Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive
The 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive from Western Digital is a high-capacity external hard drive with an interface that allows it to be connected via FireWire-800, FireWire-400, USB 2.0, or eSATA.
The drive is housed in an elegant design that can at first glance be mistaken for that of a hardbound book. This makes the drive an excellent choice for anyone who would like to have a unique and classy drive to use for external data storage. The drive features built-in power-saving, has no environmental contaminants, and ships in recyclable packaging, making it as friendly to the environment as it is to your data.
The drive comes preformatted with the Mac OS X HFS+ Journaled file system, making it an excellent choice for creative professionals who work on the Mac platform. WD Anywhere Backup software for OS X is included. The drive can also be reformatted for use in Windows. This drive is an excellent choice for anyone who would like to add storage to their computer without sacrificing aesthetics.
- Configure as a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array
- Connects via eSATA, FireWire-800, FireWire-400, or USB 2.0
- HFS+ formatted for Mac OS X, can be reformatted for Windows systems
- Eco-friendly design uses WD GreenPower drives
- User-serviceable design: no tools are required to replace a drive
- Capacity gauge lets you know how much space is free on your drive
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Capacity | 2TB |
| Interface |
1x USB 2.0 1x eSATA 2x 9-Pin FireWire-800 |
| Drive Speed | 7200rpm |
| Buffer | Not Specified by Manufacturer |
| Average Seek Time | Not Specified by Manufacturer |
| Sustained Data Transfer Rate | Not Specified by Manufacturer |
| Drivers | |
|---|---|
| Supported | Not Required |
| Included | Not Required |
| System Requirements | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Mac OS X 10.4.10+, 10.5.2+, 10.6.x; Windows 2000, XP |
| Hardware | FireWire-400, FireWire-800, USB 2.0, or eSATA port |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Mounting | Desktop |
| Power Requirements | AC: 100-240VAC, 47-63Hz |
| Environmental Requirements |
Operating Temperature: 41-95°F (5-35°C) Storage Temperature: -4-149°F (-20-65°C) |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 3.9 x 6.5 x 6.1" (9.8 x 16.6 x 15.4cm) |
| Weight | 5.2 lb (2.6kg) |
REVIEW SNAPSHOT®
by PowerReviews(based on 195 reviews)
Ratings Distribution
95%
of respondents would recommend this to a friend.
Pros
- Large capacity / good size (161)
- Easy to use (159)
- Easy to setup (156)
- Quiet (123)
- Attractive (110)
Cons
- No power switch (10)
- Unreliable (5)
- Difficult to use (4)
- Slow (3)
Best Uses
- Back-up (155)
- Additional storage (129)
- Photo storage (127)
- Video (101)
- File transfer (47)
- Reviewer Profile:
- Power user (161), Casual user (29)
- Primary use:
- Personal (98), Business (93)
- Computer Platform:
- Mac (41), PC (8)
Most Liked Positive Review
Solved all my problems
I had been struggling for weeks in my attempts to get a large networked hard drive to consistently back up from my Mac Pro. I would be led to believe the data was being backed...Read complete review
I had been struggling for weeks in my attempts to get a large networked hard drive to consistently back up from my Mac Pro. I would be led to believe the data was being backed up only to find that the network lost its connection and the data backups were not taking place. I desperately wanted to find a bullet proof solution that would take advantage of the Mac's "Time Machine" backup program and would run seamlessly in the background. After some research I learned of the My Book Studio Edition II that had been formated for the Mac OS 10x and would work using Time Machine.
I ordered the My Book and plugged it into my Mac expecting the usual issues and work-arounds before I would be able to get it to run properly. To my amazement after I plugged it in, the Mac immediately identified the drive and asked me if I wished to use this drive for a system backup using Time Machine. I clicked on the "yes" button and that was all I had to do. The Mac and the WD My Book Studio Edition II took it from there. The drive is now backed up incrementally every hour without so much as a hick-up along the way. I had about 1.5 TB of data to back up so I chose to plug it into the Firewire 800 ports on the HD and the Mac. It took about 24 hours to back up all my data the first time. Now that that backup has been done it only takes a few seconds each time for the incremental backup. I sleep well at night knowing my data is once again safe and the backups happen reliably as I need them to be.
A smaller point, but still not overlooked by Western Digital is the beautiful design of this product. It shares an identical form and finish as my my Mac Pro. It is as if the WD design team worked in concert with the Apple design team to produce this beautiful and certainly functional product. It lays on top of my Mac Pro tower and looks like it is part of the actual chassis of the computer.
My hat is off to WD for the overall quality, functionality, user friendliness, and elegant design of this great hard drive. I will certainly be back to buy further products in the future.
VS
Most Liked Negative Review
Almost perfect
This would be a truly amazing product, but...
