Western Digital My Book External HD any good?

I recently decided to buy an external hard drive for data backup (shortly after my eMac reported a serious disk error that prevented it from even booting...fortunately DiskWarrior kicked it's a** and it is back to good).

Anyway, I was at Circuit City and saw this 160gb Western Digital My Book drive.

I know that the Seagates and Hitachis are popular, but is this also a good quality HD? The main reason I'm considering this over something off of Newegg or ZipZoomFly is they are offering a $70 MIR, thus after that it is $80.

What do you think?

 

Seagate and WD seem to make the best non-portable externals, generally. That one's specs look pretty good. I'd prefer firewire, but if you're just using it for backups, and not to stream data off of, it'll be perfectly fine.

 

That's s a great drive, and a great price. Western Digital makes the finest hard drives on the market in my opinion. Silent ( no 'clicking'), they run cool, excellent quality. I highly recommend them.

Chaz

 

Reviews on the site are mostly good, but there's one on CNet that says that the drives have a major problem. I was about to buy it too, but am now not really sure. If you do get it, post a review here somewhere.

 

I suggest making your own external drive to save money. Just get a 3.5" drive and get a 3.5" enclosure and POOF you've got yourself a huge external storage device for less money.

I recommend the Vantec enclosures, they're great, and look great too.

cheers,
Mike

 

Shampoo - the cheapest 500gb internal on NewEgg is $270. You can find a 500gb Premium MyBook for 300. This includes auto backup, auto powerdown and auto makeyourdesklookwaycool

 

Wow really, I didn't know prices were so low for external harddrives.

I thought they charged more because it is already set to go and all the extra goodies you get.

Hrmm, good to know.

Edit:: Thing is, I checked out some canadian computer stores and the prices are steep. 299 for a 300gb external maxtor. You sure those prices aren't for refurbs? I just checked tigerdirect.ca and I found a 300gb external maxtor for 217.

 

Yeah, Canadian prices are a bit out of whack :s I checked American sites to make it standard, not to mention I couldn't even find a WD MyBook on a Canadian site. Obviously, shipping to Canada + taxes and **** will add an extra $100, but not if you have friends in NY whom you're about to visit ;-) And yeah, I was kinda surprised by the prices of MyBooks too. MSRP is US330 for 500GB Essential, 350 for Premium (+firewire, +capacity gauge, +software).

 

The external enclosures are way cool. I just bought a Vantec NexStar 3: