My Book Essential WD Software required?

[mac109876]

Do i need to have the WD software to use the My Book Essential 2Tb external hard drive? because when i plugged it in i formatted it to work with mac and it wiped out everything and i didnt install the software. i drag all my files on the drive perfectly anyway. id rather work with the drive manually like this all the time. do i NEED the software?

 

[Kurwenal]

You don't need it to use the drive. As I recall, the free software includes some backup software and a drive manager. The drive will work just fine without it.

 

[Lucion]

For the most part, the WD software just annoyed me when I decided to install it. The worst thing it did was change the drive icon on the desktop to some kind of odometer looking thing showing space remaining and that was just plain ugly.

You can download the WD stuff from their website if you wanted it. Might not include the backup software, but there is much better stuff available for free.

Drive works fine without the software. Probably better without it.

 

[Ifti]

Do i need to have the WD software to use the My Book Essential 2Tb external hard drive? because when i plugged it in i formatted it to work with mac and it wiped out everything and i didnt install the software. i drag all my files on the drive perfectly anyway. id rather work with the drive manually like this all the time. do i NEED the software?

No, you do not need the WD software in order to use the drive. The software is more an annoyance then a help in most cases.
The reason why it 'wiped out everything' is because you formatted the drive.