I have two 2TB drives, I have been having problems with them since day one. I called costumer support and they ...Read complete review
This would be a truly amazing product, but...
I have two 2TB drives, I have been having problems with them since day one. I called costumer support and they told me it could be a faulty power supply. They said they will send a replacement which they never did. When I bought the second drive, thinking that I might get lucky as the product has overall good reviews and a very attractive price. Found out right away that has the same problems. The issues are that they boot off as I'm working, sometimes corrupting the files. Sometimes they just don't show up in the finder. I called customer support once again and i was lucky to get a representative that knew exactly what the problem was. The way they "mac" formatted the drives, at least on my case, came with wrong or corrupted firmware for firewire usage. The solution they gave me was to buy a new drive to back up all my information and then reinstall the right firmware, this, instead of offering to send a replacement correctly formatted.
I change them to work in USB and so far it's good, but slower as it's not firewire 2.
Also the blue light it's annoying as it doesn't go off when you turn the computer off when used with firewire. You have to power them off individually.
REVIEWS
Reviewed by 195 customers
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Displaying reviews 1-20
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Pros
- Attractive Design
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
- Needs to be plugged in
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- File Transfer
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro i7 and use the My Book Studio Edition II for back-up as well as for large FCP and CS4 projects. Using the 800 firiewire is excellent and quick enough to communicate with FCP when using the drive for scratch disks.
I'd give this 5 stars, but I've only been using this for one month.
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Portable
Cons
- Unreliable
Best Uses
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
excellent product. The price is good
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
- Slow
Best Uses
- Backup
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I purchased WD MyBook Studio Edition II to connect via eSATA on my Dell XPS 8300 using Windows 7 (x64)Ultimate.
I had a few negative surprises.
1) The CD distributed with the product is out of date and none of the software would install on Windows 7 (x64), the big problem is that after trying to install Backup Anywhere it could not even be uninstalled.
2) Went to WD web site to download the latest software, but the CD image on the WD support site still had old software that could not install, I had to download individually WD-Drive Manager Setup-V2.115.zip and Wdab_4.50.6554.zip to get a version that could install on Windows 7 (x64).
3)Even the latest version of WDDrive Manager only works with USB connection and it is useless for eSATA connection.
I had to configure the drive connecting on USB and then disconnect USB and connect on eSATA.
Keep in mind that the eSATA cable is not included in the shipment and I had to order it separately.
4) Once I finally got everything working, I found out that the eSATA link speed on this device is only 1.5Gb/s instead of the 3Gb/s advertised in the specs. I have an older MyBook Home edition that works fine at 3Gb/s when connected to the same eSATA ports.
The specs for the device states clearly 3Gb/s from buffer to host and 110MB/s sustained transfer rate, but this device runs at a fraction of the speed advertised.
Overall this was quite a negative experience with a Western Digital product which has nothing to do with the store where I purchased it.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- PC
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Compact
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Portable
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I've always used Firewire 800 drives for video editing, but the lag in response when scrubbing through a clip has always been frustrating.
The WD 2TB My Book Studio Edition 2 with RAID O has solved the lag. I now cannot detect any difference in performance between this external drive and an eSATA internal drive.
I wish that I'd have ordered this drive a long time ago; it has sped up my work and decreased my frustrations.
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I chose this drive after considerable research. I'm disappointed that their 5-year warranty is being dropped but the drive operates as expected. I'd (and will) purchase a WD from B&H again.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- File Transfer
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
Fast and quiet
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
This is my second My Book. The first one is just 1TB and was beginning to feel a bit small. I use them mostly for backups - Time Machine and periodic disk images. Both are eSATA and are normally connected to a MacBook Pro running (presently) OSX 10.7.2. They are both very fast in this mode.
Set-up consisted taking it out of the box and plugging it in. It is quieter than the older one, which is already very quiet. Judging by the perceived warmth of each unit, the new one is more power-efficient. I don't feel any urge to unplug it when it is not in use, as I do with the smaller drive.
The only negative is trivial: it is bigger than the 1TB drive while I am used to my new gear getting smaller.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
Cons
- Difficult To Use
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I bought this item to set up as a Raid 1 with Mac OS X Lion. It looked like a great External Hard Drive for the money.
Unfortunately the WD Driver Manager which is required to format this drive is not compatible with Lion.
I called WD tech support twice ... they agreed ... not compatible with Lion.
WD's website has a new version of this Driver Manager (2.2.6) which it says fixes this problem, but it does not (lots of similar problems on internet forums).
Had to return the unit and look for something else.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
This drive has been fantastic for me. It's totally plug-and-play into my Mac, has a boat load of storage and judging by my last drive of the same model, operates reliably.
