Western Digital WDG1U5000 My Book Essential Edition 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
Visually appealing, extremely quiet operation -- just a slight ticking under heavy use. Very stable, with two long thin rubber strips keeping the case from moving. Installation is automatic on Win2000. Drive powers on and off automatically with the computer. Green ring of light on front flickers to indicate read/write.
However, operation of the drive was quirky at first. Opening the root of the drive would always bring up the annoying software install menu. (The software includes Adobe Acrobat Reader, Google Toolbar for IE, and Picasa). To facilitate use with both Windows and Mac, the drive comes preformatted to FAT32. However, this limits file sizes to 4GB. Using Windows utilities to reformat to NTFS was simple and hassle-free.
Note that a small slip of yellow paper in the box suggests downloading and installing an updated drive utility. Unfortunately, starting this updated utility brings up a blue screen of death, forcing a reboot of my Win2000 machine. Fortunately, the utility software is unneccesary.
Were it not for this hassle, I would have given the drive five stars.
Huge storage, automatic power-up, and a small compact design its half the size of my 120 gig. Perfect for all the photos I scan.
I was looking for a 300GB+ External hard-drive to backup my data, photos, music and home-videos. I wanted a rugged drive as I was planning to keep the drive off-site and transport it back & forth for monthly backups.
I evaluated LaCie, Seagate and other alternatives on the market and found the My Book has comparable or better specs and was aesthetically more pleasing than most. I also liked the simplicity and the concept of the My Book. The footprint is also among the smallest in the industry for a 500GB drive.
The drive looks sleek and is not intrusive or odd on a desk. The casing is made of hard plastic. It looks and feels rugged. The drive has "morse-code" vents which, beside looking funky, help keep the drive extremely cool. Drive operation is extremely quiet. When placed vertically there are 2 rubber strips on the bottom to prevent the drive from sliding or vibrating. Multiple drives can also be stacked on their sides - rubber feet are included.
The setup is pretty simple, just plug-in the power and connect the USB cable. Windows XP recognizes and sets up the drive quickly. Look for the drive under "My Computer" - you're up and running!!
The drive comes pre-formatted as FAT32. You can reformat it to NTFS with relative ease under Win XP. There is some included Google software which you can copy to your local machine or download from Google.com. The drive switches on and shuts down with your computer. You can also turn the drive on/off via a large button which is surrounded by the green indicator.
The only thing I miss is the WD Backup software - which seems to be bundled as an incentive with the Premium My Book drive. Another feature that people might miss is the "One-touch Backup" button offered by competitors.
Overall, I'm very pleased with this drive!!
This is a really cool-looking external hard drive that hasn't given me any problems at all. I use it to backup DVDs and the USB interface is fast enough to play them. I plan on buying only these drives to store my ever-increasing DVD collection.
Easy to install. Works on USB 1 and 2. No problems since I bought it
Western Digital is the Rolls Royce of Hard Drives. I have two 500GB My Book Hard Drives that I use constantly for backing up.
Pros: A sleek looking Hard Drive with an enourmous capacity. Just plug in and you're ready to roll. Utility software is unneccessary to install. Drive switches on and off with your computer. Alternatively you can switch it off manually by pressing the large black button on the Hard Drive's spine. I have kept my Hard Drive's on for 12 hours straight. While the Hard Drive's did become warm to the touch, I failed to notice the over-heating that other reviewers spoke about.
Cons: None really. Maybe the day will come when the Hard Drive will be powered by the computer - so that an extra power supply for each Hard Drive will prove unneccassay.
I bought this drive about 6 months ago and filled it with 400GB of MP3 audio. It's been under heavy use and works like a champ. I was concerned that USB might be too slow (given no Firewire port) but it's worked just fine.
I have a Seagate 200+ GB external HD and that thing is a dog. Always crashing and taking down Windows XP. But the WD My Book has given me no trouble whatsoever. So I'm going to get another one to replace that Seagate drive.
Western Digital drive is compact, quiet, and runs cool. I bought a padded case at Eddie Bauer and occasionally carry it with me. No problems at all, whether at home or on the road.
I spent the past year digitizing my CD collection and when I outgrew my 200 gig internal hard drive I decided to go the external route. The My Book was a good choice. The drive is extremely quiet, takes up very little space, and does not get hot in normal use. I really like that the drive is smart enough to automatically go into stand-by when you turn off your P.C.
The first thing you will want to do if you buy one is to delete the junk software that comes preinstalled on the disc. The second thing is to reformat the drive to use the NTFS file system, which is more reilable than FAT 32.
The drive is not a speed demon but is more than adequate for streaming music. I recently bought a second one to backup the first. Unless you need the Firewire port, the Essential Edition should be adequate.
This drive installed flawlessly on a new DELL Windows Vista machine. However, after two days, it disappeared. Still waiting for WD Tech help to respond to a message. The driver somehow got lost.
This drive worked well for 2 weeks and then was no longer recognized by the computer (running Windows 2000, although I've read of a similar problem by another user under Windows XP). Without a driver from the manufacturer (which I can't find on the site) I can't access my data. A real pain, and a complete disappointment. This is my third difficulty with a WD drive (two different models of their portable drives won't work on two of my labtop computers because the designers pushed the power requirements from the USB2 connections and they wouldn't spin up, which I find is a common problem). I'm avoiding WD drives in the future.
This may not be helpful. But I love this thing. Im so glad I spent the money it really is quite and works everywhere and has its own power supply and doesnt look or feel cheap. Get it.
This 500 GB drive works well with a Mac via USB2, and is very quiet. For a Mac, there's no installation of drivers and no software required, it just works (like everything else on a Mac ;-). I've used it with two different Macs without problems. The USB2 interface is slower than Firewire 400 in actual use, but as a backup drive it's more than fast enough.
Really nice unit. Installation consisted of plugging it in. Nice looking, very portable. I would buy another.
BEWARE~~~~
My Western Digital "My Book" started randomly shutting itself down. Emails to the Western Digital "technical support" have gone unanswered, and you can't call them to ask a question unless you sign up for the $14 a year "service plan".
I'm switching to another brand hard drive. hopefully I can transfer all the information off this defective drive before it crashes for good.
First time I used it, it worked great and I took a backup, no problems. A week later, I wanted to take another backup and the drive would not power up.
WD is replacing it under warranty (I had to ship the defective drive at my own cost), but what good is an external hard drive if you can not trust it?
