Pros: Great performance, attractive design; affordable; loads of space
Cons: None so far, let us pray!
The Bottom Line: If you want a small footprint, high capacity, affordable external hard drive from a name you can trust, look no further than the Seagate Expansion 1.0TB ExternalHHD.
vemartin's Full Review: Western Digital Elements (WDE1UBK10000) 1 TB USB 2...
Lately it seems I need more, and more hard drive space, or could it be that I just like buying new electronics stuff? But you can never have enough storage space I say, and with the prices for both internal and external hard drives at an all time low, it was easy to grab an affordable external hard drive for not a lot of green. My first choice was a SeagateExpansion 1.0 Terabyte (TB) External Hard Drive, but not soon after I started using it (less than 30 days), it decided it no longer wanted to work for me! Here is the update I wrote to my review of the Seagate drive:
"Well Seagate has let me down! The Expansion External 1.0TB HHD is going back from whence it came, in this case Buy.com. Reason: the drive is dying a not so silent death, after less than a month of service. I had read more than several reviews on the Internet about the 1.5GB version of this drive enclosure that stated almost universally that the drive had failed. I also read a few reviews complaining about the Expansion External 1.0TB HHD but I dismissed them and held firm to my loyalty to Seagate. Out of the box I noticed the drive would click once or twice, but otherwise the hard drive seemed to work fine. Then a few days ago while viewing a video the playback stuttered as the drive began to click non-stop. Once a hard drive starts to click continuously, the drive is bad and WILL ultimately fail. So, I wasted no time in getting my RMA number from Buy.com, and I returned the drive via UPS yesterday! Needless the say I am disappointed. I have never had a (consumer marketed) Seagate drive fail, never, so I am shocked, and again disappointed in the outcome of this purchase. I can't say that I will never buy another Seagate drive, but I have since replaced Expansion External 1.0TB HHD with another make, not another Seagate. Bottom-line: stay away from the Expansion External 1.0TB HHD and its 1.5TB cousin." Once bitten, thrice shy on both counts (Seagate and Western Digital). Meaning that I have had problems with WD drives in the past as well, but never Seagate drive, but my budget dictated a sub-$100 purchase so I decided to throw caution-and common sense-to the wind and go for the WD Elements External 1TB Hard Drive for $79.99 at my local Tiger Direct turned CompUSA.
The Drive In The Box
WD Elements External 1TB HHD 3-foot USB cable Small Quick-Start Install guideA/C Power AdapterThe plug-n-play WD Elements External 1TB Hard Drive is an all black 3.5" external hard drive with very few moving parts and only one small blue LED-in the back of the unit. The drive (aluminum) enclosure is not too heavy, not too light (3lbs) and is covered in nice feeling black rubbery material in the front and back of the unit.
The 7200RPM 480 Mb/s 1.0TB Elements drive connects via a USB 2.0 port and can be used with a PC or MAC. Installation
I attached this drive to my Dell XPS One desktop computer running Windows Vista Home Premium. I unpacked the neatly packed drive, plugged in the power, and then plugged the USB 2.0 cable into the port while the desktop was on-line. Under Windows Vista there is of course nothing to the install; connect the drive and go. If you are connecting the drive via a USB port, Windows Vista/XP/Windows 7 will detect the drive, install the necessary drives (if they are needed), and then assign the WD Elements External 1TB Hard Drive a drive letter.
Out of the box the drive is preformatted NTFS, which is surprising given that WD also markets this drive to Apple Macintosh users; can Mac read NTFS partitions now? I don't think so. But, I prefer NTFS because the file system allows for robust security and the file system utilizes drive space more efficiently by formatting the drive with 4KB clusters. After formatting there is some 968GB of free space available.
Unfortunately, Windows 95/98 users will not be able to utilize this drive because the Windows 95 (OS) does not support USB, and Windows 98/SE has no native support for USB 2.0. The drive may or may not work with Windows Me. There was an upgrade to Windows 95 that supports USB version 1.0, but it was released only to OEM vendors; and in any case the WD Elements External 1TB HHD is not backwards compatible to USB version 1.0 or 1.1.
Note: be advised, that if you have an over abundance of mapped drives already on your computer, as I do, Windows 7/Vista/XP may not assign the HHD the next open drive letter; this has happen to me on a number of occasions. If after installing or attaching the WD Elements External 1TB HHD and you get the message that new hardware has been found and is now available for use, but the drive is not assigned a drive letter, you must go to Control Panel /Administrative Tools/ Computer Manager/ Disk Manager, to manually assign the drive letter, or reassign the CD-ROM(s), an alternate drive letter. I have taken to assigning my CD-Rom's down to the bottom of the letter tree; drive Y and Z are my favorites. Alternatively, you can right-click on My Computer, click on Manage and then click on Disk Manager.
Use
I bought this drives to serve as storage medium for the preponderance of image files I both download and take with my digital camera, scripts, applications, as well as files that I may want to upload, or attach to an email. And I may want to use the drive to back-up customer files from time to time. Like I stated at the outset of this review, one can never have too much storage.
The only indicator that the drive is even on is the small blue LED on the back of the drive; it even pulses slowly when the drive is being accessed. And the WD Elements External 1TBHHD is silent. Even when transferring a large number of files to it, I hear nothing, not a whisper, not a sound; amazing! Amazingly as well is the lack of a power switch on the unit.
Conclusion
The WD Elements External 1TB HHD is high capacity, reliable (thus far and I don't expect that to change), and transportable (if the need arises). The small, black, nearly unobtrusive drive warrants serious consideration if you need to backup large quantities of files on a continual basis, or just want to supplement your computers' storage space.
For those who might need a portable drive, the WD Elements External 1TB HHD will most surely fit the bill. While not small enough to put in ones pocket the drive will easily fit in even the smallest backpack, together with the AC unit. If you want a small footprint, high capacity, affordable external hard drive from an established name in the business, look no further than the affordable Western DigitalElements External 1TB HHD.
Features& Specifications
Model No.WDE1UBK10000N Capacity (Native) - 1.0TB Capacity (Formatted NTFS) - 968GB Compatibility - PC, Mac Interface Type - Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Connector - Mini- pin USB Data Transfer Rate - 480 Mbps (Hi-Speed USB) Average Seek Time - 8.5 ms Spindle Speed - 7200 rpm Power - AC 110/230 V (50/60Hz)
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