The slim design of the My Book Eessential 1.5TB is great for anyone with limited desk space and the 1.5TB capacity will hold huge volumes of data and thousands of large-sized RAW files. There’s a capacity gauge on the front panel of the My Book Eessential 1.5TB to indicate how much space you have remaining on the drive and it’s fitted with a password protection feature, so no unauthorised users can access your personal data.
It’s an impressive build for a hard drive that’s mostly made from plastic; at the rear the on/off switch is positioned above the DCIN port, with the USB 2.0 interface positioned in-between. The cooling vents are at the top, so if you want to stack more alongside you can do so easily without the risk of them overheating.
Plugged into the mains and hooked up to our PC, the drive operated faultlessly and quietly. 1GB worth of RAW files were copied in 1minute flat and a high-resolution 200MB image opened in 12 seconds.
If you’re after a high-capacity desktop drive that you want permanently plugged in to your PC or Mac, the Western Digital My Book Essential makes an excellent buy for £129. It would be a great device for back-up as well as storage, so if you already own a drive but don’t want to run the risk of it failing on you, this is a relatively cheap option.
AT A GLANCEStreet Price: £102
Capacities: 500,640,750GB & 1, 1.5 & 2TB
Interface: USB2.0
Interface Transfer rate: USB 2.0 480Mbits/s
System Requirements (PC): Windows XP, Vista, 7
System Requirements (Mac): OS X 10.5, 10.6
Dimensions (LxWxH): 165x135x48mm
Weight: 1.18kg
www.wdc.com/en