We’ve looked at Western Digital My Book hard drives before, and we like them. Our only major beef with the older My Book drives is that they’re pretty big—about the size of a dictionary. Western Digital has redesigned the My Book so that it’s smaller but still has that distinct and stylish My Book look, complete with the Morse code ventilation holes.
The 1TB My Book Studio measures 6.5 by 5.4 by 2.1 inches, so it’s more like an oversized paperback than a hardbound dictionary. The capacity gauge on the front of the drive is vertical, instead of the round gauge used in the previous design. The drive has three connector types: USB, FireWire 800, and eSATA. (You also get a FW800-to-FW400 cable for connecting to a FireWire 400 port.) There aren’t any Macs that have eSATA, so in order to use the drive’s eSATA connector, you need to add an eSATA expansion card to a Power Mac, Mac Pro, or any Mac notebook that has expansion card capabilities. eSATA offers a faster data rate (3 gigabits per second) than FireWire 800 (800 megabits per second), so if you work with work with large files (video, audio, graphics), you might consider investing $100 in an eSATA card.
We tested the speed of the My Book Studio using Xbench (free, www.xbench.com) on a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. Connected via USB, the drive posted speeds of 17.6MB per second in Xbench’s Uncached Write test and 24.3MB per second in the Uncached Read test. That’s pretty respectable, considering that our test iMac’s internal 300GB SATA drive (SATA is much faster than USB) was gauged at 76MB per second in the Write test and 76MB per second in the Read test. If you plan to use the drive for video editing, use FireWire 800—the drive posted an impressive 50MB per second in the Write test when connected via FireWire 800, and 65MB per second in the Read test.
The bottom line. Whether it’s for storing files or for use with Leopard’s Time Machine, the My Book Studio is a good choice.
COMPANY:Western Digital
CONTACT: www.wdc.com
PRICE: $379.99
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4.8 or later; FireWire 800, USB, or eSATA (eSATA expansion card required)
Smaller than previous My Book models. Connectivity choices. Decent speed.
eSATA card not included.
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November 10, 2009 at 10:53pm
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Play games
June 26, 2008 at 1:30pm
Although the drive was not the fastest of those we tested in a recent roundup, it delivered very good performance and was a good value compared with other drives with the same 1TB capacity. In addition to the 1TB version we looked at, the My Book Studio Edition is also offered in 320GB, 500GB, and 750GB capacities.
Anonymous
May 30, 2008 at 10:33pm
I just brought one of these hard drives for video editing with FCP but I have to say it is hopeless. I keep getting the wheel and slow disc error messages. I would say don't buy it and that the fast firewire 800 connection is of no use if the drive puts its self to sleep every few seconds.
Jen Ignacio
February 10, 2008 at 3:24pm
I've had my 1TB WD Drive for less than a month. Recently I cannot boot up my iMac unless I keep the FireWire or USB wire unplugged and attach them after startup. Because of this, my computer can no longer read the files on the HD or transfer them - I have about 120GB that I absolutely need, the rest is backed up on a second HD. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem or knows a way to fix it - short of my forking over loads of $$$...
Anonymous
January 29, 2008 at 10:15am
I have two of these, and use them with Time Machine. At least once a week or more, the computer becomes more and more nonresponsive and Time Machine is "Preparing" for hours. The only solution is to pull power on the drive, the computer will complain that a device was not properly put away, but then instantly recovers from the hang state. When plugged back in, Time Machine will resume it's job normally...until the next incident. Evidently these drives have a power saver that puts them to sleep and some bug prevents them from waking. Both drives have exhibited the behavior and other people on the net have reported the same issue. I am returning the drives.
David Bean
March 01, 2008 at 8:50am
Exactly the same problem here. I thought the recent WD firmare update was meant to fix it, but it hasn't for em. i'm running a Powermac G5 dual 2GHz (1st generation) and connecting the WD My Book over Firewire 800.
Anonymous
March 08, 2008 at 5:39pm
I am having the same problem that was supposed to be fixed by the firmware upgrade and the new WD Drive Manager drivers.
The drive will go to sleep, then not wake back up. I have to turn it back on manually. I found the only way to keep the drive active is to remove the WD software.
David Bean
March 01, 2008 at 8:53am
Sorry, I meant that I am experiencing the firewire bus problem that "Anonymous" described on 01/29 (not the Boot up problem described by Jen Ignacio)
Anonymous
January 28, 2008 at 12:18am
My 500 GB WD external drive crashed last week with the notorious "click of death". It's been very well maintained and lasted less than 2 years. Much data has been lost, or rather "locked" until I can afford a very expensive recovery service. I later found out this is the case with these drives.
Mymac4ever
January 24, 2008 at 4:13pm
I have the 500GB version of this disk and I use it for backup with CCC and connected over FW800. Though eSata IS faster and a card is needed for that I think that if there should be any Minus it should be for the fact that the capacitymeter, which btw isnt very exact, doesnt work if you connect the drive over eSata.
