WD Elements External Hard Drive 500GB Review

Our hard drives may constantly be getting bigger and bigger, but the amount of space we seem to always need seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I faced a problem a while ago of needing to get another hard drive, but with four internal hard drives I had run out of room, so decided to look for an external one. Surprisingly, external hard drives are only marginally more expensive than similar internal ones (and have many advantages, as well as disadvanges, as mentioned later on). So I picked the WD Elements 500GB external HDD, and today I’ll take a look at it and review it.

I got it from Amazon UK for just under £59.99 (it can be found online for US markets for about $115). I’ve always used Western Digital hard drives and never had a problem with them, so choosing this one was the obvious choice for me.

(Apologies for poor quality photos)

WD Elements 500GB Review: Specifications

Here are the hard drive specifications:

Dimensions:

Depth: 20.4 cm
Device Type: Hard drive - external
Height: 3.6 cm
Weight: 1 kg
Width: 12.5 cm

Expansion / Connectivity

Interfaces: 1 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 PIN USB Type B

Hard Drive

Capacity: 500 GB
Interface Type: Hi-Speed USB

Manufacturer Warranty

Service & Support Details: Limited warranty - 2 years
Service & Support: 2 years warranty

Performance

Interface Transfer Rate: 480 Mbps
Seek Time: 8.9 ms (average)
Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm

Power

Power Device: Power adapter
Voltage Required: AC 120/230 V ( 50 - 60 Hz )

Miscellaneous

Cables Included: 1 x USB cable - USB Type A to B - 1.8 m
Compliant Standards: RoHS

It is advertised as simple plug and play - something you would expect from almost all external hard drives, and includes all the necessary USB cables (something that is sometimes missing on cheaper drives).

WD Elements 500GB Review: The packaging

It is a very simple box, and as you can see from the photos not much technical information on the outside. It gives an overview of how much the drive can hold (for 500GB it claims up to 142,000 photos, 38 hours of video (which seems very low to me - at any bit rate I use it can hold a lot more than 38 hours) or 125,000 hours of music)

Inside the box there is minimal excess packaging. The drive itself (as you will see later) is quite well protected from shocks and knocks with its rubber “casing” on each end.

As well as the hard drive itself, a quick start guide, manual, power cable & USB (type A to B) cable is included.

WD Elements 500GB Review: The Drive itself

The drive is in a quite nice looking case. The main metal case is enclosed on either end by a rubber ending. This helps protect it from knocks, and due to its slight rubber “stickyness”, it also prevents it moving around as much. Although untested, I suspect it helps keep noise down too by minimising vibrations.

At one end there are ventilation holes, with a fan behind it, and the other end is for the power & usb cables.

It is a little bit on the larger size (at 20.4cm x 3.6cm x 12.5), but is small enough to “hide” if required (next to pc case, behind a monitor etc).

The case encloses a 7200 rpm drive. The transfer rate seems to be limited by its USB connection.

One slightly annoying thing is that there is no switch. The only way to turn it off is to disconnect one of the cables (disconnecting the USB cable (or turning the computer off) turns it off, as well as obviously unplugging it from the mains). It would be nice to have a switch to be able to easily turn it on/off when required.

WD Elements 500GB Review: Initial installation

Installation on Windows (XPSP2) was a breeze. If you’ve ever plugged in a USB flash drive stick, it is effectivly the same. All that is required is to plug the cables in, wait a few seconds while XP recognises the drive, then it shows up as a regular hard drive in My Computer.

WD Elements 500GB Review: Usage

After plugging it in I went and formatted it in nsfs (as it was fat32). This didn’t take long at all (under 10 minutes, using Window’s quick format option).

Once formatted correctly, I copied over a few GB of files, which only took about four minutes. I find that for files of under 200mb I can’t tell the difference between the WD Elements external HDD and any of my SATA internal hard drives.

The noise from the WD elements hard drive is very minimal, and unless the rest of your computer is fanless it is almost impossible to hear.

For backups and smaller files this hard drive is great. It is probably not such a great idea if you plan to regularly move files from your HD camcorder, but for every day use it is great.

WD Elements 500GB Review: Positives

• Cheap - even compared to internal hard drives
• Fast
• Easy to set up
• Works on all major operating systems
• Very quiet

WD Elements 500GB Review: Negatives

• A little bit bigger than I would have liked

If you are after an external hard drive, I would most definetly recommend the WD Elements External Hard drive. It is available in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB.

Model number reviewed: WD500E035-00.