Western Digital My Book Studio Ii

While nosotros await more than Thunderbolt storage devices, Western Digital grabbed headlines non too long ago for the announcement of its 6TB My Volume Studio Edition II Mac-ready external drive. The two-bay external enclosure features ii 3.5" Western Digital Caviar Green drives and is bachelor in 2TB, 4TB and 6TB configurations. The drives are priced at $249, $399 and $499 respectively although street pricing is significantly lower. I saw the drives going for $179 for 2TB, $303 for the 4TB configuration and $379 for the 6TB model at Amazon.

Past default My Volume Studio Edition 2 implements a RAID-0 beyond its two internal drives, although Western Digital's software lets you catechumen that to a RAID-1 (at one-half the capacity) if you'd similar.

The Mac-ready characteristic of class means little these days since both Mac and PC platfnorms share almost all of the same components. The MyBook Studio Edition Ii but comes from the mill with a HFS+ partition, Mac-like industrial blueprint, Mac uniform software and FireWire 800 back up, commonplace on many modernistic Macs. The drive is easily just as usable under Windows and Western Digital of course provides software for that purpose.

With two 3.5" drives inside the My Book Studio Edition II takes upwardly most the desk infinite as five DVD cases standing upright. The industrial design is very Apple-like, however the construction is entirely plastic. The Studio Edition II chassis is well vented, despite at that place beingness no internal fans - slits perforate the tiptop, back and base of the unit. The max drive surface temperature I measured was 51C under extended load.

The front is barren except for a status calorie-free. Internally at that place are five LEDs that drive the indicator, but from the outside information technology just looks similar a thin strip of light. The indicator is off when powered down, glows when idle, has a KITT affect when the drives are being accessed and a progress blitheness if the assortment is being rebuilt. With five discrete LEDs driving the low-cal whatever animations aren't particularly smooth.

All connections take place on the rear of the device, where yous'll detect a power button, USB two.0 connector, ii FireWire 800 ports (one equally an input for daisy chaining FW devices), eSATA port and DC input.

Western Digital ships the My Book Studio Edition Two with cables for USB two.0, FireWire 800 and FireWire 400. Given that no Macs have an integrated eSATA port, there's no eSATA cable in the box. The ability adapter is a pretty standard, generic looking Ac adapter.

Internal Access

Unlike most external drives from WD and Seagate, getting access to the drives inside the My Book Studio 2 is made purposefully simple. The meridian comprehend is hinged with a press-to-release latch at the forepart. You have to press very hard to release the latch at the front, difficult plenty that I'thousand afraid of breaking the mechanism.

With the superlative cover lifted upward there's a unmarried tool-less spiral that holds the drives in place. Unscrew it and elevator one (or both) drives out by a plastic hook attached to the drive:

In that location'due south no cage around each drive, two screws hold the drive in place and then when you remove a drive you're removing all there is.

Western Digital makes it easy to remove drives nonetheless you're limited in what sort of drives yous can replace them with. Merely WD drives will work in the chassis.

I tried replacing one of the drives with a Seagate and the My Volume Studio Edition Ii wouldn't even detect the bulldoze. Other WD Caviar Green drives worked perfectly however.

Performance and Usage

Western Digital sent usa its newest 6TB version, which features two 3TB Caviar Green drives internally - these are the same drives we reviewed not too long ago. By default these 2 drives are configured as a striped RAID-0 array, nonetheless you tin can catechumen the assortment to a 3TB RAID-ane if y'all'd like.

Windows 7 Performance Comparison
WD My Volume Studio Edition II FW800	7325MB H.264 Video Copy	10095MB AT Folder Re-create
6TB RAID-0 (Avg / Max)	49.0 / 75.seven MBps	59.7 / 75.ane MBps
3TB RAID-1 (Avg / Max)	42.iv / 75.1 MBps	57.0 / 70.9 MBps

Despite supporting FireWire 800 at that place's barely whatsoever performance benefit to enabling RAID-0 on the chassis. You're bottlenecked at the interface, not the drive. I tried copying a big 7GB movie as well equally the entire AnandTech folder on my drive with tons of small jpegs, both sequences ended upwards at around 75MB/s in RAID-0 or 70MB/s in RAID-1. Dropping to USB 2.0 caused peak operation to drop to around 30MB/south.

Windows 7 Performance Comparing
WD My Volume Studio Edition II USB 2.0	7325MB H.264 Video Copy	10095MB AT Binder Copy
6TB RAID-0 (Avg / Max)	28.two / xxx.v	26.4 / 30.9

In RAID-1 style the drive behaves as expected. Remove either drive in RAID-i and your assortment will keep working. Rebuilding unfortunately takes a very long fourth dimension, something that's non atypical for a RAID array.

Terminal Words

If y'all're a non-Thunderbolt Mac possessor that needs a adept amount of external storage, Western Digital's My Book Studio Edition II works well with no real problems. The merely trouble I had with the setup is that down the road if you need to replace the drives inside the Studio Two you'll have to be sure to source Caviar Light-green drives from Western Digital. The enclosure doesn't feel super expensive cheers to its plastic construction but it does expect like it belongs on a desk next to a Mac. The drives run reasonably cool thanks to their sub-6000 RPM spindle speed and well ventilated chassis. Pricing is somewhat competitive with unmarried bulldoze solutions from Seagate, but if cost is a concern yous're almost always better off ownership a drive and a cheap external enclosure. I will add together that finding an affordable 2-bay iii.v" drive enlcosure with FireWire 800 support is tough.

What I'd really like to see is a version of the My Book Studio Edition II with USB three.0 and Thunderbolt back up. Promise's Pegasus is a bang-up performer just it's incredibly expensive. Perhaps Western Digital could do something virtually that at a more consumer friendly price betoken.