Reviews for WD My Book Pro Edition II Hard Drive Array - 2 x HDD Installed - 1 TB Installed HDD Capacity

It doesn't get better than 1 terabyte on your desk!

Strengths: Huge capacity, stylish, fast

Weakness: Loud, useless capacity gauge

After outgrowing my current hard drives, I decided to upgrade and get this 1TB monster, and I'm very happy I did. The drive itself is speedy, and I've quickly transferred hundreds of gigs of data to it. The My Book is also pretty stylish and definitely goes well with modern computer designs. The are two things that I don't like, though: it's loud, and that capacity gauge is useless. Regarding the loudness, WD made the very bad decision of not giving this drive feet. The vibration of the drive causes my entire desk, which has a glass top, to vibrate loudly. However, propping the drive on a plastic coaster has solved that problem, but the fan is still fairly loud. The other thing that I don't like is the LED on the front. Sure, it looks cool, but it's really quite useless. The capacity gauge is impossible to read, and I would prefer that it simply not be there.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

XLNT 1TB RAID FireWire 800/400 HD System for Mac...

Strengths: Solid design; 1TB size; FireWire 800-native=fast access; nice power off/on design that works 100%; stylish; HFS+ formatted OEM; user-serviceable if necessary

Weakness: Bad reviews from early adopters; occasionally loud cooling fans; runs warm, but that's apparently normal; lacks 5-year warranty but makes up for it in performance

This is a great external HD system for Mac users, as it worked right out of the box as advertised, was OEM formatted HFS+ Journaled, and I get to use FireWire 800 for its connection to my Dual Core G5. I updated the firmware immediately, and that stopped the fans from going on hard too often, although it seems to run naturally a trifle warm, with the fans on low speed much of the time when it's being accessed constantly.

I'm using it in RAID 0 configuration, for my iTunes library, which includes more than 600GB of MP4 movies, and once set up via iTunes preferences it's worked perfect. Viewing movies with my Apple TV system is seamless and transparent using the My Book Pro II as the source HD, and after 2 weeks of constant use I am convinced this HD system is a great buy @ about $300 shipped online. A really nice feature is that it's user-serviceable should either or both of the drives fail at some point, (God forbid, but it's a nice deal to be able to diagnose and fix the HD system without sending the whole thing in for service) and thorough access directions are provided in the owner's manual, and via PDF from the Western Digital website.

If it only used Enterprise-class HD's and had a 5-year warranty it would be absolutely perfect, but, alas, I guess @ its price point it's the King of the Hill! Of particular note is that the front buttons WORK, actually! Which is way different than the Seagate Free Agent HD that this replaced...that HD's off/on button never worked right, while the My Book's button works correctly every time.

What else? Well, it comes with all the cables you need, USB, FireWire 800/400 1 of each, and I find that it *LOOKS NICE* on my desktop, complimenting my G5's brushed aluminum finish. You know, this thing was just a solid home run from the 1st time I turned it on...didn't even have to format it since it was already HFS+ Journaled from the factory, and I have absolutely zero complaints about its functioning, performance, or features.

One thing to note, you *MUST* install the Western Digital RAID Control software package, and restart your Mac, before the front buttons work correctly for shutdown and power up, something to remember without fail with this HD system. I'm going to give this unit 5-stars across the board for features, style, performance, value, and overall excellence! I really like this setup, and will consider its big brother, the 2TB size My Book Pro II, when my storage needs grow larger than this one can deal with.

I'm very hard to please, usually make up my own HD enclosures and buy the most expensive, Enterprise-class HD's for my storage needs, but having this Western Digital setup has changed the way I look at external storage. Highly recommended and excellent performance are the bywords with the My Book Pro II 1TB HD system. Don't be afraid to try it, it's the sleeper external HD bargain if there ever was one these days.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

My Book Pro Edition II 1TB HD

Strengths: Price, Design, RAID and tri-connections

Weakness: Occasionally loud.

I have been using this drive for about a week with a setting of RAID 1 for redundant backup. Has been great right out of the box but the one thing I noticed was during large file xfers, the fans kick on and the unit switches from silent to mini hairdryer level noise. Sort of makes sense and I was fine with it since I wouldn't be doing this type of large volume xfers frequently, but yesterday I had the drive on to xfer some files and much later in the evening (probably 8hrs after the xfer) the fans kicked on again for no reason. I ended up turning it off but the fans stay on til it cools down. We'll see how it progresses, but I guess I'll just keep the unit off until I need it.

UPDATE-12/26/06 - I spoke with tech support and you can download a firmware updater that fixes the fan problem.

91% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Great external hard drive!

Strengths: Lots of space; Very easy to install on a Mac; Works fast and really quiet; Looks great on my desk

Weakness: None so far

WD My Book 1TB is a great external hard drive. It’s easy to use. I use RAID configuration and it was really easy to set it up on a Mac. Hard drive automatically goes to sleep after some time of inactivity and wakes up as soon as to access it. A lot of people complain about loud fan, so as soon as I got my drive I upgraded the firmware so I never had this issue. I use firewire 800 and it runs really fast! Highly recommend this hdd! Western Digital makes great drives

80% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

I really like it

Strengths: Size, RAID1, performance

Weakness: Bad reviews :)

I've had this drive on my iMac about a week and so far it's worked great. It took 5 minutes to reconfig it for RAID1 and it mounted perfectly and has not missed a beat.

I use it for nightly backups so maybe I'm not hearing the "loud fan" everyone seems to describe. I do hear a fan, but it's no louder than a pretty quiet PC fan. I suggest buying it to listen for yourself.

I could not find any simple RAID1 solution with this nice of a complete package (tri-interface, solid software, etc) for anywhere near this price.

80% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

nice but noisy

Strengths: Price, excellent management of RAID

Weakness: Very noisy

I purchased two drives and set them up in a RAID 1 configuration using standard Apple Mac Os X software. It took about two flawless minutes, never having done such a thing before. Unfortunately, the drive fans are constantly running while the computer is on, and are extremely annoying. When you feel the drive itself, the top is quite warm, possibly explaining the necessity for the fans running.

75% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Never Again.

Strengths: Its big.

Weakness: Loud, and unreliable.

We bought one of these to archive footage from DV tapes. After capturing 70+ hours of footage the drive started to loose files. I don't recommend this product. We are sending it back.

50% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

This is a POS in my experience...

Strengths: In theory: Blue LED "storage gauge", large storage POTENTIAL, RAID 0,1 ability, includes all the cables you would expect.

Weakness: Refuses to retain data. Firmware updated, took multiple installations just to recognize drive long enough to format. File system magically disappears!

The install disc is translucent, rendering it useless in some drives that can't read it. Limited and outdated tech support on website. Fan noise is least of your worries!

33% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

WD Pro Ed II 1Tb Ext HD

Strengths: Physical design, RAID controller software

Weakness: Noise, poor throughput

After using many Maxtor 1 Tb external hard drives, and considering previous good experiences with WD's 70 and 320 Gb units, I decided to give this unit a try. Unfortunately, it has proved to be much worse than the Maxtors, which seem to be workhorses. First, when the fans kick in, it is very noisy, and when you run it for more than 10-15 minutes, the fans will operate constantly. Generally after the fans kick in, data throughput slows considerably, usually killing my scanning application by overfilling the buffer. As I am writing large streams of data to these machines for 5 or 6 hours straight, they must be reliable, which this machine is not.

25% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Speak up! I am using my Hard Drive

Strengths: I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve had mine for 4 months and have not lost any data nor any problems with the drive. I use it with FW400 and it seems pretty fast. Good for backups.

Weakness: LOAD FAN - sounds like a hair drier most of the time but when the HD heats up which is most of the time the fan kicks in to turbo drive which is VERY LOAD. Only 1 FW400 port is a big problem for me.

-- The drive is generally a good device for backup where you unplug it when not in use but if you plan to use it frequently you will find the noise from the fans to be a problem. -- Design of the device is bad, you can\\\\\\\'t really stack it so if you want to have more drives on your desk you will take up more precious desk space rather than less as they say in their ads. -- Only having 1 FW400 port is a problem cause you can\\\\\\\'t daisy chain them which means you can\\\\\\\'t have more then one of these plugged in at a time unless you upgrade to FW800. On the other hand I don\\\\\\\'t think I can stand having 2 of these noisy units on my desk running at the same time. I am currently looking for another large capacity drive but resisting buying another one of these because of the noise. What Was WD Thinking When They Picked That Fan In!

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

My Book Pro Edition II External 1TB Hard Drive

Strengths: Solid and Reliable Easy to setup Great backup device

Weakness: None

I purchased this external hard disk for backup purposes replacing two smaller USB hard disks. It has performed above expectations. I have had other external hard disks fail within three months. I have no complaints on this device.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Constantly overheats and shuts down

Strengths: Inexpensive

Weakness: Constant overheating leads to malfunction

I bought two of these for RAID 1. One of the drives works reasonably well, the other constantly overheats leading to complete drive shutdown. This was after I had to send a similar drive back that simply did not work at all.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Reply by member: funkmonk
Dec 28, 2007

Actually, NA isn't a particular user, its what PriceGrabber calls all users whose reviews were written on their partner websites.

Report this as innapropriate

Western Digital My Book Pro 2 USB2/Firewire

TestSeek.com has collected 5 expert reviews for Western Digital My Book Pro 2 USB2/Firewire and the average expert rating is 72 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use TestSeek.com to find all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

Read Full Review