Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
IT Hardware Direct Ltd
£58.82 + £4.50 shipping
In stock
Base
£63.93 + FREE SHIPPING
In stock
Addonsworld
£61.94 + £1.99 shipping
In stock
34 used & new from £53.95
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive
 
See larger image and other views 
Share your own customer images

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

by Western Digital
3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (293 customer reviews) More about this product
Was: £84.99
Price: £53.95 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £31.04 (37%)
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, July 7? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
32 new from £53.95 2 used from £55.00
Product Promotions

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this item with Kensington PocketHUB Mini USB 2.0 - Hub - 4 ports - USB

Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive + Kensington PocketHUB Mini USB 2.0 - Hub - 4 ports - USB
Price For Both: £61.83

These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive
67% buy the item featured on this page:
Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive 3.6 out of 5 stars (293)
£53.95
Western Digital Elements 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - Black
12% buy
Western Digital Elements 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - Black 4.5 out of 5 stars (37)
£68.97
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
9% buy
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive 3.6 out of 5 stars (293)
£74.75
Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB USB Portable External Hard Drive
7% buy
Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB USB Portable External Hard Drive 4.1 out of 5 stars (276)
£57.18
Explore similar items

Technical Details

  • Easy to set up, easy to use- just plug it in and it's ready to use
  • USB 2.0 interface - A simple connection that offers convenience and compatibility
  • Fits right in - Takes no more space than a paperback book
  • Smart and energy efficient - Turns itself on and off with your computer
  • Works with both Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later
›  See more technical details

Product details

  • Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 5.4 x 16.5 cm ; 1.2 Kg
  • Boxed-product Weight: 1.8 Kg
  • Delivery Destinations: Visit the Delivery Destinations Help page to see where this item can be delivered.
    Find out more about our Delivery Rates and Returns Policy
  • Item model number: WDH1U5000E
  • ASIN: B000WP0NM8
  • Date first available at Amazon.co.uk: 13 Nov 2007
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (293 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 136 in Electronics & Photo (See Bestsellers in Electronics & Photo)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
Huge Range of Hard Drives
   www.novatech.co.uk/harddrives    Freecom, Seagate, Maxtor & WD Hard Drives. In Stock @ Novatech! 
Essential Western Digital Sale
   TopCheap.co.uk/Essential+Western+Digital    Save big on Essential Western Digital. Essential Western Digital up to 72% off! 
External Hard Drives
   www.offtek.co.uk/USB_External_HDD    Extremely Small USB External Hard Drives. Low Prices. Free Delivery. 
  
 

Buy This Product and Related Accessories

Product Description

Manufacturer's Description
Are you running out of hard drive capacity? Do you need to archive some important digital documents, photos, or music? This elegant external hard drive, reminiscent of a book, is the perfect solution. It takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf.

Easy to set up, easy to use - Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive, you just plug it in and it's ready to use.
USB 2.0 interface - A simple connection that offers convenience and compatibility among multiple computers.
Fits right in - Takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf.
Smart and energy efficient - Turns itself on and off with your computer.
PC and Mac compatible - Works with both Windows® 2000/XP/Vista and Mac® OS X 10.4.8 or later
Ideal for

  • Instant storage
  • Easy to use
  • USB 2.0
  • Saving and organizing your digital photo collection

System Requirements

  • Available USB port
  • Windows® 2000/XP/Vista®
  • Mac® OS X 10.4.8 or later


Box Contents
  • External hard drive
  • USB cable
  • AC adapter
  • Quick Install Guide

    • Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

    Freecom Databar 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive

    Freecom Databar 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive

    4.2 out of 5 stars (61)  £12.17
    		Kensington PocketHUB Mini USB 2.0 - Hub - 4 ports - USB

    Kensington PocketHUB Mini USB 2.0 - Hub - 4 ports - USB

    3.8 out of 5 stars (19)  £7.88
    		Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

    Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

    3.6 out of 5 stars (293)  £74.75
    		Hama Universal Case for External Hard Drives, size S, Black

    Hama Universal Case for External Hard Drives, size S, Black

    4.7 out of 5 stars (3)  £9.63
    		Western Digital TV HD 1080P Media Player

    Western Digital TV HD 1080P Media Player

    4.2 out of 5 stars (93)  £76.93
    › Explore similar items

    Tags Customers Associate with This Product

     (What's this?)
    Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
    Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below
    (34)
    (15)
    (14)
    (14)
    (11)
    (11)
    (10)
    (8)
    (7)
    (3)
    (2)
    See all 37 tags...

