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Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 2TB External Hard Drive £129.95

Comments

  • #2
    pah
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,674 ✭✭✭pah


    meh..
    good find, good price but the reviews are not great


  • #3
    Tea_Bag
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,983 ✭✭✭Tea_Bag


    am i correct in saying its actually 2x1TB HDD's?


  • #4
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    Tea_Bag wrote: »
    am i correct in saying its actually 2x1TB HDD's?

    No its a single 2TB drive inside.

    I have one of those and its a decent drive. Only issue I have is that there is a 700MB partition given to a Virtual CD with some WD crapware on it. It auto-mounts so its a bit of a nuisance. You can prevent the Virtual CD from auto-mounting by going through some updates etc. but you can't ever get that space back.

    Thats actually the cause of most of the bad reviews.

    The drive itself is fine, quiet, runs cool, spins down after a period, no issues. Paid £160 for it last year so thats a good price.


  • #5
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,286 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    No its a single 2TB drive inside.

    I have one of those and its a decent drive. Only issue I have is that there is a 700MB partition given to a Virtual CD with some WD crapware on it. It auto-mounts so its a bit of a nuisance. You can prevent the Virtual CD from auto-mounting by going through some updates etc. but you can't ever get that space back.

    Thats actually the cause of most of the bad reviews.

    The drive itself is fine, quiet, runs cool, spins down after a period, no issues. Paid £160 for it last year so thats a good price.

    Repartition it- and delete the partition (or reformat the partition, set it to active, and you get a second drive letter assigned to it). Its a bitch repartitioning and reformatting a 2TB hard-drive, depending on the computer 5-6 hours might be expected. I did it recently with a 2TB GMAX from Expansys (which while a lot more expensive than the Western Digital offer here- is also a lot more reliable).

    S.


  • #6
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    smccarrick wrote: »
    Repartition it- and delete the partition (or reformat the partition, set it to active, and you get a second drive letter assigned to it). Its a bitch repartitioning and reformatting a 2TB hard-drive, depending on the computer 5-6 hours might be expected. I did it recently with a 2TB GMAX from Expansys (which while a lot more expensive than the Western Digital offer here- is also a lot more reliable).

    S.
    The VCD is built into the firmware.


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  • #7
    martyc5674
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,522 ✭✭✭martyc5674


    Lads,
    I had one of these..it was a bitch of a yoke altogether!!...The read/write access levels had a mind of their own and it wouldnt accept any media files(something to do with piracy ;-) !!)
    I got a refund and got a iomega 1TB network enabled media player instead, much better but not without its flaws(crap interface)

    Edit: Oh yeah the transfer rate was mindblowingly slow!!


  • #8
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,286 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    The VCD is built into the firmware.

    Bollox to that.
    Go get an enclosure and make your own- you get to put a decent drive in, and if you want the 2Tb capacity- use something like the GMAX.


  • #9
    54kroc
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,376 ✭✭✭54kroc


    smccarrick wrote: »
    Bollox to that.
    Go get an enclosure and make your own- you get to put a decent drive in, and if you want the 2Tb capacity- use something like the GMAX.

    In fairness it's only 700mb out of 2tb.
    Are you sure about reformatting a drive taking that long, I did a format and partition on a 1tb drive the other day and it took around 5 min's.


  • #10
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,286 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    cork45 wrote: »
    In fairness it's only 700mb out of 2tb.
    Are you sure about reformatting a drive taking that long, I did a format and partition on a 1tb drive the other day and it took around 5 min's.

    Low level format- as opposed to a 'quick format'


  • #11
    Dazzy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 594 ✭✭✭Dazzy


    I got the 1TB version recently. Its really slow... best transfer rate I've got copying to it is about 18MB/s and that was by initiating 2 copies at the same time. Once off copy never goes above 10MB/s. I can live with that performance as its probably only once you need to make the large file transfer.

    I bought the drive as I wanted to stream Pics/Films/Muisic to my Xbox. Music and Films are ok but sometimes the drive doesn't transfer the photo's quick enough to the Xbox so Xbox stops trying to load them which is a real pain.

    Also, to get external internet access to the drive you have to use WD's software called "MioNet". This is dog slow to the point that it is unusable. In fact I cant download files using Mionet but that could just be a Win 7 thing, haven't tried with a different OS.

    All that said this new one could be very different so check the spec of the actual drive.


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  • #12
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    cork45 wrote: »
    In fairness it's only 700mb out of 2tb.
    Yep its not a massive issue, and like I say, its the only problem I have with the drive. It might even be less than 700MB, cant recall the exact size. You have to jump through a few hoops to 'hide' the VCD (and prevent it from auto-mounting) and thats about it.

    Regards the transfer speed, I havent found it 'slow' per se; its typical USB 2.0 HDD speeds to be honest. The interface itself is the limiting factor, so buy a eSata drive if thats going to be an issue. I copied some 1GB files to it and saw maybe 25MB/s sustained and 33MB/s peak. Pretty much the norm for USB 2.0 drives. USB 2.0 theoretical maximum transfer rate is 60MB/s but you'll never see that in the real world.


  • #13
    AlmightyCushion
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,137 Mod ✭✭✭✭AlmightyCushion


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    USB 2.0 theoretical maximum transfer rate is 60MB/s but you'll never see that in the real world.

    That's the burst speed. After a bit it slews down a lot. You'll only get close to that for copying small copies. So, the speeds seem about right for usb.


  • #14
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    AlmightyCushion wrote: »
    That's the burst speed. After a bit it slews down a lot. You'll only get close to that for copying small copies. So, the speeds seem about right for usb.
    No, burst speed is something different again. 480Mbit/s (60MB/s) is an on-paper theoretical max data rate. Burst speed is an actual real world figure, and best case scenario it'll still be quite a bit below the theoretical max.

    Doesnt really matter tbh, I already said the drive performs about the norm for a USB 2.0 HDD :pac:


  • #15
    AlmightyCushion
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,137 Mod ✭✭✭✭AlmightyCushion


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    No, burst speed is something different again. 480Mbit/s (60MB/s) is an on-paper theoretical max data rate. Burst speed is an actual real world figure, and best case scenario it'll still be quite a bit below the theoretical max.

    Doesnt really matter tbh, I already said the drive performs about the norm for a USB 2.0 HDD :pac:
    Oh, I know that. What I was saying was more in addition to what you were saying instead of correcting what you were saying.


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