W.D. My Book Essential reliability?

I recently bought a wester digital my book essential 320GB external usb drive.

Before I commit to using this drive for backups, etc.,
I'd like to know what experiences MG users have had with these drives.

I plan on setting up several partitions and formating in NTFS.

The primary use, I expect, will be for system backups and probably
a separate partition for another OS like ubuntu, or something.

I'll deal with my partition questions in another thread.

I'd just like to know what suggestions and precautions you might
have as well as the overall experiences MG members have had
with this or similar drives.

I haven't opened the box, so I can return it if is considered unreliable
or too risky.

Thanks!

mjnc

 

been using mine for about 6 months and havent had any problems. Just a storage drive for me but no lost data or anything.