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I have bought this HDD for work on mine MacBookPro, the best price for this site for 2tb external RAID, different variants of connection, will approach to any computer, quality of assemblage average, works stably and if to paste on it a label "Apple" looks as though specially made for MacBook. ;)
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Compact
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
- Disappears from desktop
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
So far so good! it was very easy to set-up(plug and play), I'm using Time Machine with it and it's been working wonderfully. It's quiet and has a low profile. My one complaint is that the drive disappear from my desktop from time to time, a restart will fix it. not a big deal, just something to be aware of. all in all, I'd buy it again and recommend it to anyone on a budget!
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
Cons
- Noisy
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
Not bad but could be improved
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Compact
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
Virtually plug and go for iMac. I was specifically looking for a external drive for a mac after trying a wireless NAS unit that was supposed to work with mac. Skip that hassle - this drive is super fast using the firewire 800 connection. Runs perfectly with time machine. 2T so it marries up perfectly with my 27" 2T imac. It looks good and runs quietly. Out of the box it is configured for 2T, you can configure it for a 1Tx2 RAID.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Affordable
- Quiet
Cons
- Build Quality
- Difficult To Use
Best Uses
- Backup
- Photo Storage
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I needed a cheap RAID system to redundantly back up my growing photo library. After looking around, the My Book Studio Edition was by far the cheapest option. I must say it was pretty frustrating out of the box. It took a little while to get going. One of the biggest, okay, THE biggest flaw is the cheap design. The top flap is impossible to get open. It took me a couple minutes of pushing and prying and searching on the internet on how to actually get it open. Swapping the drives proves to be a big challenge as well. You have to pull on these flimsy plastic tabs and I'm sure they will break after a month or two. They drives don't slide in and out that well. However, I didn't pay for aluminum enclosures and smooth swapping, so I shouldn't complain. The drives are nice and quiet, and it comes with any cord you could need. If I wanted to spend twice the price for a nicer enclosure I could have, but my budget only allowed me to get this one, and it works just fine as a simple RAID 1.
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Portable
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
If you are doing video this is the one.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
Cons
Best Uses
- Backup
- File Transfer
- Photo Storage
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
Use to backup my imac & photo storage Raid 1 for protection. so far trouble free, easy to setup and also upgradable. Best price in its class.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Compact
- Easy To Setup
- High Capacity
Cons
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- Photo Storage
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
Creating more and larger image files and filled up my first one of these. Bought another because I had already climbed the learning curve on the first one.
Had some trouble as I wanted to gang them and they both use the same name and same software. Learned I had best connect them one at a time. Not ideal, but it took less than a half-day to sort out
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
- No Power Switch
Best Uses
- Backup
- File Transfer
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I used this product recently on a video shoot to off-load and back up files on set. Knowing this drive had redundant data storage to provide instant backup provided great relief to myself and our director of photography. The drive was easy to use and had a very fast transfer when using the 800 connection.
- Primary use:
- Business
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- Quiet
Cons
Best Uses
- Additional Storage
- Backup
- Photo Storage
- Video
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
I have 2 of these drives which I use primarily for video footage. One has been used for over a year. The other is new. I am a heavy user of video editing software so the drive gets a workout. The mirror drive function gives a lot of peace of mind. I also enjoy the fact that I can connect the 2 seperate units to each other in a daisy-chain so I only use 1 firewire 800 port on my machine.
Word of caution however.... Western Digital will provide a replacement drive if one fails during the 5-year warrantly period, but if the controller card or other components outside of one of the two enclosed drives fails, the entire unit must be replaced. If that happens, you will get a new unit, but not your data. Therefore do not consider a RAID1 configuration to be totally safe. You'd be wise to backup to a separate drive periodically.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Pros
- Attractive Design
- Compact
- Easy To Setup
- Easy to use
- High Capacity
- Quiet
Cons
- None
Best Uses
- Photo Storage
Comments about Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio Edition II Quad Interface External Hard Drive:
After struggling with cheaper products to store my photos, I decided to upgrade to the 2TB My Book Studio Edition II. I wish I had bought this FIRST.
Installation and set-up were quick and easy. Install the drive manager, plug everything in, push a few buttons and voila, an instant raid 1 drive.
I've had it for a week now. I had no issues, problems or warnings when I moved about 25,000 photos on to it.
The unit is quicker and quieter than anything I am currently using.
I will buy another unit for my Lightroom Library, and when these are full, I will buy more.
- Primary use:
- Personal
- Computer Platform:
- Mac
Displaying reviews 1-20
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- Price: $15.90
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- Price: $24.95
Hubs & Adapters
- Price: $24.88
What's in the Box
- USB Cable
- FireWire-800 Cable
- FireWire-800 to 400 Cable
- AC Adapter
- Quick Install Guide
- Software CD-ROM
- 3-Year Limited Warranty
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