Filed under: Hardware
Western Digital makes Mac My Book
It was only a few days ago that our very own Mat Lu was talking up Western Digital's line of My Book external drives, and today Mac users have even more reason to check 'em out. The My Book Studio edition is aimed squarely at Mac users. The enclosure was designed to compliment Apple's hardware, and the drive is HFS+ Journaled formated. It also sports a quadruple interface (USB 2.0, FireWire 400/800 and eSATA) and backup software.Available in 320 GB to 1 TB capacities and priced from $199.99 USD to $399.99 the My Book Studio edition is worth checking out.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Angela said 6:09PM on 9-25-2007
"USB 2.0, FireWire® 400/800 and eSATA"
Now we're talking!
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jlombardo said 6:15PM on 9-25-2007
Yes but can it be used as an Airport Disk?
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Dannel said 6:26PM on 9-25-2007
jlombardo, it should be able to. After all, I think the requirement for Airport Disks is HFS+ or FAT32 (not sure about this one).
They better not be charging more just because it's HFS+ formatted. That'd be ridiculous, it's only a couple clicks to switch filesystems with Disk Utility.
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Sam said 6:28PM on 9-25-2007
wait....why can't i just use an external hd thats fat32 formatted?
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Johnny said 6:38PM on 9-25-2007
I just picked up a 1.5TB Maxtor One Touch III. It has two 750GB hard drives in it that are RAID 0 configured. You can also configure it to RAID 1 for added data security.
What I'd really like to do is have it function like two separate 750GB drives. That way, I can use ChronoSync to mirror them every night or so, simply because past data loss has always been a result of my own late night delirium, rather than hardware failure. Does anyone know how to hack this particular solution?
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ryan said 6:44PM on 9-25-2007
Okay, if this is made for Macs, why does it have an eSATA port? Is there a Mac out there that can do eSATA without rigging up some sort of ridiculous setup?
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ryan said 6:46PM on 9-25-2007
@Johnny
RAID 1 does that for you automatically.
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ryan said 6:54PM on 9-25-2007
@Johnny
I reread your post and realized why my advice doesn't work for you. My bad.
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russdogg said 7:00PM on 9-25-2007
Maybe they know something about the upcoming Macs that we don't...
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Angela said 7:02PM on 9-25-2007
@ryan, the MBP has an express slot for an esata card.
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Tony Bowman said 7:07PM on 9-25-2007
Totally going to get one of these and an an Airport for some Leopard/Time machine action.
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CajunLuke said 7:38PM on 9-25-2007
Ryan:
You can get eSATA PC Card or ExpressCard adapters for your PB/MBP or PCI/PCI-X/PCI-Express cards for your tower.
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Jack said 7:39PM on 9-25-2007
@ryan: I added eSata to my G5 with a $50 MaxExpress PCI-E card. Not ridiculous at all.
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J.G. said 7:48PM on 9-25-2007
I have a My Book Premium II (1TB). When connected to my Airport Extreme (GigE) it will never go to sleep while there is a Mac connected to it. I.e. it's always running and the fans are always trying to keep it cool. Which in turn makes it noisy! So before you get this to hook up to an Airport, wait for some reviews.
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jlombardo said 8:19PM on 9-25-2007
Thanks for the replies
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Michael Sternberg said 9:03PM on 9-25-2007
Scott, "designed to compliment Apple's hardware" this new line of drives may well be, because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It also happens to nicely *complement* our beloved hardware. :-)
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Scott said 10:23PM on 9-25-2007
Anyone considering one of these should read the comments in the earlier blog post (the "talking up" link). Western Digital drives are held in contempt by many who have tried them. Seagate drives, with a 5-year warranty, seem like the better bet.
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Keno.White said 10:39PM on 9-25-2007
I'm just sick of third parties who make Apple versions of their hardware that's nothing more than a paint job, and they charge MORE for these items.
For example, Kensington has a history of making Mac keyboards that are just white versions of their PC USB keyboards, and pricing these keyboards $20 to $30 more than the technically-identical PC version.
This is the same thing. Ooh. It's formatted for Mac... As if I couldn't do that in 3 minutes with Disk Utility. Yet the price of this version of the MyBook seems to cost more than their standard version, which is still just a USB/Firewire external drive that will work with any modern Mac.
Stop trying to gank Apple users, please. If you want to offer an Apple-friendly version of your product, then do us the courtesy of charging us the same thing you charge the PC users. You insult us otherwise.
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Ness said 2:01AM on 9-26-2007
I can't seem to understand what the big fuss is about. When I bought my 1TB WD MyBook and plugged it into my Mac, I didn't have to do anything - It automatically became HFS+ Journaled.
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Andrew said 9:51AM on 9-26-2007
The drive looks like a good idea, I'll wait to see what users think. I plan to get an Airport and hook a drive up to it, but what I'd like to know is whether USB 2.0 is quick enough for the data transfers or if it's a bottleneck. You have GigE speeds, sending data to it from a connected Mac, will it be noticeably slow? Or even sending it wireless, does it "feel" slow? I'm curious... if not, it seems like a good solution. In fact, I hope not since that's my plan next month.
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