Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital My Book Studio II - 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N

This drive was exactly what I wanted:

- large capacity
- FW800
- USB2
- eSata
- quiet (no fan)
- HFS pre-formatted for Mac
- easy configuration utility to convert to a mirrored drive array
- easy to exchange drives
- stylish
- compact

I have had very good luck with Western Digital drives so far. Hopefully this one will continue that trend. I considered purchasing a Drobo FW800, but some people have commented that their reliability is suspect and have lost their data when attempting to do a firmware upgrade on them. Also, their FW800 speed isn't as fast as other competing drives.

The only bummer about this drive is that I bought it from Amazon for a great price but now they are selling it for an additional $55 less than I paid for it for it 3 weeks ago.

I did read all the reviews here before buying this product. After my first week experience with the product, I regret that I bought it.

When I plugged the device in the first time using Firewire it worked great for about three hours. My first time machine backup failed after about 3GB of data was transferred. After that, the device would not appear anymore on the Mac Pro.

The USB connection proved more workable, though every once in a while the time machine backup fails but at least the device stays mounted.

There is apparently a problem with remounting the device after it was unmounted. This is inline with the experiences of other people that had problems. The work around is to wait several hours with the device completed unplugged (power + usb + firewire). Whenever I did this, the device automatically mounted when plugged in again.

When the device is unmounted from the OS. There was no way to get it to mount again without the downtime. I noticed an error message in the logs on the mac pro regarding the usb device.

If you are not so tech savy, then I recommend you NOT to buy this product. If you are tech savy, the device is not reliable enough to be used in any kind of RAID-1 setup without giving you sleepless nights. The later is for what I bought it and the product did not fulfill my expectations.

I bought this to use with my new imac's Time Machine. When the My Book was delivered it was ready to go and pre-formatted properly so all I had to do was plug it in, turn it on and attach it with the included firewire cable to my mac. I was in business and backing up my hard drive within 10 minutes of opening the box. Easy, simple and a wonderful way to feel secure that I have everything backed up and safe.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:

PROS-
-Exactly as advertised by Western Digital
-Drive/RAID Management Software is very easy to use & works well in OS X
-Works very well with AirPort Extreme Base Station
-Excellent as an AirDisk for Time Machine (follow process listed elsewhere in reputable Mac Forums)
-Includes FireWire 800/800, FireWire 800/400, and USB A/Mini-A Cables (the FireWire Cables alone are a big plus for new Mac Owners)

CONS-
-Included WD Anywhere Backup is a waste of time - does not do full system backups


EXCRUCIATING DETAIL:

I purchased this drive to run it from an AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS) as a self-mirroring Network Attached Storage (NAS) volume in a mixed-platform environment (WinXP and OS X).

MAC EXPERIENCE: Initial set-up was a snap by connecting the drive to a MacBook Pro via Firewire 800 and using the included drive/RAID management software to configure it to be a RAID 1 HFS+ volume. After following the processes to set this drive up as a Time Machine target, it has performed flawlessly. PLEASE NOTE: Using any drive as a Time Machine target via an AEBS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY APPLE.

WinXP EXPERIENCE: This drive was made available to my Windows Platforms via an AEBS. Mounting this volume was handled automatically by AirPort Base Station Agent. PLEASE NOTE: If using this drive on an AEBS in a Windows Environment, the AirPort Base Station Agent translates HFS+ File System into FAT32 in real time. For most new applications, this will not be an issue BUT some legacy software will either hang or post an error if writing a file larger than the 4GB limit in the FAT32 specification (this happened to me with Ghost v9), but I was able to establish a workaround.

OVERALL: This drive has performed HOURS of continuous READ/WRITE without any of the disconnect/dismount problems reported by other users (please see my note in the paragraph above as to my theory on why that happens). The Power Save mode is mostly transparent although there will be a minor delay as it restores itself. This is my third WD "MyBook" purchase, all of which have been dependable workhorses.

Just got my new WD My Book Studio II 2 TB (RAID 1) drive working and connected to an older WD My Book World 1 TB (RAID 1). Compared to the straight forward install of the older drive, getting the Studio II to work on my Sony Vaio running Vista (X64) was challenging, to the point that I almost packed it back into its box.

The problem is that WD did not consider the consumer's experience when developing the CD with the applications. The WD software install disc provides a slick display that encourages you to load a bunch of temp-ware that you don't need, including the usual Google add-ons. Once the application install was complete, I could not find the WD application in the tray, or anywhere else. After several reinstalls, reboots and looking, it suddenly appeared in the system tray. By this time I was reading the directions, but even then I ran into a few deadends. "Drive not installed"? Huh? By using my usual Windows tactics (lots of left and right clicking, reboot frequently, close other programs, uninstall other devices), I finally got to where I could format the drive for Windows, set up RAID 1, give it a more useful drive letter and get it working. My final challenge was getting my new WD drive to connect directly to the old drive via FireWire. Tip: connect your old WD drive directly to the computer so that the new application can install its driver for your old drive, even though it's been working fine. I had my WD World Edition connected to the Studio II which was then connected to the Vaio. The Studio II was recognized, but not the World Edition. Any yes, all of my external hard drives (four currently) are WD. I have yet to have one fail and I use the same brand in the hope that they will be compatible with each other. So far, so good.

Getting this drive started is like driving an Italian car: you have to tinker with it. It is not plug and play and reading the directions really helps. Good luck!