I have two of these drives, one about six months old and the other purchased last week. Neither drive has problems, although the six month is probably the one that counts. I have previously built my own external drives with purchased enclosures and bare drives, but the capacity and price combination on this product I couldn't beat. On a laptop with a USB2 port these drives will backup or image a 50 gig drive in about an hour -- very nice. It is troubling to hear that some people are having bad drives shortly out of the box, but that has not been my experience.
Pros -
The set up is as easy as advertised. Just plug it in and it's ready to go.
It looks pretty cool if you care about aesthetics.
It's small.
Cons -
Noisey. It's like having another PC on your desk. It's easily as noisey as my laptop.
Slow. Over the USB interface it will take a lot of time to back up your stuff for the first time.
No software included. You need to be organized about your backing up of data, remember what you've added etc.
What more can I say that you don't already see from the item description? This hard drive was the answer to my dreams. I bough it right off Amazon and have not seen any problems for a week.
Here is the break down.
Pros:
Quiet yet good heat dispersion
500 GB!
Cheap ($170 - the cheapest 500gb HD I found with enclosure included)
It looks cool. Come on the black and green light, it is just awesome.
Lastly, it shuts down automatically when you shut down your computer. I cannot remember how many times I have left my external hard drives turned on all night.
The only fault of this product I though was that it comes with a bunch of programs. What I did and suggest you do the same is just reformat it as soon as you get it.
I like this one, 500GB is a lot space. now everything is good.
The drive arrived and reported bad clusters from Windows. Tests using Western Digital's own utility initially reported bad sectors and asked to repair them - Now Im not a physics expert who knows magnetic theories quite well, but how do you "FIX" a bad sector?
In either case it "fixed" it successfully but rerunning the same diagnostic test and 6 hours later it returned "error code 8 too many bad clusters found".
Ive returned the item to amazon and they are shipping out another, let's see if this one is any better.. will keep you posted.
I had 3 computers all with hard drives barely having a few hundred MB left since I need to keep a huge amount of data for research purposes. I used to go through the cumbersome task of backing up the data on DVDs, but recently even this solution wouldn't be as helpful.
I got the WD My Book 500GB and I'm totally relieved now. Its black casing is stylish and it works very quietly. The installation of My Book is as easy as plugging in its USB connector (I've a machine running on Windows XP Professional with USB 2.0 jacks). The button on the front is very helpful for turning the device on and off if you want to switch computers.
I've also downloaded a backup/restore program called "Second copy" which is powerful yet simple to use. I got it to work in a matter of minutes and scheduled automatic backup updates every day (which takes a few seconds). It can't get easier than this!
The only issue is that it comes with a FAT32 file system, which most probably you want to change to NTFS (in case you don't need to operate it in a DOS based environment). The formatting takes a substantially long time. I would rather to have had the option of file system while buying this device. Nevertheless, it's a one time procedure and thereafter you can enjoy your huge, fast and reliable storage.
What a great product. Worked exactly as it should on first attempt. File transfers and retrieval are fast - can not distinguish from the hard drive. My requirements were for added storage space and not automatic backups, thus, this serves exactly the purpose, and at a fantastic price. I would strongly recommend this sleek looking, quite and efficient storage device to anyone looking for an external hard drive.
Well, I received this hard drive, only to have it crash on me one week later and have it be essentially useless. I wouldn't use this as advice not to buy as this can happen with hard drives, but I can't help but say that I was very disappointed. Fortunately, the vendor was very good about understanding and was willing to exchange it for a new one (of course, that doesn't help me get my data back!).
The first thing that happened when I plugged the USB only version of My Book into my computer was a hard crash. Meaning that I had to shut down the computer and reboot. Every time I tried to boot the computer with the drive plugged in, the computer would crash. When I booted, then turned on the drive, sometimes it would come up and sometimes it wouldn't. Once up, I had to format it to get the larger file sizes (You'd think with a drive this big, it would be understood that the user has large files). Not a problem, but why?
Transfering files was painfully slow. It took about 24 hours to transfer about 70GB. When I realized that I was going from one external drive to another, I made sure to go from an internal drive from that point on. However, it still took overnight to transfer about 30 GB. My USB port, might be 1.1, however, accounting for the slow speed, but the crashes were ridiculous and I was happy just to get the data back onto my internal drive.
I already owned 2 Maxtor One Touch drives, so I returned the My Book and paid the extra money for another Maxtor and as with the other two, I plugged it in and it worked immediately and flawlessly. Voila. I should have just done the (firewire) Maxtor in the first place, but I was trying to save a little money.
This is an amazing hard drive. transfers data very fast, reliable.
But I notices one issue, since the hard drive is in NTFS format, you cannot copy more than 4GB file to it. I had to split it and then join it.
I need a fast storage for my Movies and this hard drive is perfect, the hudge space and the low price is the perfect inversion.
I am in Iraq and got my harddrive in 7 days and they shipped to me via APO (the Military mail system)
Works well. No problems. Pretty quiet. Just had to reformat but it was pretty quick. Has security cable port so I can secure it to my desk. I wondered whether or not it had that feature and it does. No complaints.
First the pros: The unit worked out of the gate and is very quiet. Reformatted to NTFS and that worked out fine
Second the cons: The drive comes with no discernable way to upgrade to another drive later. 1TB drives will be at this price point next year and I didn't want to especially buy another external appliance. Also the fact I have a power brick is not great. My other external drive has a direct plug into the wall, so this is another piece to bring along. It would be nice if there were some actual instructions as what the software was on the drive. What was there was .pdfs of the included installation instructions. I don't need an installation manual, I would like to know what the bundled software is (was). As many other have said, the case is made of a cheap plastic. I hope it holds up.
UPDATE: ok, I have been using the drive for a little while now and I have to say that I am not as happy as I was earlier. The drive is relatively slow compared to my other two external drives (not WD). Access times are slow and navigating is slow. Worse, the drive seems to go unresponsive occasionally for several seconds at a time, causing my laptop to become unresponsive. My other two external units do not perform this slowly nor do they cause these performance issues. I'm not changing the rating, but if you could put up with a little extra noise, I would recommend getting a good Seagate or Samsung drive and sticking it into an external drive enclosure yourself.
So far so good. I am able to use the drive for video editing. it is a little slow, but not sure if that is the drive or my laptop.
