Hard drive review: Western Digital My Book Essential Edition

Western Digital has followed the likes of Lacie's Brick and created an external hard drive that attempts to stand out from the crowd.

Named My Book and shipped in a box that with livery that's startlingly similar to the Xbox 360's, this drive is clearly aimed at the mass market who are fed up with mundane-looking storage systems.

As the name suggests, the chassis does indeed look like a book, while the series of holes around the side of the casing (this, according to Western Digital, is actually Morse code) mean it's able to run without cooling fans.

The design also allows it to be sat horizontally or vertically and additional units can be stacked on top of each other.

A nice touch is the circular green light sitting on the front of the casing - this pulsates when the drive is accessed. It's not possible to turn this light off, which would be handy especially if you're placing it near a TV, but thanks to the relatively soft glow it's not something that should irritate too much.

Having released the Net Center only a few months back, Western Digital decided against including an Ethernet port on the My Book. Western Digital tells us a network version of the My Book may appear at a later date.

The My Book also comes in a Premium Edition that features a second circular light to indicate disk usage. You also get backup software (something that's sadly lacking with this Essential Edition) and both Firewire and USB connections.

Although the chassis is attractive, it doesn't feel quite as sturdy as Lacie's Brick or Maxtor's Onetouch II Firewire 800 drive - however the latter has to employ the services of a cooling fan.

Western Digital's My Book is a competent external storage device that will look good both in the study and a lounge environment. The lack of a network option is disappointing, but including an Ethernet port would have also pushed the price up.

As it stands, £149 for this 320GB version is about average for external drives.
Other capacities are also available; 80GB (£79), 160GB (£99) and 250GB (£119).