Upon receipt of the article, I was afraid: packed in simple plastic blister, missing inside the Quick Setup guide. Fortunately, all went well after that.
I try to plug it into my laptop (VISTA), the installation begins and a system message says it lacks a driver and wondering whether to go get on the internet. I tried, it does not walk so do not do it.
In fact you have to go to disk to find the manuals and installation software. I have copied my hard drive from my PC, but the installation software works only from the portable drive (on the other hand, it allowed me to have a backup on my computer).
The installation is quite long because are available at Western Digital:
- A new firmware to install
- A new version of "WDSmarWare 'program (program helping to transfers)
In terms of the product:
- That's a 500 GB (the difference between disk space and announced that recognized by Windows is mainly due to the fact that for 30 years, considering that 1KB = 1000o when actually 1KB = 1024o).
The disk is 500 billion bytes or (dividing by 1024) is 488,281,250 KB (dividing by 1024) 476837 or Mo (dividing by 1024) 465 GB.
The capacity of all hard drives markets are calculated in the same way so it is a "500GB"
- The same cable used for transfers USB2, USB3 and diet, knowing that I find this too short and not very strong cable. I DO NOT PUT THIS POINT BUT ENOUGH IN EXERGUE CORRECT OPERATION OF THIS DISC, WE WILL NEED TO BUY A CABLE.
- The transfer rate complies with the standard knowing that this is a theoretical speed and it differs, at equal volume, according to the average file size (examples are given in Blister), configuration hardware and the user's operating system (read reviews: a tester reaches 45MB / s, another at an average rate of 60.8mo / s, mini 38.3mo / s Max 75MB / s) .
- The box is small, but comfortable to handle for transport, I would recommend buying a shell if you walk a lot with.
- Main flaw: the disc does not have a protection device that allows some other market drives to fall about 2m without damage (in theory ...)
Regarding the software:
- Few ergonomic
- Does not backup system
- Can be protected by password but beware, if the password is lost, the drive is screwed.
- Shortly nevertheless be useful according to the use that is made to be tested and therefore each before deleting it. Is not worse than what is provided with a similar material.
Conclusion: I must confess to a weakness for Western Digital: I use their external drives for over 4 years and have never encountered any problems. Note that this model is available in 3 capacities (500MB, 750MB, 1 TB) and several colors according to capacity.
Mine works for 2 months as a secondary storage device is plugged more than 12 hours a day and I have not had any problems. Although it is not completely perfect (but I really nitpick), I recommend it 100% 5 * and grant him without hesitation.