+:
* quiet
* self shut down when not used for a few minutes
* sturdy construction.
-:
* bulkier than other USB hard disks
* no power switch (maybe there is no need for one)
* come with FAT32 file system. Need to reformat to NTFS. (I am not using the tools in the disk)
* the enclosed firewire cable is not the type for laptops.
Thsi product was very easy to use. The plug and play and immediate compatability allowed me to pulg in the HD and quickly drag and drop files from my computer.
I purchased the WDG1U5000 as a backup to my existing iBook and my external 120GB SmartDisk Drive (which I also can't say enough about). I plugged in the 500GB, turned it on, my Mac found the drive and then I dragged and dropped 100GB of music and photos over my USB2.0 (took about 2/5hrs to copy). The process couldn't be easier or for a geek like me, more enjoyable.
A great product, a great price and delivery was a snap - as usual, all from Amazon.
I didn't even get a chance to use it.
This is my second drive in a month.
The first drive (dual interface) failed in a week.
What's wrong with Western Digital?
I bought 2 of these harddrives. and in 2 weeks one stopped working. I am very fustrated about this since i am an international buyer and its a hasle to sent it back to the US. Now i am worried that the other one will stop soon. Is something wrong with this product. I will never buy one more. Some of my friends wanted one ... i tell them dont buy it.
Great way to add hard drive capacity at a reasonable cost. I bought this as an add-on to a new laptop as I was planning on doing digital video editing using Vista, and the cost of addl hard drive capacity in laptops is somewhat prohibitive. This drive works well, and input-output speeds are sufficient for digital video editing apps.
its good for 170-200 $
but i feel the case is too fragile !
I like how this external hard drive will turn off on its own whenever you disconnect the usb or turn off your computer because it says power and most external hard drives make a slight humming noise (and yes this external hard drive does too). At first I was panicking but then I realized that my laptop was much louder and I hardly noticed that external hard drive. Everyone always panicks or gets angry if they find a fault like that but it isn't a problem for me at all.
I haven't seen any problem with its speed, its pretty fast, and its usb cable is long enough for me. I am somewhat of a power user and I didn't have any problem with the speed so it should be fine for like 90% of people.
Received quickly, but it continued to power itself off. Western Digital Diagnostics showed it was experiencing too many bad sectors. WD has an easy warranty policy, and a new unit is on it's way now.
...I have been using this drive for a few months now and have no complaints. One of my laptops only has a USB 1.x port and it is incredibly slower for backups. That has no reflection on this product, but be ready for things to work slowly unless you have USB 2.x and don't blame it on this drive. :)
Has been a very reliable external hard drive. I chose this unit over some of the others because of it's size and ease of use. Software is on the HD, but this may not help if you have Windows 98, or 2000 as they may not find the software to load. But for the rest of us, this is a nice little unit that is fairly priced for the features it includes.
I got it, plugged it in, and without any wait, I started saving my data from my overloaded pc into this external hard drive without any problems. It runs cooler than most other external hard drives, and I can hardly hear it working. It must be reformatted to NTFS in order to take advantage of its large capacity, and that is no problem, either.
I needed storage, but not any real frills, so this was a great choice and delivered what I wanted at a reasonable price. The drive is quiet and reliable.
WD is a well-regarded brand and they will be shipping me a new drive, but after the thing crashed on me after only a couple of months, I will no longer trust my data to WD. I have had Maxtor and Seagate drives (generally much cheaper) that have been running for years.
Does what it says it would. Auto start/stop with the computer. Quiet and fast (faster than my LaCie 300GB). It doesn't feel as solid as the LaCie though. Neither does it warming up like the LaCie either, which is great.
Now I only hope this one lasts as long as it is big in storage size!
I got this drive because my 250 GB version was getting close to being full. So now I use this as my primary data storage drive and leave it in all the time and use my 2-250 GB as backup drives and unplug them when not in use. I have had this drive for about 6 months now and it has never given me any problems and I have had the 2-Western Digital WDG1U2500 My Book Essential Edition 250 GB Hard Drive for over a year with no problems. They are pretty small and fit nicely on a shelf near my computer and I can't even tell they are running over the computer fan so they are pretty quite. External hard drives are much better than internal, if your computer dies you still have everything right there and can plug it into another computer any time you want without opening it up, ripping things apart, setting jumpers etc. So if you are looking for a small, reliable, quite external drive, look no further.
this has been an outstanding product (so far). i have even packed it with my luggage and enjoyed the pleasure of bringing lots of my music and movies with me on my trips and sharing them with friends.
now, someone needs to make a portable drive with a video and digi-audio out.
Compared to previous external hard drives I have used, this drive is quieter, runs cooler, and is cheaper per GB of space. I really like the form factor, and the drive comes up quickly on new machines using the USB2 connection.
I have now bought 2 of them and I will probably buy a 3rd because I like them so much.
The hard drive was exactly what I was looking for. Huge in space. What's really nice about it is that it has this auto-standby feature which prevents overheating and saves energy. It has a cool design and is convenient in shape. Great!
I picked this model over the premium edition because of the reviews about the software, which seem to be the only difference really (except for the capacity gauge lights on the premium edition, which is a nice feature). All I really wanted was software where I could pick certain folders and have it copy them to this external drive, letting me say what should happen if there are duplicate files. I downloaded SyncBack and will try it out shortly. As per the device, I haven't had any problems with it so far...it powers up right when I plug it into my computer and shuts down when I unplug it. Read, write, and delete speeds seem very reasonable to me. It took about 25 seconds to write 190MB worth of files (sorry, that's the only data point I captured).
Overall, I'm happy with the purchase so far.
It's a hard drive. It holds things. Though not physical objects, i.e. don't try to use it as a coaster or a coffee table.
Oh, and it looks like something out of Star Trek.
For now no problems with storage space. Would have been nice to have a manual included and some recommendations how to best format it. Instead they give a link to a website which at the time I couldn't access. So I divided the space in 5 partitions which gives a problem when a power fluctuation occurs since then it gives my partitions different drive letters which of course is a bit of a nuisance to reset. Still 5 stars since it is a great product despite the drive letter problem.
As is typical of Western Digital HDD's, you just plug it in and it's up, running and ready to use - seriously, any idiot can do it. Really, it takes longer to unpack it and find a place to put it, that it does to start using it after plugging it in. I do have a gripe, and it's not just aimed at Western Digital: why do these HDD manufacturers continue to ship these drives formatted with FAT32? I would hazard a wild guess that probably more than 95% of people that buy these things are using an XP (or equivalent) system (and I'm sure that some upset win98se user will rebut me on this). But seriously, if you're using XP, it's almost a necessity that the drive be reformatted to the NTFS file system. Not a terribly difficult task, but you need to know how to do it; either from the Computer Management Console or a Command Prompt. But this is a minor gripe. This is a terrific drive for the price. Is 1,000GB (1TB?) just around the corner?
Pros
1. insignificant humming noise
2. fast transfer speeds
Cons:
1. it says 500 GB on the cover, and the actual product has 460GB. There is a 40GB mismatch.
I would recommend this drive to anyone looking for a reliable USB connected drive. In my case I am using this drive to receive backups from my Infrant ReadyNAS network attached storage device. I keep the My Book storage powered on all the time so I'm especially appreciative of its hard drive spin down feature which occurs after about 10 minutes of inactivity.
Gave it 4 stars instead of 5 only because it doesn't have a cooling fan, although not sure if this really matters and could actually be a plus (very quiet).
I have 450Gb of irreplaceable pictures and personal stuff on this drive. I was pulling a few last bits from a shared drive when i got these error messages on all of the files, i canceled the files tried to access the drive and i get a message something like "a USB device is connected" but i can't see the HDD. I tried several different pc's, powered on and off a dozen times, and pretty much every combination of plugging/unplugging you can imagine many times over. It was never dropped or mishandled in anyway and i get a repetitious buzzing sound for about 45 seconds then nothing. Hopefully the small tech store down the road can access or repair the drive and rescue my data. It was a great drive until 8 days of ownership and it stopped working. I would send it back to WD but then my personal info is everybody's info. Kind of a catch 22 on HDD repairs/returns, no money back, your data is lost, but no one else can see what you have either. I guess if i can't have it then no one will.
I also have the Western Digital My Book Premium Drive 500gb and when it was time to add more space I decided that I didn't need Firewire/400 and backup software. Even though they look like the same drive physically, the "Essential" drive looks cheaper. Probably because of the lack of Firewire port, the essential is slightly smaller in volume. The Premium edition had nice a nice hard feel and rubber footing around the edges of the top, back and bottom of the unit. However, with the essential, there's only 2 rubber footing on the bottom, thus it just feels cheaper than the premium.
With that in mind, I think it's still a better value than the premium, since you're getting the same storage, you save 40-50 bucks by not having Firewire and backup software.
Performance-wise, my 2 mybooks have been performing just dandy. I've only had the essential for a couple of weeks, the premium one I've had for I think about 8 months. I use it to backup all my video, music and photos and it's a solid performer. I transport them back and forth and only turn on the unit when I save data off my main powerhouse windows computer, then I use the drives to access my files off my Apple laptop at my loft.
They do come with small power bricks, but overall I like the black design, it goes nice with my PC but doesn't look that great next to my powerbook.
I am very happy with the 500 GB My book Essential Edition Hard Drive. It works smooth and easy. The purchase was simple and fast. THANKS!
I own five WD External drives and have not had any issues with any of them (the oldest is over 5 years old, is connected 24x7x365, and it's still working fine). My most recent two purchases have been a:
"Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - 7200rpm"
and a
"Western Digital My Book 500GB Premium ES Edition Hard Drive - 7200rpm USB 2.0 & eSATA Dual Interface External Hard Drive"
The "WD My Book Essential 500GB USB 2.0 Ext HD" - just has a UDB 2.0 connector (no eSATA or Firewire) but it works great and if you shop the sales, the price for 500 GB can be close to $100-140 (summer 2007).
The "WD My Book 500GB Premium ES Edition HD" has both a USB 2.0 & eSATA connector on the back (use either one). Note, not many PCs today (2007) have an eSATA port on them. ESATA is faster than USB 2.0, but if you don't have a connector for that externally on your PC, then don't pay extra for it. (You can get after market external eSATA ports for a PC but there are different kinds, and depending on your PC, you need to get the 'right kind' for your PC, assuming you even have room in your PC to add one).
Both of these drives came with easy to install instructions - just plug in the power, and then connect them to your PC, and away you go. Both came with USB 2.0 cables. The Premium ES Edition with eSATA did 'NOT' come with an eSATA cable. Both came with their own power cords - nice long ones too.
Neither of these two can be connected directly to a network, but if your PCs are part of a home network, or small business type network, as mine are, then I just plug them into one of the main PCs and I put a "share" on the drive so that any PC on my network can access it.
If you have important information on your PC, back it up! And if you are like me, previously my backups were stored right next to my PC (not good!) So, now, I use one of these 500 GB drives as the primary backup drive for my PCs, and I keep that right next to one of my PCs. But then weekly, I use the other 500 GB drive to backup the backup drive - and then I keep that one in a fireproof / waterproof safe. You can get these for $30-100, depending on their size, at office stores or online. I like the Sentry line of products.
I make a test in both operative systems (Windows Vista & XP), and his rate transfer it's excellent, his capacity it's up to 470Gb,
Its amazing all the storage capacity this book has, its simply accesible and friendly to use, juts plug in and you are ready to upload tons and tons of music, videos, photos, you name it.
Look no further, if you need up to 200G, buy this one, you'll get 500G for less, from the best brand!
It's been an excellent unit to use since, I have bought it. Has a very good air flow to keep the unit cool.
I lost EVERYTHING! I was initally very impressed with this unit, but unfortunatly after 4 months, the unit failed, the data is unrecoverable, iI lost every document, video, and music file i had on it..... WD unhelpful, although they will replace with another unit, can I trust it??
If you get a message about "USB Device Recognized" and then your computer launches the Device Driver Wizard, YOUR DRIVE IS UNDERPOWERED. Cancel the wizard, don't even bother trying to install a driver. The MyBook does not have any drivers, and does not need any. I'm a little dissapointed that WD would let this slip by, but this fix is simple - plug it into a less crowded power strip, or into the wall by itself. It's a bummer, but not enough to knock a star off of an otherwise perfectly great product.
I love this drive, and bought one for my mother, too. It works great (so long as it's got enough juice). It's smaller than I thought, has a longer than average power cord and is picked up by my laptop and tower instantly and easily. There are no drivers - just plug it in and you've got access. Linux Defender mounted this drive and BartPE recognizes it, too - makes this a great recepticle for data recovery.
