Western Digital 500GB My Book Essential 1U External Hard Drive USB2.0

This is an external hard disk drive that does exactly what it says on the tin. They are quiet and fast and work fine on XP and Vista PCs. They are plug and play. All I do is format them to NTFS (but you don't even have to do that as they come pre-formatted to FAT I think) and use like any other huge drive. Obviously external drives like these are meant for data and not for use as your only OS system drive. The only trivial negative point I can see is that it has to be plugged into the mains as well as the usb, but then I haven't yet found a decent size drive that only takes power from the usb connection. I have found these so convenient for storing and streaming off video files, I have bought and am using 3 of them! I have had no reliability problems at all with any of them. Recommended.

Easy to set up and quick access time, what more could you want? USB 2 gives a fast read/write speed. Its not particularly noisy and it looks great. Very reliable too, I've had 2 for 2 years now with no problems. Highly recommended.

I have had this drive around 5 months and haven't had any troubles with it.
I use it mostly to backup Music, Pictures and Video and it hasn't failed me once.

It's very quiet, only a few clicks and the usual drive spin up noise.

It's a very well designed external enclosure means it can be placed anywhere, either stood up or laid flat.
It also turns off with your computer to save it being accidently left on, it can also be manually turned off with it's power button.

All in all a very reliable, high capacity cost effective drive.

Have had this drive 3 months and I think it's great. Easy and quick to install, loads of space on it, fast in use and quiet too.

Very good item, good value for money and plently of storage, no issues, and the hard drive works in silence. Well recommended