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Western Digital Elements SE Portable WDBPCK5000ABK 500 GB
by katyboo123
I got an Advent Laptop when I was 24 for my birthday off my super generous Step Dad. I had it for 4 years when at Christmas this year it overheated, switched off and left a lingering smell like an exploded hairdryer (you know that smell, right?). I had insurance through PC World and when I took it in to see them, they advised me that I ... had a free back up service as part of my package and if I brought in an external memory device, they could back up all of my information - which included about 3000 photos, so I thought about it for half a second, then went and bought the cheapest external hard drive they had for sale. They actually even gave me £10 off, so I paid just £55 (it's now only £50 full price!) for the Western Digital Elements SE Portable WDBPCK5000ABK 500 GB External Portable Hard Drive. They backed up my data and ultimately replaced my laptop with a newer model as mine was quite old, so all in all, thumbs up to PC World - but back to the review in hand!
My (now not so new) hard drive looks smart - it's black matte on the top and bottom and glossy black around the edges, it's a relatively small size, 11cm x 8cm and just under 2cm deep. It's got smart rounded corners and is lightweight - at just 0.2kg; it's perfect to carry around making it super portable. There are some really nice protective cases you can buy from PC World for just £4.99 too, though I am sure that you can pick them up cheaper online now. For a non gadget orientated person this is completely sufficient for me - though I have seen much smarter looking hard drives with price tags to match. That said; I have also seen some where they need wall plug power to work and are the size of a DVD player! It's robust and has shock absorbing technology which means you can take it wherever you go without worrying too much about your precious data being lost; perfect peace of mind!
Have you heard of a terabyte (TB)? Well I hadn't, but its 1,000 gigabytes (GB) for those who are as technically ignorant as me - for those who don't know a gigabyte or what the heck I am talking about, it's measures of data storage and transfer - just like ounces and pounds, grams and kilograms. So this hard drive is 'half a terabyte' in size, or 500GB. This is roughly enough for any 'average PC user' who wants to store documents, movies, games and photographs or who wants to copy and take back ups of a regular laptop or desktop. Currently I have a few thousand photographs, 3 years worth of University work (including PDF learning material as it was Distance Learning), hundreds of draft blog posts, downloaded recipes, e-books and about 100 albums and I've only used less than 10% of the drives capacity. Essentially, the cost per gigabyte of storage is just 10p. For online cloud storage you can't get even get that sort of deal!
The Western Digital Elements SE Portable WDBPCK5000ABK 500 GB External Portable Hard Drive has USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 meaning high speed data transfer, at up to 5 gigabytes per second. I have pictures taken with my DSLR camera which are very fine and large in size and they take fractions of a second to transfer to the hard drive, so it's quick. If you don't have a USB 3.0 port on your PC then you can enjoy reasonably fast speeds of 480 megabytes per second, which doubles the transfer time compared to USB 3.0 but again would be sufficient for an average user.
Overall this external hard drive is excellent value for money - a lot of storage for not a lot of coin. The transfer speeds are fast; it's reliable, robust and looks good plus it is super portable so you can take it anywhere without lugging power cables, etc around with you. I've had this for 9 months now and I use it very regularly, I rate it excellent for an average PC user and I would certainly recommend it!
It is available online and in PC World stores.
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Buffalo DriveStation Velocity 2 TB
by aclevername
~ Why you need an external hard drive ~
I have heard many horror stories over the years of people having lost all of their digital photographs due to computers/ cameras breaking, being stolen etc.
Since my relationship with digital photography began in 2005, with my first camera phone (my beloved, much missed Sony ... Ericsson 6610) early in the year followed by my first digital camera (4 mega pixels) for Christmas 2005, I have lost about 20 photographs in total. Although this is nothing compared to the 25,000+ (about 45GB) which I have stored on my computer, I am still saddened to have lost them.
I lost most of the photos when I smashed a flip phone I had in half meaning I couldn't transfer the photos off the phone any more (before phones had micro SD cards). I kept the smashed up phone for a few years after I broke it in case I won the lottery and could see if an important man somewhere could retrieve them for me for a large fee, but that lottery win is still to come and I think the phone has long gone.
I invested in an external hard drive a few years ago to back up my photos and music, but it became evident quickly that my 320GB (which my boyfriend told me in 2006 that I'd never fill) was not going to be enough and I gave it to my sister and purchased this Buffalo 2TB external hard drive!
An external hard drive is perfect to store all of your photos, music, films/videos and even word/excel documents etc. Not only does this mean your documents are all backed up, deleting them from your computer can mean you have more space on your internal hard drive which means it should run quicker.
I keep all of my music on my external hard drive and don't have it on my computer or laptop at all as there is too much of it and it is all replaceable. All of my photos are backed up regularly onto my external hard drive and are also stored on my PC and laptop (possibly even my boyfriend's external hard drive as well) in a very strict filing system (I'm a geek with my photos)!
~ How much is 2TB? ~
A terabyte (TB) is 1000 gigabytes (GB), so obviously 2TB is 2000GB. That is quite a lot of space.
2TB will hold about 1800 good quality movies or
about 720 HD movies or
about 1,050,000 digital photos or
about 570,000 music tracks
or a combination of the above!
~ Why the Buffalo Drivestation Velocity 2TB external hard drive? ~
I would recommend the Buffalo Drivestation Velocity 2TB external hard drive as it is quick, reliable, easy to use and reasonably priced, currently available on Amazon for £93.75.
To use you simply plug it in to a socket and then plug another wire into the USB port on your PC, laptop or MAC and it is ready to use straight away. Your external hard drive will open in a new window and you simply drag and drop documents to copy them to your hard drive or right click and copy and paste them.
I have found that files transfer across quickly and the access rate is 7,200 rpm (which is quick apparently). I have always found it reliable. I have never had problems with the transfer where a file has been corrupted, damaged or part missing or anything like that.
The external hard drive itself is smaller than the one I previously owned. It is 25cmx20cmx15cm - about the size of a paperback novel. It is black and plastic with a piano finish around the front and top. The wires are at the back of the device. It can be stood upright or lain flat. Also the front of the hard drive has a yellow light to indicate that it is on. The hard drive only comes on when it is plugged into a wall socket AND the USB port is plugged in to your computer. It will remain turned off if the plug is in, but the USB is not plugged into anything, which is handy to save energy.
The hard drive makes very little noise, even when it's working hard - you barely know it's there - my laptop is much noisier.
Overall I think this hard drive is great - compact, reasonably priced, reliable, quick and easy to use. I think everyone should have one. I know so many lazy people who are careless with their photos, even of their children and I am incredibly glad that I am not them!!!
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Western Digital My Passport Essential SE WDBACX7500ARD 750 GB
by msannabella
I purchased this hard drive to store my music collection when it got too large for my computer. I looked into several and ended up with this one for several reasons. Western Digital is a reliable name can be relied on to provide a quality product. The size of this hard drive is good for the price, at 750 gb you can fit a lot on here, I ... currently have it storing my whole music collection and backups of all my photos, videos and important documents and there is still room left for my collection to grow. The red colour is also very stylish and one of the main reasons i bought this. It is very portable and can fit easily in my bag so can take it anywhere with me. The fact that you can also encrypt the data on the hard drive is also a plus point as if your drive falls into the wrong hands, your files are safe. I have attached this drive to several different sources such as the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and there has never been a problem with any of them recognising it. All in all, I would definitely recommend this to others as a good little hard drive with decent capacity.
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