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New My Book external HDs from WD

I wouldn't normally post on a new external hard drive, but I have to mention that my favorite Western Digital My Book drives have just been redesigned and are shipping today (besides as Ask TUAW man it's an opportunity to remind you that you should be backing up!). I can't say that I've tested a large variety of drives, but of the external drives I've owned the My Book series has been by far the quietest, most attractive, and most reliable. Gone is the ring of light from the old models replaced by a light strip that functions as a capacity gauge. The new model comes in three models: a USB only Essential Edition, USB + FireWire + eSATA Home Edition, and an unfortunately Windows-focused Office Edition. I can't help but think one of these shiny piano black beauts would look great with one of those new Samsung printers next to a new iMac.

[via electronista]

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Hardware Peripherals

I wouldn't normally post on a new external hard drive, but I have to mention that my favorite Western Digital My Book drives have just been...
 

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Hookbrah

Nice drive. Too bad it doesn't work as an external boot drive on a PPC Mac. I had to find this out the hard way. See, for example: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5859938&tstart=0

After reading the SuperDuper! manual, I went out and got a Maxtor. Works great. Plus I got 500GB for $40 less than the 320GB MyBook. Go figure.

BTW, I second Billy K's comment. People always complain about a particular brand if they get a dud. Anybody have any actual statistics on failure rates for different brands? Without that it's all anecdotal. What matters more is whether they actually work for what you want to use them for - like external booting. For the record, these WD drives don't.

November 29 2007 at 12:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bretheartbobby

Is 6000rs is correct value for this HD??
http://www.pcgamepoint.com/

November 15 2007 at 5:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bretheartbobby

This HD was damn sexy.....i have planned to get a new external hard disk....so after seeing this picture and the comments given by the people i was confirmed to get it within next week ...may i know the cost of this external HD

November 15 2007 at 5:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bretheartbobby

This HD was damn sexy.....i have planned to get a new external hard disk....so after seeing this picture and the comments given by the people i was confirmed to get it within next week ...may i know the cost of this external HD

November 15 2007 at 5:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeffrey Bergier

I was disappointed that there was no Firewire 800 model. I will definitely be scooping up some of the old ones if they go on clearance.

September 22 2007 at 2:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JM

People can be so brandcentric. I have bought Seagate, WD, Maxtor and Hitachi drives over the past few years. ALL of them ended up being problematic. I've used them in different locations, on different devices, and internally or externally.

Doesn't matter.

I've talked with friends about this and they've noticed it too. We concluded that it might be the larger capacities. Or something

I don't know. It's very frustrating. I just lost a 20,000 song music collection on both a primary and backup drive that failed right around the same time.

I have these WD drives now. I'm sure they're going to fail, too.

September 21 2007 at 11:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Maxwell

The only hard drive I ever owned (out of, what, 30? 40?) that died was the My Book Essential I just tossed in the trash bin. No thanks.

September 21 2007 at 11:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jlombardo

Do any of the WD drives work as an Airport Disk?

September 21 2007 at 10:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
sime

Glyph GT050 series sre the shit: . They use Seagate of-course.

September 21 2007 at 7:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Billy K

I have no particular allegiance to any particular drive maker. I've owned/used many over the years. The one thing I know for a fact is, there is always a group of people out there ready to say, "Blahblahblah drives suck! I had one die on me after 1 month/6months/1year!" Just check the comments on Newegg.

My last external was a LaCie. I liked LaCie, had used them at work extensively, so when it was time to buy an external for home, I went with LaCie. And then I started hearing the horror stories. So when it was time to buy another drive, I went with Western Digital - partly for price, partly for reputation and a lot because of form factor. Then I started noticing the horror stories about them. I swear if I bought a Seagate tomorrow I would suddenly trip over 80 pages of Seagate horror stories on some forum.

All drives can fail. All drive makers make duds. YMMV, grain of salt, etc.

September 21 2007 at 5:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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