Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9730 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WDE1U5000U
• Released on: 2007-03-25
• Dimensions: 1.73" h x 6.06" w x 8.62" l, 2.20 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Box Content

• External 3.5" USB 2.0 hard drive
• 6 foot (1.8m) USB 2.0 certified interface cable
• AC adapter with power cord
• Quick Install Guide

Manufacturer's Description
The Elements USB 2.0 external hard drive is a fast, easy, reliable way to add more storage to your PC or Macintosh. Simply plug it in to a USB port and start saving or backing up your photos, music video and files. It's pre-formatted for immediate use. The compact, durable metal case provides extra data protection.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Great and updated!!
Bought this from Ebuyer a while ago and I'm really happy with it. I had bought other WD external drives before but only the "MyBook" drives and although these are nice looking and stack well, they don't keep the drive very cool with the plastic housing. This drive has a nice rugged aluminium housing which conducts the heat pretty well, causing it to dissipate. Which is a good thing. It has a rubber cap on each end of the drive to reduce slip and give it a bit more protection.

The transfer rates are pretty good for USB 2.0 and accessing it with lots of smallish files (15mb-30mb) contained on it doesn't take too long although it isn't fast but this is pretty normal. The cables are pretty good quality and fit snugly. As was said in another review there is no on/off switch but unplugging the USB lead turns it off and it doesn't have any ill effects.

All in all this is a very good drive and a lot cheaper than buying an internal drive and housing. It does come formatted in FAT32 but this is for compatibility issues and is normal for most external drives, especially the Western Digital drives. Formatting the drive to NTFS doesn't have to take hours as long as you check the "Quick Format" check box when formatting, this does the same as a full format for new "clean" HDD and only takes a couple of seconds using XP or higher.



***UPDATE:***

Bought another one of these for a backup of all my MP3 files and other things (just in case), got it for the nice price of £74 (it's gone up now) and thought I had a bargain. I do but a nice surprise is that this seems to be an updated version of the drive and has a power switch now. That makes me happy and a little more reassured that I can keep it all plugged in but switch it off when not in use.

Hope that's useful to someone, unfortunately I can't see anything on the box that indicates it is an updated model, nothing different from my other drives box, I'm just assuming that the newer batches are coming with a power switch now.

Not a bad little drive.
In all this isn't a bad little drive. I noticed a previous reviewer mentioned that this drive got a little hot, but it's nothing compared to the plastic cased drives. This one comes in a nice solid aluminium case with nice rubber wrapped ends for protection and "non slippiness" and the case does a good job of dissipating the heat.

Compared to the My Book drives also by WD, this drive is a dream. It's not the fastest drive in the world I will admit, but it's one of the more reliable ones.

Does what it says on the tin
Bought this hard drive as it was the one of the cheaper Western Digital drives around. Recognised by WinXP straight away. Reformatted to NTFS in about 60 seconds. Tip. In WinXP format, tick the Quick Format option. This works OK on a new bare drive and takes a lot less time than a full format which would be more appropriate if the drive contained confidential data. The drive looks good, has a substantial feel to it and is quick. The case gets mildly warm, but will not damage a delicate surface thanks to the silicone end shields, which also serve as a non slip "stand" for the drive. Very pleased with the purchase.