I have had this drive for about a month and I have not had any problems with it. Of course, that is not a long time given that it should last several years. The drive does get a little hot, not enough to burn you but enough that it might be a concern for some people. I have my drive sitting vertically on its stand and I have found it to be quieter than my laptop, but it is not going to be so quiet that you will forget it is there. If you want something that quiet, than you should probably look into getting a solid state drive instead of this conventional one.
Overall, this drive has performed as advertised, and I like the blue light and brushed finish.
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I just received this nice 500Gb hard drive (Thank you Amazon Wish List) as a gift. I wanted it mainly for backup purposes.
The setup for this drive was very simple and easy; no software or driver required for my Windows XP machine. I just plugged it into a USB port and the machine recognized it immediately.
The first thing I did was format it for NTFS so that I could copy files over 4GB if I wanted. This took very little time.
The next thing I did was backup files from my hard drive. This process required less time and hassle than my previous external hard drive purchase (Western Digital).
All in all, I'm happy with this hard drive.
Things to note:
* You really get 465GB of storage not 500GB
* It really is intended to be fairly stationary, not portable, as it is heftier than you want for travel.
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