Western DigitalMy Book Essential 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

I bought two of these from Amazon in April of 2009 for about $105.00 each. Now I wish I had purchased 10 of them. They have been that reliable for me and they are now $135.00.I have had them running nonstop from the day I got them.I have never reconfigured anything on them. Just plugged them into my PC and started using them.I have never downloaded any of the programs that are prompted by the new external hard drive (ExHD).I have full usage of my hard drive space.My PCs recognize each different drive separately and there is never any confusion or issue moving them from one PC to the other and no issues using them both at the same time on either of my PCs.I have never had any issues of them heating up or making noise. I was so paranoid from reading reviews about them getting hot and crapping out on people that I check them often. I touch them and can feel no perceptible heat. I listen to them and hear no noise at all. (It is very quiet in my home office; amazingly quiet in fact.)Now I will tell you that I lay them on their side; my logic being that this leaves none of the ventilation slots blocked and I think they get very good cross ventilation but seriously when I touch them they feel actually cool to my touch.The only issue I have with them, and really it is minor, is that I have to unplug them from my PC if I am going to reboot the PC. After I reboot the PC I plug them; in a moment it will begin doing a scan of the ExHD and I hit cancel. Then it opens another window and wants to load some other program and again I hit cancel, it does and then all systems are a go.I have them on a separate battery backup from my PC batteries. Maybe a wee of overkill but it makes me feel better.I feel the need to tell you that I am a "Technoplegic" (my term for someone that computer geeks look at and say "you're too stupid to own a computer") and basically these units have been plug and play and very, very easy to use, very reliable. Once I got it through my thick Welsh/Irish skull that I needed to unplug the ExHD from my PC when I reboot the PC... Well then they were a wee bit of heaven on earth to use.Mind you now, it hasn't been a year yet, only nine months... so... maybe I will be saying "DowgGowneGobilityGookHorsefeathers" in another three months or so. I have no clue. But if I do I will post an update and tell you everything that I have to do and go through with Western Digital... Good or bad issues in dealing with them.Again, I am a Technoplegic so please forgive my lack of geek terms and phrases; my lack of "use this and that program to override this and that other program" and all the other geeky, however smart sounding dribble the Tachnopros have memorized.David C. Maughan

This Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB drive deserves every one of those 5 stars. I have used this drive for 2 purposes: One for the usual purpose of backing up information from a computer and also as an external hard drive extension for the Dish Network DVR 722 receiver. With both of these uses, it worked flawlessly.I am going to focus on how it works with the Dish Network DVR because more and more people are buying external hard drives for this purpose and not many (if any) had reviewed this particular size when I purchased mine a month ago so I was unsure of how it would work. Dish Network states that the maximum external drive size that will work with their receivers is 750GB. That is typically true, except in the case of this Western Digital My Book. The reason for that is simply because most 1TB drives actually have 2 drives within one case. The MyBook only pulls from one drive inside of its case that does hold 1TB. The DVRs can not recognize 2 drives at one time, hence the reason anything that uses such technology isn't usable. I have now been using this My Book 1TB drive with the DVR for over a month and I have had zero problems sending recordings to the hard drive or from the hard drive back to the DVR. You can also access your recordings on the hard drive and play them from there, delete them or do anything with them that you would normally do on your Dish Network receiver. You will notice a very slight delay when accessing recordings on the drive due to the fact that it has to process information much like a hard drive on a PC would. Hooking this drive up to your receiver and getting it to work is very straightforward and simple. All you do is connect the USB 2.0 cable into the back of the hard drive and then into the back of your receiver. You will be prompted on screen to setup your new storage device and from there you just follow directions. Do keep in mind for those of you interested in expanding your DVR storage and purchasing this external drive that there will be a one time fee with Dish for $39.99 to activate service allowing you to use such storage.This drive, whether you're using it for your PC, Linux, Mac or your DVR is extremely reliable, quiet and fairly quick at processing information. I highly recommend this drive to anyone who is considering it! I hope this review helps you.***Update*** I have now been using this external hard drive for over 2 years and it still works flawlessly. I am so thankful I made this purchase since a couple of the Dish Network DVRs have failed but I had backed up any recordings that were important to me on the MyBook so nothing meaningful was lost. I could not recommend this purchase highly enough.