Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive WDH1U5000N

This drive failed after one year. I lost a lot of personal and financial data that is not recoverable.

It was not abused. Sat on a desk for the most part. No power outages. It died during a write access for a financial program.

This is the second WD drive I have die on my in a year of use. (I had blamed myself for the first one, but maybe this is the just the way these drives are built.)

Back to paper for the financial reports. They don't need batteries.

These are nice units and easy to use. One day when I turned it on it just disappeared. I tried everything but it was still not seen in My Computer or Explorer. So I formatted it. If you format them to NTFS and assign a drive letter before using it you shouldn't have the problem of it disappearing.

My WD drive failed after a couple months...never did any damage to it. One day, it wasn't recognized by my PC and when I powered it down and turned it back on, the clicking noises began.

Shopping for an external drive for file backups I found this model and another brand that was 250gb for the same price. Of course I went with the larger drive for the same price!
Setup was very easy and I have it setup to backup certain VIP folders on my PC, mostly my digital photos. With my wife hounding my to burn the photos to something so we'd have a backup in case of PC failure, this has been a fantastic purchase!
The only thing I don't like about it (which is my own fault for not inspecting the package closely) is that it's not recommended to be a travelling drive and needs AC power in a place where plug space is rare in my home even with a surge strip.
Overall though, I've been very pleased with it's performance and for the space I got for what I paid.

I love our external hard drive. I was always so worried about my computer crashing & losing my personal information & pictures. It is so easy to use & you feel so much better knowing that everything that is so important to you is safe. It is something I think everyone that owns a computer should have.