    Your tags: Add your first tag
     
    See most popular tags
     

    Customer Reviews

    293 Reviews
    5 star:
    		 (129)
    4 star:
    		 (68)
    3 star:
    		 (13)
    2 star:
    		 (15)
    1 star:
    		 (68)
     
     
    		 
     
     
    Average Customer Review
    3.6 out of 5 stars (293 customer reviews)
     
     
     
     
    Share your thoughts with other customers:
    Most Helpful Customer Reviews

     
    177 of 181 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Quiet, compact and reliable. Plus - a tip for Mac users., 10 Jul 2008
    By JackJack (Glasgow, UK) - See all my reviews
    This is the third My Book drive I have bought. I have been very pleased with all of them, and am still using the (smaller capacity) one that I bought 3 years ago!

    Reasons to recommend this drive:
    - Quiet
    The external power supply and well-ventilated design means that this drive can stay cool without a fan.
    - Reliable
    I have never had a problem with any of the 3 My Books that I have bought over the past 3 years.
    - Small
    The drives take up very little space on a bookshelf, and the external power supply is tiny.
    - Stylish
    I'd much rather have this thing on my desk than a bulky horizontal case. If you're going to use a drive every day, might as well have it look good!

    Essential tip for Mac users:

    - THIS DRIVE IS PARTITIONED FOR WINDOWS. Please excuse the capitals, but this is important and it isn't in the manual. If you want to use this disk with a Mac, the first thing you should do is repartition it.

    Go to Disk Utility, click on the My Book disk, and select the "partition" tab. Create at least one partition (don't just leave it at "current"). Then click "options" and select "GUID partition table" if you have an Intel Mac, or "Apple Partition table" if you have a PPC mac. Finally, click "Apply". Then reformat the drive in HSF Extended + Journaling format.

    Why bother doing this? The default MS-DOS parititioning will work, but it will be slower and you are more likely to run into errors. I honestly believe that failure to repartition the drive is the main reason that people have reported problems with using this drive on a Mac.
    Comment Comments (10) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



     
    338 of 353 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars An external hard drive that actually looks nice., 20 Sep 2008
    Okay, there are a lot of reviews for this product already and a lot of misinformation so I thought I'd try to clear the air a bit and lay down the key points for external hard drives:

    * You will not get 1TB of storage on this product. The industry measures 1TB as 1000 GB, but your computer measures it as 1024GB. The same goes for GB into MB. The true capacity of this drive when formatted will be in the region of 930GB.

    * It comes with a multi-plug. Follow the instructions to clip off the USA plug and clip on the UK plug. No tools are required (except fingers) and most children of 5 could complete the task.

    * The drive turns on and off with your computer and 'sleeps' when inactive to reduce power consumption and heat. In sleep mode it uses less power than your mouse, but if for whatever reason you want to turn it of simply right-click the drive icon and select 'safely remove'.

    * Don't let the 'I lost all my files' reviews put you off. Some hard drives do fail. This is the same for all manufactures and cannot be avoided. Valuable data should always be backed up on two separate devices.

    * If you are planning to store video on the drive it would be a good idea to format the drive to NTFS straight out of the box, don't worry about overwriting the files that come on the drive, you don't need them.

    Compared to other drives on the market this one is nicer to look at, and thanks to it's sleep mode, quieter and cooler than most. Getting (nearly) a Gigabyte per pound isn't too bad either!
    Comment Comments (13) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



     
    56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
    4.0 out of 5 stars Tried & Tested..., 2 May 2008
    By S. Franklin "tomcatmedia" (UK) - See all my reviews
    (REAL NAME)   
    Well I thought I'd wait for a while until I review this Ext HDD.
    It came pretty quick, the interchangeable plug isn't a problem. I think it's quite clever myself!
    Setting up is a piece of cake, just plug & play. It looks stylish (which doesn't really bother me) but like what most people say, it doesn't have an on/off switch. But you can switch it off from your desktop by safely removing the USB drive. This will switch it off.
    Compared to my ICE BOX 500Gb drive, it is slower in read/write speeds. I found this strange as they are both 7200RPM drives, but it definitely works slower. The ICE BOX is like lightning, and it has an on/off switch!