USB2 is basically the same speed as firewire. You'll get the same speed but spend less if you add a $15 USB2 PCI card to your computer (if your computer doesn't have USB2 already) instead of getting the more expensive (non-"Essential") versions of this drive for the firewire connection. Plus, you'll have upgraded your computer to USB2 for thumbdrives and whatever else.
I lost EVERYTHING! I was initally very impressed with this unit, but unfortunatly after 4 months, the unit failed, the data is unrecoverable, iI lost every document, video, and music file i had on it..... WD unhelpful, although they will replace with another unit, can I trust it??
If you get a message about "USB Device Recognized" and then your computer launches the Device Driver Wizard, YOUR DRIVE IS UNDERPOWERED. Cancel the wizard, don't even bother trying to install a driver. The MyBook does not have any drivers, and does not need any. I'm a little dissapointed that WD would let this slip by, but this fix is simple - plug it into a less crowded power strip, or into the wall by itself. It's a bummer, but not enough to knock a star off of an otherwise perfectly great product.
I love this drive, and bought one for my mother, too. It works great (so long as it's got enough juice). It's smaller than I thought, has a longer than average power cord and is picked up by my laptop and tower instantly and easily. There are no drivers - just plug it in and you've got access. Linux Defender mounted this drive and BartPE recognizes it, too - makes this a great recepticle for data recovery.
USB2 is basically the same speed as firewire. You'll get the same speed but spend less if you add a $15 USB2 PCI card to your computer (if your computer doesn't have USB2 already) instead of getting the more expensive (non-"Essential") versions of this drive for the firewire connection. Plus, you'll have upgraded your computer to USB2 for thumbdrives and whatever else.
It's been an excellent unit to use since, I have bought it. Has a very good air flow to keep the unit cool.
I make a test in both operative systems (Windows Vista & XP), and his rate transfer it's excellent, his capacity it's up to 470Gb,
Its amazing all the storage capacity this book has, its simply accesible and friendly to use, juts plug in and you are ready to upload tons and tons of music, videos, photos, you name it.
Look no further, if you need up to 200G, buy this one, you'll get 500G for less, from the best brand!
I am very happy with the 500 GB My book Essential Edition Hard Drive. It works smooth and easy. The purchase was simple and fast. THANKS!
I own five WD External drives and have not had any issues with any of them (the oldest is over 5 years old, is connected 24x7x365, and it's still working fine). My most recent two purchases have been a:
"Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - 7200rpm"
and a
"Western Digital My Book 500GB Premium ES Edition Hard Drive - 7200rpm USB 2.0 & eSATA Dual Interface External Hard Drive"
The "WD My Book Essential 500GB USB 2.0 Ext HD" - just has a UDB 2.0 connector (no eSATA or Firewire) but it works great and if you shop the sales, the price for 500 GB can be close to $100-140 (summer 2007).
The "WD My Book 500GB Premium ES Edition HD" has both a USB 2.0 & eSATA connector on the back (use either one). Note, not many PCs today (2007) have an eSATA port on them. ESATA is faster than USB 2.0, but if you don't have a connector for that externally on your PC, then don't pay extra for it. (You can get after market external eSATA ports for a PC but there are different kinds, and depending on your PC, you need to get the 'right kind' for your PC, assuming you even have room in your PC to add one).
Both of these drives came with easy to install instructions - just plug in the power, and then connect them to your PC, and away you go. Both came with USB 2.0 cables. The Premium ES Edition with eSATA did 'NOT' come with an eSATA cable. Both came with their own power cords - nice long ones too.
Neither of these two can be connected directly to a network, but if your PCs are part of a home network, or small business type network, as mine are, then I just plug them into one of the main PCs and I put a "share" on the drive so that any PC on my network can access it.
If you have important information on your PC, back it up! And if you are like me, previously my backups were stored right next to my PC (not good!) So, now, I use one of these 500 GB drives as the primary backup drive for my PCs, and I keep that right next to one of my PCs. But then weekly, I use the other 500 GB drive to backup the backup drive - and then I keep that one in a fireproof / waterproof safe. You can get these for $30-100, depending on their size, at office stores or online. I like the Sentry line of products.
I also have the Western Digital My Book Premium Drive 500gb and when it was time to add more space I decided that I didn't need Firewire/400 and backup software. Even though they look like the same drive physically, the "Essential" drive looks cheaper. Probably because of the lack of Firewire port, the essential is slightly smaller in volume. The Premium edition had nice a nice hard feel and rubber footing around the edges of the top, back and bottom of the unit. However, with the essential, there's only 2 rubber footing on the bottom, thus it just feels cheaper than the premium.
With that in mind, I think it's still a better value than the premium, since you're getting the same storage, you save 40-50 bucks by not having Firewire and backup software.
Performance-wise, my 2 mybooks have been performing just dandy. I've only had the essential for a couple of weeks, the premium one I've had for I think about 8 months. I use it to backup all my video, music and photos and it's a solid performer. I transport them back and forth and only turn on the unit when I save data off my main powerhouse windows computer, then I use the drives to access my files off my Apple laptop at my loft.
They do come with small power bricks, but overall I like the black design, it goes nice with my PC but doesn't look that great next to my powerbook.
I have 450Gb of irreplaceable pictures and personal stuff on this drive. I was pulling a few last bits from a shared drive when i got these error messages on all of the files, i canceled the files tried to access the drive and i get a message something like "a USB device is connected" but i can't see the HDD. I tried several different pc's, powered on and off a dozen times, and pretty much every combination of plugging/unplugging you can imagine many times over. It was never dropped or mishandled in anyway and i get a repetitious buzzing sound for about 45 seconds then nothing. Hopefully the small tech store down the road can access or repair the drive and rescue my data. It was a great drive until 8 days of ownership and it stopped working. I would send it back to WD but then my personal info is everybody's info. Kind of a catch 22 on HDD repairs/returns, no money back, your data is lost, but no one else can see what you have either. I guess if i can't have it then no one will.
Pros
1. insignificant humming noise
2. fast transfer speeds
Cons:
1. it says 500 GB on the cover, and the actual product has 460GB. There is a 40GB mismatch.
I would recommend this drive to anyone looking for a reliable USB connected drive. In my case I am using this drive to receive backups from my Infrant ReadyNAS network attached storage device. I keep the My Book storage powered on all the time so I'm especially appreciative of its hard drive spin down feature which occurs after about 10 minutes of inactivity.
