No imbedded software or bloatware
3.- Sturdy metal construction, simple form factor design
4.- 1 TB for less than a 100 bucks!
The not so Good
1.- Works a bit on the slow side
2.- Comes formatted as FAT32 (not sure why a 1TB drive will come with this format)
3.- Cannot be positioned vertically as the rubber edges sides are not flat (haven't tried without the rubber edges though)
Digital camera Review: A great buy for the seasoned user
Summary: 4 Stars
On the whole this is a great little drive for my purpose. It is small, whisper quiet, fast in transfer, and simple to use.
I've only two issue thus far. First, I had to format it, which I was not expecting. My understanding was that it came preformatted for Windows, but my XP laptop would simply not recognize it outside of the Drive Manager until I did. Second, I does have a tendancy to go into drive hybernation mode with little or no warning. and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to prevent that.
I was perfectly OK with the external power requirement. I've got plenty of outlets. For my purposes, I really like the bomb-proof design. MY external HAS to take the knockabouts of travel and flight, and start up error-free every time.
I bought a second for backup.
Digital camera Review: A linux user
Summary: 4 Stars
I read many reviews about this hard drive running on windows. However, I have a little different experience using it on linux. I use this hard drive to store huge text files from my research.
So far, I have only one complain about it. After it becomes idle, the linux system stops recognizing in. Only way to access the path to this hard drive is to unplug the power or USB cable and plug it back in. I hope that it could be better compatible with linux if I had an on/off switch.
Digital camera Review: A must have for storage!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
It is perfect so far. It's too early to say anything about it's longevity. It has performed flawlessly so far!!!!