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Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAF0010HBK-NESN

By admin On December 19, 2009 Under Gadget Deals, New Gadget Reviews

User Reviews Send this to a friend
Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAF0010HBK-NESN
 
Manufacturer: Western Digital
Customer Rating:
 
List Price: $139.99
Sale Price: $109.00
Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours
Free Shipping Available
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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 center 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 center 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 center.

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 center for your external drives. From it you can:

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

Product Details

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

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Customer Reviews

Be very careful when selecting this drive.
 
Review Date: December 24, 2009
Reviewer: Jerry Saperstein, Evanston, IL USA
I have been using Western Digital drives for many years in my work and own hundreds in various capacities, including a few My Book models. Until now, there has been nothing unique about these drives. Plug them into USB port and you're ready to go.

This unit with its WD SmartWare solution is different from My Book units of the past: very different. Different enough to ruin the day for many people who find that they have something they don't want - an automatic backup system. Thus, this unit must be reviewed from two very different perspectives. One as a standalone backup system - and the other as a standalone external drive. Both merit five stars.

Western Digital blew it on this product line. I guess some MBAs decided that people wanted a plug-n-play backup system. Maybe some people do. But they sure don't make it clear on the box that when you plug this puppy in, it is very insistent on installing its backup software. And there is as virtual CD that pops up and pops up and pops up and pops up: you seemingly can't get rid of it.

As delivered - unless you want a simple backup system - this My Book model is bad news. Western Digital got the message after the marketplace blasted it with reviews running from bad to awful. They finally introduced some software that would update the firmware and suppress the virtual CD function.

So now if you're willing to take the time to download and run the firmware updater and the software manager, in about thirty minutes or so, you'll have what you might have been looking for in the first place - an external hard drive without any bells and whistles.

Western Digital did this one wrong. The advertising and the outside of the box should make it absolutely crystal clear that this is intended as a standalone backup system that can be converted to an ordinary external hard drive.

As a backup system for people who don't want to learn anything about backing up hard drives, it isn't bad. It is simple to use, configurable for default operation and even provides for whole drive encryption. However, it is not a system experienced users will like. It is inflexible and it is WD's backup way or no way. It is, effectively, backup for dummies - and the unsophisticated will probably appreciate it simplicity.

A lot of people, however, are going to buy this unit without reading the current descriptions or the notice of a firmware updater from Western Digital and are going to be very aggravated as they try to get rid of the virtual CD and defeat the backup software.

Physically, the unit is typical of the My Book line. Sleek, no fan and runs cool. One significant design defect, in my opinion, is the use of a "wall wart" power adapter. It is on the large side and doesn't fit conveniently into most power bars. They should have made it inline with a regular power cord going to the outlet. Also, the MBAs have decided the normal convention of putting the USB symbol on the top of the USB connector is too ordinary for them: they put it on the bottom and used a stylized "WD" logo on the top. So expect to attempt putting in the cable upside down a few times. Finally,the sockets for the power and mini-USB did not quite line up with the openings on the case.

For someone seeking a simple backup solution, this is a pretty good idea. For someone who just wants an external hard drive, it works, but only after you remove the backup features. The hard drive itself is a Western Digital product and I have been pleased with them over the hundreds of drives I use in my work.

If you're looking for just a plain vanilla external hard drive, don't buy this unit unless you don't mind taking the time to get rid of the backup features. Otherwise get one without the WD SmartWare features.

Jerry


You Can Disable SmartWare!!!
 
Review Date: November 7, 2009
Reviewer: JonKron, Hopeful, USA
Hello people- you are either being lazy or incompetent. Western Digital's website gives you instructions on how to disable the SmartWare technology (which is, in a word, horrible). After doing so, the drive operates just like any other external hard drive. WD should include this information upfront and let the user choose how to configure their HD- clearly an error by their product team. However, a quick Google search got me where I needed to go. Drive works great- 2TB for $200.

Link to instructions on how to disable SmartWare:
[...]
problems resolved
 
Review Date: January 7, 2010
Reviewer: Marco De Vivo, Miami, Florida United States
1) The cable is a 'standard male' to 'MICRO USB male.' The same one NOKIA uses as DATA cable for their cel phones to communicate with computers Note that this is a MICRO (not a MINI)plug.

2) For the VCD you just follow the link shown at the beginning of this amazon page indicating news about the related software upgrade. Then choice your model and download the firmware utility and the vcd manager. Follow the quite long (24 steps) but otherwise easy procedures and remove the wired partition. you can use MAC or Windows software (both available) First make the firmware upgrade and then run the vcd manager and VOILA the extra icon disappears! My hard drivers came NTFS from FACTORY. I formatted MAC HFS (WITH GUID partitioning )with DISK UTILITY and THEN made the upgrades running the downloaded mac software. Mac owners ADVICE: try to stop spotlight (for the drive upgraded) while upgrading. Is more on the safe side (even if not strictly mandatory I guess). Good luck. Excellent Hard Disks!.
Excellent, compact but large capacity backup, ext. hard drive
 
Review Date: October 6, 2009
Reviewer: Kirk Clagstone,
I was looking for an ext., large capacity hard drive with options/uses in addition to a std. hard drive backup devices. I had read a negative review on this product but with the return policy, knew I could get my money back if I had problems. I had the retail outlet install the software - no problems with this. It's compact, has state of the art features, 2TB = plenty of backup space and after 4 weeks of use, it's lived up to what was advertized - no problems and I would recommend this to anyone who wants a large, user friendly external hard drive with automatic features.
Kirk
Business user's take on My Book
 
Review Date: October 23, 2009
Reviewer: Anthony Del Vacchio,
I have used My Book for over a month now, and
it is exactly what I was seeking for the safety
of my accounting practice data. It was very easy
to install, and the software took over from there.
In the background, it is constantly backing up any
changed data, and will be a blessing when the
enevitable CRASH occurs.
J&R Computer/Music World