Gave it 4 stars instead of 5 only because it doesn't have a cooling fan, although not sure if this really matters and could actually be a plus (very quiet).
For now no problems with storage space. Would have been nice to have a manual included and some recommendations how to best format it. Instead they give a link to a website which at the time I couldn't access. So I divided the space in 5 partitions which gives a problem when a power fluctuation occurs since then it gives my partitions different drive letters which of course is a bit of a nuisance to reset. Still 5 stars since it is a great product despite the drive letter problem.
As is typical of Western Digital HDD's, you just plug it in and it's up, running and ready to use - seriously, any idiot can do it. Really, it takes longer to unpack it and find a place to put it, that it does to start using it after plugging it in. I do have a gripe, and it's not just aimed at Western Digital: why do these HDD manufacturers continue to ship these drives formatted with FAT32? I would hazard a wild guess that probably more than 95% of people that buy these things are using an XP (or equivalent) system (and I'm sure that some upset win98se user will rebut me on this). But seriously, if you're using XP, it's almost a necessity that the drive be reformatted to the NTFS file system. Not a terribly difficult task, but you need to know how to do it; either from the Computer Management Console or a Command Prompt. But this is a minor gripe. This is a terrific drive for the price. Is 1,000GB (1TB?) just around the corner?
I picked this model over the premium edition because of the reviews about the software, which seem to be the only difference really (except for the capacity gauge lights on the premium edition, which is a nice feature). All I really wanted was software where I could pick certain folders and have it copy them to this external drive, letting me say what should happen if there are duplicate files. I downloaded SyncBack and will try it out shortly. As per the device, I haven't had any problems with it so far...it powers up right when I plug it into my computer and shuts down when I unplug it. Read, write, and delete speeds seem very reasonable to me. It took about 25 seconds to write 190MB worth of files (sorry, that's the only data point I captured).
Overall, I'm happy with the purchase so far.
I needed storage, but not any real frills, so this was a great choice and delivered what I wanted at a reasonable price. The drive is quiet and reliable.
WD is a well-regarded brand and they will be shipping me a new drive, but after the thing crashed on me after only a couple of months, I will no longer trust my data to WD. I have had Maxtor and Seagate drives (generally much cheaper) that have been running for years.
Does what it says it would. Auto start/stop with the computer. Quiet and fast (faster than my LaCie 300GB). It doesn't feel as solid as the LaCie though. Neither does it warming up like the LaCie either, which is great.
Now I only hope this one lasts as long as it is big in storage size!
I got this drive because my 250 GB version was getting close to being full. So now I use this as my primary data storage drive and leave it in all the time and use my 2-250 GB as backup drives and unplug them when not in use. I have had this drive for about 6 months now and it has never given me any problems and I have had the 2-Western Digital WDG1U2500 My Book Essential Edition 250 GB Hard Drive for over a year with no problems. They are pretty small and fit nicely on a shelf near my computer and I can't even tell they are running over the computer fan so they are pretty quite. External hard drives are much better than internal, if your computer dies you still have everything right there and can plug it into another computer any time you want without opening it up, ripping things apart, setting jumpers etc. So if you are looking for a small, reliable, quite external drive, look no further.
...I have been using this drive for a few months now and have no complaints. One of my laptops only has a USB 1.x port and it is incredibly slower for backups. That has no reflection on this product, but be ready for things to work slowly unless you have USB 2.x and don't blame it on this drive. :)
So far so good. I am able to use the drive for video editing. it is a little slow, but not sure if that is the drive or my laptop.
+:
* quiet
* self shut down when not used for a few minutes
* sturdy construction.
-:
* bulkier than other USB hard disks
* no power switch (maybe there is no need for one)
* come with FAT32 file system. Need to reformat to NTFS. (I am not using the tools in the disk)
* the enclosed firewire cable is not the type for laptops.
Thsi product was very easy to use. The plug and play and immediate compatability allowed me to pulg in the HD and quickly drag and drop files from my computer.
I purchased the WDG1U5000 as a backup to my existing iBook and my external 120GB SmartDisk Drive (which I also can't say enough about). I plugged in the 500GB, turned it on, my Mac found the drive and then I dragged and dropped 100GB of music and photos over my USB2.0 (took about 2/5hrs to copy). The process couldn't be easier or for a geek like me, more enjoyable.
A great product, a great price and delivery was a snap - as usual, all from Amazon.
I didn't even get a chance to use it.
This is my second drive in a month.
The first drive (dual interface) failed in a week.
What's wrong with Western Digital?
I bought 2 of these harddrives. and in 2 weeks one stopped working. I am very fustrated about this since i am an international buyer and its a hasle to sent it back to the US. Now i am worried that the other one will stop soon. Is something wrong with this product. I will never buy one more. Some of my friends wanted one ... i tell them dont buy it.
First the pros: The unit worked out of the gate and is very quiet. Reformatted to NTFS and that worked out fine
Second the cons: The drive comes with no discernable way to upgrade to another drive later. 1TB drives will be at this price point next year and I didn't want to especially buy another external appliance. Also the fact I have a power brick is not great. My other external drive has a direct plug into the wall, so this is another piece to bring along. It would be nice if there were some actual instructions as what the software was on the drive. What was there was .pdfs of the included installation instructions. I don't need an installation manual, I would like to know what the bundled software is (was). As many other have said, the case is made of a cheap plastic. I hope it holds up.
UPDATE: ok, I have been using the drive for a little while now and I have to say that I am not as happy as I was earlier. The drive is relatively slow compared to my other two external drives (not WD). Access times are slow and navigating is slow. Worse, the drive seems to go unresponsive occasionally for several seconds at a time, causing my laptop to become unresponsive. My other two external units do not perform this slowly nor do they cause these performance issues. I'm not changing the rating, but if you could put up with a little extra noise, I would recommend getting a good Seagate or Samsung drive and sticking it into an external drive enclosure yourself.
I am in Iraq and got my harddrive in 7 days and they shipped to me via APO (the Military mail system)
Works well. No problems. Pretty quiet. Just had to reformat but it was pretty quick. Has security cable port so I can secure it to my desk. I wondered whether or not it had that feature and it does. No complaints.
I need a fast storage for my Movies and this hard drive is perfect, the hudge space and the low price is the perfect inversion.
This is an amazing hard drive. transfers data very fast, reliable.
But I notices one issue, since the hard drive is in NTFS format, you cannot copy more than 4GB file to it. I had to split it and then join it.
The first thing that happened when I plugged the USB only version of My Book into my computer was a hard crash. Meaning that I had to shut down the computer and reboot. Every time I tried to boot the computer with the drive plugged in, the computer would crash. When I booted, then turned on the drive, sometimes it would come up and sometimes it wouldn't. Once up, I had to format it to get the larger file sizes (You'd think with a drive this big, it would be understood that the user has large files). Not a problem, but why?
Transfering files was painfully slow. It took about 24 hours to transfer about 70GB. When I realized that I was going from one external drive to another, I made sure to go from an internal drive from that point on. However, it still took overnight to transfer about 30 GB. My USB port, might be 1.1, however, accounting for the slow speed, but the crashes were ridiculous and I was happy just to get the data back onto my internal drive.
I already owned 2 Maxtor One Touch drives, so I returned the My Book and paid the extra money for another Maxtor and as with the other two, I plugged it in and it worked immediately and flawlessly. Voila. I should have just done the (firewire) Maxtor in the first place, but I was trying to save a little money.
I had 3 computers all with hard drives barely having a few hundred MB left since I need to keep a huge amount of data for research purposes. I used to go through the cumbersome task of backing up the data on DVDs, but recently even this solution wouldn't be as helpful.
I got the WD My Book 500GB and I'm totally relieved now. Its black casing is stylish and it works very quietly. The installation of My Book is as easy as plugging in its USB connector (I've a machine running on Windows XP Professional with USB 2.0 jacks). The button on the front is very helpful for turning the device on and off if you want to switch computers.
I've also downloaded a backup/restore program called "Second copy" which is powerful yet simple to use. I got it to work in a matter of minutes and scheduled automatic backup updates every day (which takes a few seconds). It can't get easier than this!
The only issue is that it comes with a FAT32 file system, which most probably you want to change to NTFS (in case you don't need to operate it in a DOS based environment). The formatting takes a substantially long time. I would rather to have had the option of file system while buying this device. Nevertheless, it's a one time procedure and thereafter you can enjoy your huge, fast and reliable storage.
What a great product. Worked exactly as it should on first attempt. File transfers and retrieval are fast - can not distinguish from the hard drive. My requirements were for added storage space and not automatic backups, thus, this serves exactly the purpose, and at a fantastic price. I would strongly recommend this sleek looking, quite and efficient storage device to anyone looking for an external hard drive.
Well, I received this hard drive, only to have it crash on me one week later and have it be essentially useless. I wouldn't use this as advice not to buy as this can happen with hard drives, but I can't help but say that I was very disappointed. Fortunately, the vendor was very good about understanding and was willing to exchange it for a new one (of course, that doesn't help me get my data back!).
I like this one, 500GB is a lot space. now everything is good.
The drive arrived and reported bad clusters from Windows. Tests using Western Digital's own utility initially reported bad sectors and asked to repair them - Now Im not a physics expert who knows magnetic theories quite well, but how do you "FIX" a bad sector?
In either case it "fixed" it successfully but rerunning the same diagnostic test and 6 hours later it returned "error code 8 too many bad clusters found".
Ive returned the item to amazon and they are shipping out another, let's see if this one is any better.. will keep you posted.
Pros -
The set up is as easy as advertised. Just plug it in and it's ready to go.
It looks pretty cool if you care about aesthetics.
It's small.
Cons -
Noisey. It's like having another PC on your desk. It's easily as noisey as my laptop.
Slow. Over the USB interface it will take a lot of time to back up your stuff for the first time.
No software included. You need to be organized about your backing up of data, remember what you've added etc.
What more can I say that you don't already see from the item description? This hard drive was the answer to my dreams. I bough it right off Amazon and have not seen any problems for a week.
Here is the break down.
Pros:
Quiet yet good heat dispersion
500 GB!
Cheap ($170 - the cheapest 500gb HD I found with enclosure included)
It looks cool. Come on the black and green light, it is just awesome.
Lastly, it shuts down automatically when you shut down your computer. I cannot remember how many times I have left my external hard drives turned on all night.
The only fault of this product I though was that it comes with a bunch of programs. What I did and suggest you do the same is just reformat it as soon as you get it.
First time I used it, it worked great and I took a backup, no problems. A week later, I wanted to take another backup and the drive would not power up.
WD is replacing it under warranty (I had to ship the defective drive at my own cost), but what good is an external hard drive if you can not trust it?
I have two of these drives, one about six months old and the other purchased last week. Neither drive has problems, although the six month is probably the one that counts. I have previously built my own external drives with purchased enclosures and bare drives, but the capacity and price combination on this product I couldn't beat. On a laptop with a USB2 port these drives will backup or image a 50 gig drive in about an hour -- very nice. It is troubling to hear that some people are having bad drives shortly out of the box, but that has not been my experience.
Really nice unit. Installation consisted of plugging it in. Nice looking, very portable. I would buy another.
BEWARE~~~~
My Western Digital "My Book" started randomly shutting itself down. Emails to the Western Digital "technical support" have gone unanswered, and you can't call them to ask a question unless you sign up for the $14 a year "service plan".
I'm switching to another brand hard drive. hopefully I can transfer all the information off this defective drive before it crashes for good.
This drive installed flawlessly on a new DELL Windows Vista machine. However, after two days, it disappeared. Still waiting for WD Tech help to respond to a message. The driver somehow got lost.
This drive worked well for 2 weeks and then was no longer recognized by the computer (running Windows 2000, although I've read of a similar problem by another user under Windows XP). Without a driver from the manufacturer (which I can't find on the site) I can't access my data. A real pain, and a complete disappointment. This is my third difficulty with a WD drive (two different models of their portable drives won't work on two of my labtop computers because the designers pushed the power requirements from the USB2 connections and they wouldn't spin up, which I find is a common problem). I'm avoiding WD drives in the future.
I had 2 MyBook Essentials die on me in less than 2 months. WD said they will replace the drive (for the 3rd time) if I mail it in. Too bad I have over 300gb of data stored on my drive. The computer (or any computer for that matter), fails to recognize the drive. Comes up as Unknow Device. My data is more important to me then getting a new drive from WD. So I went and purchased an external case (Vantec NexStar3) and took out the hard drive from MyBook and placed it into the Vantec case. My computer had no problems recognizing the new external case. From what I've been reading online, lots of people are having problems with MyBooks. WD is refusing to reimburse me for the price of the new case. I will post on every forum/review site that has anything to do with MyBooks and let everyone know the truth about how bad the quality of these overpriced drives really is. If you are thinking of getting a MyBook, DONT!
So, for less than $200 I could have 500GB? This is not a difficult decision. It arrived within 5 days and was simple to install -- plug in the power cord, and the USB cord to the computer. It comes formatted with fat32 file system. Seemless with all Windows operating systems. If you need file sizes >4GB and are running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, you will probably want to re-format the HD with the NTFS -- an easy process with supplied directions.
One of the best features of this hard drive is that the on/off is controlled by the computer. There's no need to manually turn the HD on or off. Sweet.
I bought 2 of these, one in April and another in May. The first failed in August, the second in September. WD replaced them both, but then the first replacement quit in October. I have owned over a dozen Maxtor and Simpletech external USB and Firewire drives in the past without a single failure.
I am a foreigner here and it was my first purchase through the internet.
In was easy and fast. The external hard Drive is working great, easy start, quiet. I satisfy 100%.
These external drives are great! As a professional photographer, I use these drives to backup all my photographs. They are quick to use and very easy to set up. Not only do I recommend these, I keep buying more.
This may not be helpful. But I love this thing. Im so glad I spent the money it really is quite and works everywhere and has its own power supply and doesnt look or feel cheap. Get it.
This 500 GB drive works well with a Mac via USB2, and is very quiet. For a Mac, there's no installation of drivers and no software required, it just works (like everything else on a Mac ;-). I've used it with two different Macs without problems. The USB2 interface is slower than Firewire 400 in actual use, but as a backup drive it's more than fast enough.
I spent the past year digitizing my CD collection and when I outgrew my 200 gig internal hard drive I decided to go the external route. The My Book was a good choice. The drive is extremely quiet, takes up very little space, and does not get hot in normal use. I really like that the drive is smart enough to automatically go into stand-by when you turn off your P.C.
The first thing you will want to do if you buy one is to delete the junk software that comes preinstalled on the disc. The second thing is to reformat the drive to use the NTFS file system, which is more reilable than FAT 32.
The drive is not a speed demon but is more than adequate for streaming music. I recently bought a second one to backup the first. Unless you need the Firewire port, the Essential Edition should be adequate.
I bought this drive about 6 months ago and filled it with 400GB of MP3 audio. It's been under heavy use and works like a champ. I was concerned that USB might be too slow (given no Firewire port) but it's worked just fine.
I have a Seagate 200+ GB external HD and that thing is a dog. Always crashing and taking down Windows XP. But the WD My Book has given me no trouble whatsoever. So I'm going to get another one to replace that Seagate drive.
Western Digital drive is compact, quiet, and runs cool. I bought a padded case at Eddie Bauer and occasionally carry it with me. No problems at all, whether at home or on the road.
This is a really cool-looking external hard drive that hasn't given me any problems at all. I use it to backup DVDs and the USB interface is fast enough to play them. I plan on buying only these drives to store my ever-increasing DVD collection.
Easy to install. Works on USB 1 and 2. No problems since I bought it
Western Digital is the Rolls Royce of Hard Drives. I have two 500GB My Book Hard Drives that I use constantly for backing up.
Pros: A sleek looking Hard Drive with an enourmous capacity. Just plug in and you're ready to roll. Utility software is unneccessary to install. Drive switches on and off with your computer. Alternatively you can switch it off manually by pressing the large black button on the Hard Drive's spine. I have kept my Hard Drive's on for 12 hours straight. While the Hard Drive's did become warm to the touch, I failed to notice the over-heating that other reviewers spoke about.
Cons: None really. Maybe the day will come when the Hard Drive will be powered by the computer - so that an extra power supply for each Hard Drive will prove unneccassay.
Huge storage, automatic power-up, and a small compact design its half the size of my 120 gig. Perfect for all the photos I scan.
I was looking for a 300GB+ External hard-drive to backup my data, photos, music and home-videos. I wanted a rugged drive as I was planning to keep the drive off-site and transport it back & forth for monthly backups.
I evaluated LaCie, Seagate and other alternatives on the market and found the My Book has comparable or better specs and was aesthetically more pleasing than most. I also liked the simplicity and the concept of the My Book. The footprint is also among the smallest in the industry for a 500GB drive.
The drive looks sleek and is not intrusive or odd on a desk. The casing is made of hard plastic. It looks and feels rugged. The drive has "morse-code" vents which, beside looking funky, help keep the drive extremely cool. Drive operation is extremely quiet. When placed vertically there are 2 rubber strips on the bottom to prevent the drive from sliding or vibrating. Multiple drives can also be stacked on their sides - rubber feet are included.
The setup is pretty simple, just plug-in the power and connect the USB cable. Windows XP recognizes and sets up the drive quickly. Look for the drive under "My Computer" - you're up and running!!
The drive comes pre-formatted as FAT32. You can reformat it to NTFS with relative ease under Win XP. There is some included Google software which you can copy to your local machine or download from Google.com. The drive switches on and shuts down with your computer. You can also turn the drive on/off via a large button which is surrounded by the green indicator.
The only thing I miss is the WD Backup software - which seems to be bundled as an incentive with the Premium My Book drive. Another feature that people might miss is the "One-touch Backup" button offered by competitors.
Overall, I'm very pleased with this drive!!
Visually appealing, extremely quiet operation -- just a slight ticking under heavy use. Very stable, with two long thin rubber strips keeping the case from moving. Installation is automatic on Win2000. Drive powers on and off automatically with the computer. Green ring of light on front flickers to indicate read/write.
However, operation of the drive was quirky at first. Opening the root of the drive would always bring up the annoying software install menu. (The software includes Adobe Acrobat Reader, Google Toolbar for IE, and Picasa). To facilitate use with both Windows and Mac, the drive comes preformatted to FAT32. However, this limits file sizes to 4GB. Using Windows utilities to reformat to NTFS was simple and hassle-free.
Note that a small slip of yellow paper in the box suggests downloading and installing an updated drive utility. Unfortunately, starting this updated utility brings up a blue screen of death, forcing a reboot of my Win2000 machine. Fortunately, the utility software is unneccesary.
Were it not for this hassle, I would have given the drive five stars.