Western Digital My Book Essential Edition WDG1U2500 250 GB

Advantages: Compact, lightweight, easy installation, quiet
Disadvantages: Power button easily knocked, can be knocked over

I received this external hard disk drive for Christmas, having had the dreaded 'low on disk space' warning on my computer for a good few weeks. It was presented in a relatively big box, and I was very relieved (and also surprised) to see how small it actually is! The instructions were straight forward "Plug it in, and watch it go!", and within a minute of plugging it in I received the reassuring "A new piece of hardware has been discovered" notification ...
...and it was ready for use. I decided to use the hard disk as a media store, along with some backup storage. Thus, I moved all of my videos and music to the hard disk, along with backups of university work, and photos (the 3 rules of computing are back up, back up, back up!). I was surprised to find that access time was very quick, despite the hard disk essentially being an external I/O device. I have had no trouble streaming music, and movies from ... Read review

Advantages: looks great, quiet, funky green ring light on the front, good value, easy/no setup
Disadvantages: cant think of any yet

I bought this hard drive for use at university as my laptop only has a 30GB hard drive and with all the music and junk ive got, i needed more! This bad boy is great though, it cost me under 80 pounds and comes from a reliable brand, when browsing through possible hard drives, they all looked so boring and dull, something you would hide behind your desk so no one could see it, with this i have it on my desk next to my speakers cos it looks wicked! ...
...can be placed verticaly as shown in the picture, or lying down on its side, (small rubber pads are supplied to stop it sliding over your desk). the centre of the green ring is a button which is the on/off. takes seconds to get going, there is nothing to install as it is an extrenal storage device. as well as needing extra space on my laptops hard drive, i also wanted to have a backup of everything that is on my laptop, this my book allows me to do ... Read review

Advantages: Very Stylish, Great Value, and Quiet. A USB hard drive for backups or storage
Disadvantages: A Little on the large side and another mains cable.

...are available in 80GB, 160GB, 250GB and 320GB Some models also support Firewire connection, Older models of Western Digital USB drives are reported to have a short lifespan and therefore short not be trusted totally as a backup device. No lifespan data is available on the My Book range yet. ... Read review

Advantages: Easy, good looking, affordable, durable, smart
Disadvantages: External power, sealed chassis, makes some noise

I haven't owned any external HD's before, but I still think this is one of the better. It's a "no brainer" to install, and the reason why I bought it was the "Spin-down" function. I even found out that if you turn the disk of, while your in Windows (by "Safley remove hardware") it will stay off even if you shut down your PC and start the PC again. (This may vary from PC to PC, I did have to move a jumper on my motherboard to make it work) Recommended! ...
...inactivity. (Will expand the lifetime of the drive) - Starts when you turn on the PC, and turns it self off when you turn off the PC. (It even does so in Sleep-mode) - When you use "Safely remove hardware" function in Windows, the drive turns itself of (you don't need to unplug it) - Good looks - Nice price - You can reformat it to NTFS Cons: - Sealed chassis (Can't swap drive if it's broke…) - External power source. - Makes some noise (Doesn't ... Read review

Advantages: Plug and play, easy to use, looks ok!
Disadvantages: sometimes looses connectiviy, actually 230Gb

Needed some hard disk space to store my dvd backups, music, media and to back up my uni work. Did some research and this seemed the largest and best for the price i wanted to pay. A nice looking drive, unsurprisingly looks a bit like a book! It has a black plastic finish with a yellow/green crcular power botton in the middle. It sits next to my speakers without being cumbersome. Has its own power supply so you may need yet another outlet extension ...
...plug and play. Just open up 'my computer 'and drag files over. The drive occaisionally looses conectivity but this may be down to my buggy PC. I also occasionaly hit the power button by mistake. Read speed is ok, not super fast but what you'd expect. If i had to think of a problem, then I'd be pinikity and point out the fact that this is not, in fact a 250Gb drive but i 230Gb one! But then you get this will nearly all other drives i think so not ... Read review