how's this HD compare with the WD? is it self power?

It's a desktop; requires external power adapter.

I got the 1.5TB version; same enclosure and name. There are two problems that I would like to have resolved with the drive if I were to buy another one, at least with regards to Vista x64 Home Premium OS that I'm using:

1. The drive goes to sleep after a few minutes of inactivity; Vista then lose connection with the drive. Drive wakes up a few seconds later and auto-run searches the drive. Does this quite often... I worked around this issue by playing music straight from the drive to prevent it from going to sleep, even if I sometimes turn off the sound.

2. Even when the computer is off, the drive still spins. Since there is no power button on the drive, to make sure it stays off when the computer is off, you either have to unplug the power adapter or connect it to a power tap where you turn everything off at once.

i think it's running 5400rpm, pretty slow.

Technical Details:
"Simply drag-and-drop to save files"

My, how far we've come.

You'll be pressed to find any of these type drives faster than 5400 rpm. if you want faster get a dual enclosure with raid or enclosure and your own 10k drive or something