    All round it's a good buy, and does the job of backing up all of your important data.
    Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


    Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
     
     
     
    Most Recent Customer Reviews

    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    I bought this product after having had my PC's motherboard failed and I wanted to be assured of future protecton. Read more
    Published 2 hours ago by John

    5.0 out of 5 stars western digtal my book essential edtion 1tb usb 2.0 external hard drive
    This item is excellent well worth the money,saved me lots of time , just buy it
    Published 23 hours ago by William Webster

    5.0 out of 5 stars No problems
    I spent a long time reading reviews and trying to weigh up what to do. I bought this product because I wanted a reliable and easy-to-use bit of storage for my laptop. Read more
    Published 4 days ago by Greekfoodie

    3.0 out of 5 stars Using MyBook for Apple Mirror RAID
    Not sure what went wrong - I got a pair of these from Amazon and after I built the RAID in software [a doddle with Mac OS X even for someone like me that had not done it before]... Read more
    Published 8 days ago by CC

    2.0 out of 5 stars Watch out if you have an older PC
    The product works well for me apart from one issue. Western Digital's tech support were helpful in responding and have explained the problem but can't solve it... Read more
    Published 11 days ago by David Shaffer

    2.0 out of 5 stars Good but corrupt
    Good value for money, reasonably quick delivery but everytime it was plugged into my laptop, the laptop crashed and restarted with a blue screen so had to send it back
    Published 12 days ago by H. Craggs

    4.0 out of 5 stars Great storage device, shame about some of the pre-loaded software
    I bought this product because I wanted to back up my iTunes Library. I was able to do this which is great. Read more
    Published 16 days ago by J. Hickey

    4.0 out of 5 stars Doubtful
    Obtained this item about 2 weeks ago ,very use to operate ,only really had to whack the USB to my PC and i was off ,saying that i am very doubtful now as i have been listening to... Read more
    Published 18 days ago by M. Fernandes

    4.0 out of 5 stars Value for money
    This product is easy to use, reliable and value for money. I wanted a large external hard drive to back up the contents of my home pc and this does the trick perfectly! Read more
    Published 20 days ago by AE

    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product
    This is the 4th Western Digital external hard drive i've purchased from amazon. The first 3 were 250GB and have gave me no problems whatsoever. Read more
    Published 22 days ago by Mr. P. Hastie

    Only search this product's reviews


    Customer Discussions

     Beta (What's this?)
    This product's forum (19 discussions)
      Discussion Replies Latest Post
    		bang! - Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive 3 22 days ago
    		transfering data 1 1 month ago
    		on ps3? 3 1 month ago
    		I-Tunes 1 1 month ago
    		USB ports? 0 1 month ago
    		Connecting to dvd player 0 1 month ago
    		I lost the power cable / ac adaptor 2 2 months ago
    		Not portable? 2 April 2009
    		product key 1 March 2009
    		synchronisation capacity for external hard disk 0 December 2008
    		Help!! WD My Book Essential 500GB: Works on XP but Vista not recognising it. 1 December 2008
    		USB1.1 3 November 2008
    › See all 19 discussions...  
    Start a new discussion
    Topic:
    First post:
    Prompts for sign-in
      [Cancel]

       

    Listmania!

    Create a Listmania! list

    Look for similar items by category

    Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

    Elemis Resurface and Renew Skin Care Gift Set of 4 Products
    From soap to shavers, massagers to mascara, stock up on your daily essentials or truly pamper yourself.

    ›Discover Health & Beauty

    		  

    Make A Wish

    Get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk Wish List Make sure you always get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk Wish List.

    ›More info on Wish Lists

    		  

    Up to 53% off Braun Series Shavers

    Braun Series 3 390cc Clean & Renew System Rechargeable Foil Electric Shaver
    Get in touch with your smooth side with Braun Series shavers, now with Gillette blade technology.

    ›Discover Braun Series at Amazon.co.uk

    		  

    Treat Someone

    Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

    ›Learn more about Gift Certificates

    		  
    Ad

    Amazon.co.uk Privacy Statement Amazon.co.uk Delivery Information Amazon.co.uk Returns & Exchanges

    Where's My Stuff?

    Delivery and Returns

    Need Help?

    Your Recent History

      (What's this?)
    You have no recently viewed items or searches.

    After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

    Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
    Continue Shopping: Top Sellers

    amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
    International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
    Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
    Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
    About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
    Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates