Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital My Book Studio 1 TB USB 2.0/FireWire 400/800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH1Q10000N

I've done a lot of research in purchasing an external drive for my iMac and this drive came as my #1 choice.

First of all I would like to address all the other reviewers saying they have problems with this product - please note that YOU MUST UPGRADE product's firmware software before you can use it with Leopard (a small download from WD web site and software installation)! In my product packaging I've had a written notice on this from WD and this was the first thing I did! This is the only con I have for this product, however once your firmware is updated, the drive works like a charm!!!

WD made this model specifically for Macs, the drive is even HFS+ (Apple) formatted. I've also seen this drive being sold in Apple retail stores!

I've had this drive for the last couple of months and I've never had problems with it, I love it! The product is very much aesthetically pleasing, its operation is dead quiet and I love the automated power save feature (drive powers off automatically when not in use)!

The drive features quadruple interface (USB, ESATA, FW400, FW800) - I use firewire 800 and the data transfer is blazing fast!!

In my research the runner up was LaCie Big Disk Extreme 1 TB having similar features as this WD drive, however besides a small difference in price, the major difference was that WD extends 5 year warranty for its WD drive, whereas LaCie gives you only 3 years warranty!

I would highly recommend Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB hard drive, Mac (WDH1Q10000N) to all Mac users, you cannot go wrong with this one! :)

I had read reviews of previous versions of the WD MyBook series drives being excessively loud. This 1TB (931GB actually) drive is very quiet, just a slight hum to it. I have an iMac with a 1TB drive and I am using this WD external for Time Machine under Leopard with FireWire 800. I have had it about a month and am very pleased so far. The front has a light bar that strobes or flashes depending on what the drive is doing. Some may find that annoying (for example if used in a bedroom). I'm not sure if this can be turned off. I have not tried the backup software that came on the drive.

Like it says in the review title, I really WANT to like this drive. Unfortunately, I can't. I don't. And I probably won't. Ever. Why?

I bought a 1Tb drive for media storage, and the 500Gb model for Time Machine. The drives mounted fine on my 24" aluminum iMac, but then the problems started.

The drives would sometimes freeze when they went into suspend mode. Worse, OS X is too stupid to stop trying to access a "dead" drive, so the frozen drive would hang the system.

I figured it was a fluke, so I did a hard restart on all my hardware. Same problems, so I changed cables. No luck. I even tried the firewire 400 and USB interfaces. The drives would still freeze, and still hang the system.

I figured I just had a defective drive. No problem. I already had another 500Gb drive on order, so I sent the first back to the vendor and waited for the second to arrive. I had the same problems with the second drive, so it went back for a refund as well.

The 1Tb drive started giving me the same problems, so I took the mechanism out of the WD case and put it in an OWC enclosure. Not surprisingly, I haven't had a problem since.

So, why do I want to like this drive?

Pros:
- It's attractive
- It's quiet (because it's fanless)
- Quadruple interface (nice!)

Cons:
- It just doesn't work...

WD is my first choice for internal drives, but they have some MAJOR problems with the My Book Studio line. Since other Mac users love them, I suspect that the drives simply don't like the new iMacs.

Check the Apple Discussion Forums and you'll find lots of problems with them.

I've owned this drive for several months and have had a good experience with it. It's attached via the included FW800-FW400 cable to an Intel iMac. A couple of things worth noting, though:

1. While the exterior may look like metal, it's plastic. The paint looks very nice and it's detailed very well. I have no complaints, just pointing it out.

2. The elongated oval on the front is the power / activity light. It's comprised of several actual LEDs (white), and does a pretty good KITT impersonation. :) The light is bright enough to be an issue if you are sleeping in the same room and prefer it relatively dark. Even when the drive is sleeping, the light throbs in a manner similar to the Mac sleep lights, just much brighter.

3. When the mechanism is spinning it produces a noticeable, but not annoying vibration in the desk surface. Placing the drive on a thin neoprene mouse pad reduces this vibration dramatically.

4. The drive automatically puts itself to sleep when you sleep or shutdown your computer, and will automatically wake with the computer as well.

If I needed more storage tomorrow I'd consider buying another one.

I'm a recent switcher from PC to Mac and in the process of moving all my personal 'stuff' (digital pictures, iTunes library, documents, etc.) realized that my 300GB USB drive, while probably sufficient, would always leave me wondering if it was 'enough' for Time Machine. Info online said your backup drive should be 2-3 times the size of your hard drive, so I figured for the 320GB drive in my iMac, I should go with a 1TB backup drive. I wanted FireWire connectivity as well, so I started searching. I found this drive, and although the reviews were generally good, there were some that were scary - and who wants to take a chance with the backup of your irreplaceable memories and creations?

So, I bought it and have to say I'm thrilled. It's incredibly quiet, its aluminum-silver look matches my iMac perfectly, and most of all - it works. Time Machine saw it right away, did it's initial backup overnight and I haven't had any problems going 'back in time' to retrieve files (thankfully, just to test - I haven't had any problems that caused actual data loss).

Peace of mind, good price, easy-as-pie setup (on a mac, anyway), and more storage than you can shake a stick at.

Go for it. If your experience is like mine, you'll be satisfied.