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- £58.94ex vat
- £67.79inc vat
(price includes 2.5% VAT discount)
Need it fast? You have:
Friday, 5th December.
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- manufacturer #: WDME2500TE
- quickfind code: 141559
- 244 in stock for next day delivery.
6 reviews
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Product Reviews
Lovely, quiet, stylish
os:
Max OSXBought one of these elsewhere, when they were still more expensive, with the express intention of taking it apart and pinching the drive for use in my MacBook, hoping to use the stylish case to house my old MacBook drive.
This worked out OK, but getting these things apart voids the warranty (obviously) and, while it's possible to do it without damage, it's nerve-wracking. They press together cunningly, and you need to study the various how-to videos on youtube before trying to get into it! Mine came apart and went back together without damage. I don't recommend dismantling it just for fun.
The drive inside is a Western Digital WD2500BEAS, 5400rpm, 2MB cache, jumpered for the slower, lower-power start-up sequence which benefits external bus-powered drives. I left the slow-start jumper on as it makes very little practical difference. In the end, because I needed yet more drive space, I decided to re-unite this drive with its gorgeous caddy and put an 8MB cache version in the macbook, which is quicker in use, though in many situations the difference isn't apparent.
As external drives go, this isn't the fastest out there, but nor is it conspicuously slow in normal use, and it's certainly among the most stylish, lightest and quietest. The glossy plastic finish is very good indeed, although ideally for mine I'd want a white one. The variously coloured ones look pretty good, and this black one is gorgeous. Slightly quirky shape, but not outlandish.
No real complaints at all about this thing.
There's no power socket or facility for dual-power or any kind of external PSU, but with the efficient WD drive and its gentle startup, it doesn't seem to need it. It might be problematic with the old titanium powerbooks and their notoriously feeble USB ports, or with plug-in PCMCIA type USB ports without the benefit of extra power, or if you like to hang a few bus-powered things off your USB at once, so bear it in mind. You could of course use a Y type cable to connect it, or a cable with a power socket wired in, but the drive doesn't come with such a cable, you'd have to get it separately. Generally, it really isn't a problem, this isn't a power-hungry beast.
Awesome Quality Product
os:
Windows XPBeen after a portable storage device for ages and kept an eye on them dropping in price and increasing in size.
Ended up going for one of these after decicing 250Gb was enough for a lifetime of archiving.
Ive dealt with Western Digital Products before and liked their speeds of transfer, reputation and reliability.
Im not too converned on transfer speeds, im limited by USB 1.1 capibility anyway.
This looks nice and its quiet as the drive runs. Theres also a nice LED next to the USB port which lights up and flashes during data transfer but its not too obvious during use.
I was just thinking this was going to be a massive pen drive but it holds so much more features than that.
Whas was really nice and i wasnt expecting was the included Western Digital Software which protects the drive against unauthorised use. It also gives you the opportunity to add your details for return if lost, adding custom reward details without accessing the drive.
Also, when you backup your outlook express, the inbuilt program allows you to send emails without access to another outlook express on another computer. This stops people watching what your sending, stopping cookies on public computers.
If your after a cheap good quality backup drive, cant go far wrong with this one.
Impressed
os:
Windows XPOrdered on Tuesday and received on Friday with free delivery. Can't complain and full marks to Ebuyer for fast delivery, even when free.
Nice drive. Quick and smooth transfers. Only complaint would be that its a plastic case and alloy would have been nice and probably worth a quid more. Other than that, its great. Only 4 stars due to the placcy case.
Good lightweight drive
os:
Windows VistaVery light and compact drive, "feels" like a nice bit of technology in your hands. Has decent data transfer rates. The casing is shiny plastic which will probably scratch easily (not bothered personally). I'm not sure there's much space for internal shock absorbtion. The manual says don't jog it when in use and don't drop it.
Comes with a 6 inch cable, which is a bit too short to be useful, but at least there is one to get you started.
Comes as a single FAT32 partition with software and manuals pre-loaded, instantly recognised by Vista. If you use files over 4Gb copy the files off and re-format as NTFS. Use quick format, otherwise you'll be waiting for hours instead of minutes.
File write times are fast enough for most purposes. My first data backups were 5Gb photos (about 10mins at a reported 7Mb/s), and 17Gb of camcorder video clips (about 15mins at a reported 21Mb/s). All USB drives are limited by the USB 2.0 bandwidth of 32Mb/s, and most won't get near that in real usage.
Can't comment on durability, only just received it (hence 4 stars).
5-day (free) super saver delivery was very efficient - ordered Sunday night, received Wed morning.
not bad
os:
Windows Vista1. good looking and sleek
2. nice and quiet
3. no power so just runs of usb
4. had it attached to my xbox for a while streaming movies and music, works spot on
on the other hand-
quite slow transfers.
Scratch previous review - wrong product!
My previous review was of the WD passport drive, this is a WD Passport Essential, unsure of the difference but it ain't the one I bought, sorry!
