Western Digital My Book Home Edition External Hard Drive - 320 GB, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, eSATA (WDH1CS3200)

List Price: $194.40 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Storage Capacity: 320GB
• Data Transfer Rate: 300MBps External Maximum External SATA/400Mbps External Maximum FireWire 400/480Mbps External Maximum USB 2.0
• Interfaces/Ports: 1 x 7-pin Serial ATA/300 External SATA /2 x 6-pin IEEE 1394a FireWire /1 x 5-pin Type B USB 2.0 USB Mini USB
• Form Factor: External Hot-swappable
• Standard Warranty: 3 Year(s) Limited

Accessories:

Caselogic HDC-1 Medium EVA External Hard Drive Case (Black)

Customer Reviews:

Doesn't REALLY come with backup software [Posted on 2007-11-14]
I like the design and flexibility of this drive. It seems to work very well. My gripe is that the 'Home Edition' My Book drives are advertised as coming with backup software. It is advertised this way on the box as well as on the WD website. The reality is that a 30 day trial of backup software is included. If you want to continue to use it, it's a $30 fee to purchase the software.

This is just disappointing more than anything else. In my opinion, it is a blatant lie to say that it comes with software when they really only include a 30 day trial.

Maybe this is just a mistake on the part of WD and they will correct it. But for now, be aware.
If you don't care about the backup software, then this seems like a good drive.

Can't speak for the software, but the hardware is great! [Posted on 2008-01-26]
Apart from making my other portable hard drives look rather frumpy, I have no complaints about this hard drive. It turned itself on when I first plugged it in and autoran the installer for the software that is included. I deleted the stuff, so I can't say whether it was good or not, but it was bundled software, so you can probably guess. Regardless, all I needed was more space to store my stuff, and the fact that it sits there all black and sleek and pulses with light in the front makes it good eye-candy, too. It's a portable hard drive, it works, it's cheap, and it's sexy. I win!

The Software IS Included! [Posted on 2008-02-19]
Just fyi, but the software is included with this device. You need to enter the software key that is printed on a lable and stuck to the "installation guide". If you do that, the backup software shifts from being a "trial version" to a fully licensed and functional version. Thus far, it seems to work well.

I definitely recommend this drive [Posted on 2008-04-07]
This drive works great. I needed a drive to store 50-100GB of images for access from our company website, and I was concerned that the access speed would be an issue (not to mention the sleep mode I've heard others talk about). I bought the IOGear eSATA 3Gbps RAID 5 adapter from Amazon, and man is it fast. For those of you who said that USB seemed to be about the same or faster than eSATA... well, you need to try this eSATA card. Using USB, it took 1 min 14 secs to copy a 197mb file to the drive. It only took 8 secs using eSATA. A little side note... this card only works in a PCIe (express) slot.

Needless to say, this drive is quiet (no fans), and only slightly warm. While copying 50gb of images on to it, the drive never got warmer than the screen on my flat panel monitor. I've read that the light on the front only indicates drive activity if you're using USB or Firewire, but mine works the same for eSATA too.

I've only had the drive for two days, but it's working great so far. It's a winner in my book. (no pun intended)

Standard hard drive, slightly annoying OS X software [Posted on 2008-06-25]
I've put the drive on a bookshelf next to my desk and it fits in nicely. It has a little LED on the front that goes off and stuff, but I don't see it doing anything meaningful.

The OS X software is OK. It's a little slow, and I could not find the serial number for the trial software in the box. -1 star for that.

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