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 is Quiet - Looks Good on the Desktop - and I love the Quad Interface (using Firewire 800 for my TimeMachine drive).

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.

I was a dedicated LaCie fan before I purchased this hard drive, but I'm very impressed with how easy it is to use, and how quiet it is! I have a Macbook Pro with Firewire 800 and the speed of backing up my entire hard drive through time machine was fantastic (of course the first backup took a few hours, but now the backups take only minutes). I've only had it for a month now, and so far no malfunctions or dead drives, but the thing I really like about this device is the dual drive raid feature and manual access to the drives, so even if the drive IS faulty I can just replace it. Whew. I feel a great amount of confidence about not loosing my important files.

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.

I have had this drive for almost one year and use it on a daily basis. There is about 1.5 out of the (almost) 2 TB that is used and it still works great. I would recommend this drive.