Customer Reviews
No More Western Digital For Me 
2009-01-06
I've had two Western Digital My Book Premium 500GB drives connected via Firewire to my Mac Book Pro for a few years now, and they've given me more trouble than any other current piece of equipment.
Actually, I don't think it's the mechanics of the drives themselves, but rather the company, its philosophy, and its software.
The drives came with almost no documentation. It seemed to me that the attitude of the geniuses at Western Digital was: "We've engineered this so well that it works all by itself! It will read your mind and do what you want it to do!"
Fair enough. My Macintosh usually works that way--intuitive. Problem is, Western Digital is not Apple.
First problem: there is a circular button on the front of the drive, but no info on what it is, or does. On-off? It has blue lights around it that glow, or stay on. What do these signals mean? If I press or hold the button nothing happens. If I want to power the drive down, I have to---get this---reach around to the back of the drive and UNPLUG IT! Even after unplugging, the blue lights glow. What is this, 1985?
The drive worked often enough at first, showing up on the desktop often enough to be useful, so I bought another WD drive, only to find that I could not get both drives to appear on the desktop at the same time. It was always one drive or the other, never both. After days of head-banging and Internet searching, I finally discovered that every Western Digital My Book Premium uses the same identifier. My Mac was not seeing two drives because they had identical identifiers. Two drives, but only one number. Wow! Geniuses at work! Western Digital's engineers had decided that no one would ever buy and connect two of their drives! I wish they had been right!
There was a software patch on the WD website, but it didn't work.
Eventually, they issued a patch that seemed to work, but now, several years into use, I'm again having trouble with the drives not showing up. I reboot. I unplug and re-plug. I try every permutation. I might as well sacrifice a beast and explore its entrails. I'd probably get more info about the problem that way.
Western Digital seems to be a company that produces good hardware, but lousy software, and even worse customer support. They're too smart for my own good. I can't trust my back-ups to such people.
Tomorrow I Will Drag This Disk Down the Road Behind My Truck 
2009-01-02
What else can be said about this clinker of a drive? What I can say is that I've used computers with hard drives since the early 1980s, and have never had a drive that played the kinds of tricks this drive has played on me.
Tonight (as it has done so often) the drive refused to "wake up" from its frozen state (sleeping?) when I tried to copy a file onto it from my main drive. Of course the Finder becomes unhappy when it tries to copy to a drive that refuses to wake up...resulting in the spinning beach ball of death...which refuses to go away...nothing will unfeeze matters until a hard shutdown mercifully ends the lockup.
Of course when that happens, there's always a worry of file corruption on every other disk attached to the system. Bleccccccchhhhhhhhh.
That's it! No more! This drive is uplugged from my system and will never be used again. Maybe I'll tie it to the back bumper of my truck and drag it down the road behind me just for fun.
Do not buy this drive. Probably a good idea to not buy *any* drive made by Western Digital. Junk.
I would never buy another Western Digital drive again 2008-12-21
I have had this drive for over a year now. At first it seemed okay, but the software that comes with it does not work well, the drive itself spends more time frozen than functioning, and the website has not been a helpful place for information. Before I realized what a problem this drive is I got one for my mom, too. She's having the same problems. I am researching other backup drives but will not even consider getting anything from Western Digital.
NEVER BUY WD HARD DISK AGAIN 2008-12-15
when I wass looking for hard disk to portable and to save all my data , the top ompany in my main was WD(at least in that time) .
I bought Western Digital WDG1C5000N My Book Premium Edition 500 GB ,which give big size and fast speed to transfer data and its works fine for some of monthes
then ,with a new day SIMPLY it didnt work
all my data there
EVEN MY HONEYMOON PICTURES WAS THERE
but i try to recover many times,even by there software from WD site
but it looks no use
never buy this prodect again
and I may lost my picture of my HONEYMOON be cause of this duumy Prodect
Not dependable, will lose all your information! 2008-12-05
I would give it zero stars if I could. It's a nice product...if it works. I've had it for 2 years and put loads of pictures and videos on it. I made hard copies of most of it, thank goodness, but still. I will never be able to recover all my information.
It has acted fishy in the past. Sometimes turning on, sometimes not. This last time I tried turning it back on, it won't turn on at all. The power adapter seems like it doesn't work, and we tried a different one, but it still doesn't work.
So, I have to find out some way to get my info off and probably won't be using External Harddrives to store my info on. I'll just have to use discs, as annoying as it is.
Products just aren't built to last, and it's a shame and a headache.
Save your money. Store your info the old fashioned way on tapes and discs.
Lost all my data... 2008-12-04
Enjoy the convenience of a FireWire interface with the high-speed performance of a USB 2.0 port, thanks to the dual interface on this sleek external hard drive. 500GB provides plenty of space for your precious digital media. 7200 rpm for fast read & write times 8.9 ms average seek time Automatic power-up, Safe Shutdown and LED activity lights make this drive easy to use Capacity gauge lets you see at a glance how much space is left on your drive Stackable metal case looks like a book and sits horizontally or vertically Compatible with PC and Mac Average Latency 4.2 ms System Requirements - Windows 2000, XP, Mac OS 9.2.2, X 10.2.8 or later, available FireWire or USB port Dimensions (Length x Width x Height) - 2.23 x 3.14 x 6.780 Inches / Weight - 2.90 Pounds
Warranty runs out, POP goes the drive 2008-11-28
It was a great deal when I bought it for my Mac as a backup drive for Time Machine. Worked quite well... until the warranty ran out. Within 30 days it quite working. However well it worked for whatever price I paid wasn't worth it when it broke after a year and I had to start all over.
this hard drive is a true POS 2008-11-04
echoing other reviewers, the drive died unexpectedly - it was used infrequently for archival purposes, so by no means was it overstressed - i will now have to spend anywhere from $1K to $2K to recover the data - in "my book," western digital has soured their reputation for good - i will NEVER buy another WD hard drive again - i wish i could give this product a negative 5 stars
Extremely unreliable product 2008-10-14
Our MyBook started failing - first symptom was being able to read, but not write. Then data became unaccessible. Now in researching the problem, I've discovered that MyBook hard drive failures within the first year of use are common. WD will replace it, but of course you've lost any data (unless you want to shell out the $1000-2000 for a data recovery service). Stay a long ways away from them.
Oh yeah, another thing. Apparently updating the firmware can render the MyBook permanently inoperable.
Intrinsic hardware issues. 2008-09-15
There have been many complaints of this drive. I am not the only one that has experienced it "simply stop working." Do not buy this drive because it will break down on you for no known reason.
