Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 320GB review

The My Book connects via USB 2, and comes in a range of capacities from 80 to 500GB. The backlit green circle on the front acts as both power button and disk activity light. With no fans and a small external PSU, it’s quiet when running. Even better, once the USB connection has been severed, the unit turns off completely, coming back to life once your PC is switched back on. With write-caching off, a 1.4GB file copied across at a respectable 26.6MB/sec, and read back at 27MB/sec. Reading and writing 1GB of smaller files proved slower, at 16.6MB/sec and 13.5MB/sec respectively. The price is also low, making this a great choice.