Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

1 TB My Book Pro

D

downingp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 26, 2006
640
3
I went out and upgraded my WD 500 gb My Book to a WD 1 TB My Book Pro. I really like the look of the aluminum/silver. The one thing I am concerned about is the amount of fan noise that comes from the 1 TB. When using the 500 gb My Book I hardly heard the fan at all. Is it normal for my 1 TB to make that much more noise than the 500 gb?

thanks.
 
I was wondering why the case was so big. I guess they haven't come out with a single 1Tb drive.
I am going to have to put the drive somewhere so I don't hear it.
 
After doing some reading it seems like the Maxtor 1 TB could be quieter.
Does anyone have any experience with either of these hard drives?
 
I heard this was an issue with the 1TB drives, but I guess its just a by-product of the two drives in there. I really rate the MyBooks and am looking for a big one to use with Time Machine, but so far I've held off due to the complaints I've seen about the noise.

Not sure if there's a better and quieter option out there instead? Something which is 1TB and has FW connectivity.
 
downingp said:
After doing some reading it seems like the Maxtor 1 TB could be quieter.
Does anyone have any experience with either of these hard drives?
Click to expand...

WD MyBooks are notoriously noisy drives although they can't be beat for looks. I have a Maxtor and WD and the former is definitely quieter but isn't silent. You can hear the fan in the background. It's similar to the sound of a desktop PC...
 
I have a maxtor 400gb a Toshiba 250gb and the mybook pro 1TB and 95% of the time its great and fans are not too loud.

only time i had it spin up is when i did a 250gb transfer from old to new.
 
superted666 said:
I have a maxtor 400gb a Toshiba 250gb and the mybook pro 1TB and 95% of the time its great and fans are not too loud.

only time i had it spin up is when i did a 250gb transfer from old to new.
Click to expand...


I agree with you about the fan noise. I have found it really only gets loud when I had to transfer all my music, photos, and docs to the drive.
 
lol i just bought a 500Gigger Mybook from amazon about 5 min ago :D but i was tempted by the 1TB version mmm

wake me up when the 1TB is under £100 ;)
 
Since those one terabyte drives have five platters they generate a lot of heat. So those fans have to work faster and harder. If you want things to be quieter you can find a quieter case fan of the same size and swap it out, if you are so bold. I would look for them on newegg since there is such a wide selection and numerous customer reviews.
 
I've also read that people where where taking the fan out and turning it around. Seems to help.
 
I have had the mybook 500gb for a couple of weeks now. One of the main concerns was how noisey it was going to be.

If the drive is active and my iMac is running at idle then you can hear the drive about the iMac. Once the iMac fans crank up a bit, they overtake the drive.

Only time when its annoying is if I am quietly sat in the same room and the mybook starts up to record an eyetv program.
 
velocityg4 said:
Since those one terabyte drives have five platters they generate a lot of heat. So those fans have to work faster and harder. If you want things to be quieter you can find a quieter case fan of the same size and swap it out, if you are so bold.
Click to expand...

Except the MyBook 1 TB doesn't have a terabyte drive inside, it has 2 x 500 Gb.
Swapping the case fan would void the warranty, natch.
 
I just got the My Book Pro 2TB drive and it's silent. The fan only kicks in when it's turned on, or if it's doing a lot of transfers. (I was transferring from 320gb 120gb and 80gb drives simultaneously last night, and the fan came on after about 20 minutes of solid transfer.)

Definitely download the firmware fix, the 2TB proves they got the fan handling right after they shipped the 1TB.

The reason the case is so big is that it's a raid of 2 drives. It comes with software that allows you to change the default RAID 0 (speed) to RAID 1 (mirror). So you can choose between having an automatically backed up 500gb drive or an ultra-fast 1TB drive. :)
 
dizastor said:
I just got the My Book Pro 2TB drive and it's silent. The fan only kicks in when it's turned on, or if it's doing a lot of transfers. (I was transferring from 320gb 120gb and 80gb drives simultaneously last night, and the fan came on after about 20 minutes of solid transfer.)

Definitely download the firmware fix, the 2TB proves they got the fan handling right after they shipped the 1TB.

The reason the case is so big is that it's a raid of 2 drives. It comes with software that allows you to change the default RAID 0 (speed) to RAID 1 (mirror). So you can choose between having an automatically backed up 500gb drive or an ultra-fast 1TB drive. :)
Click to expand...

I was wondering about the how RAID works. I am basically using the external HD to store my music, photos etc. on. What RAID setting would I want to put the drive in?
 
downingp said:
I was wondering about the how RAID works. I am basically using the external HD to store my music, photos etc. on. What RAID setting would I want to put the drive in?
Click to expand...

Depends.

RAID 0 gives you a bit faster speed and the full 1 TB of storage. But it comes at a risk -- if one drive mechanism fails, you lose all of the data on all of the drives.

RAID 1 gives you redundancy - everything that is written to drive 1 is also written simultaneously to Drive 2. But this comes at the cost of storage space -- 2 x 500 Gb drives in a RAID 1 don't give you 1 TB, they give you only 500 GB.
 
I bought a My Book 1TB but returned it (Costco) because it sounded like a jet engine whenever it was used. Well, more like a hair dryer but really ridiculous sounding actually. I ended up getting an Iomega Ultramax 1TB and it is very quiet and looks a lot nicer as well.

ascender said:
I heard this was an issue with the 1TB drives, but I guess its just a by-product of the two drives in there. I really rate the MyBooks and am looking for a big one to use with Time Machine, but so far I've held off due to the complaints I've seen about the noise.

Not sure if there's a better and quieter option out there instead? Something which is 1TB and has FW connectivity.
Click to expand...
 
daemontrader said:
I bought a My Book 1TB but returned it (Costco) because it sounded like a jet engine whenever it was used. Well, more like a hair dryer but really ridiculous sounding actually. I ended up getting an Iomega Ultramax 1TB and it is very quiet and looks a lot nicer as well.
Click to expand...

I bought mine at Costco too. Did you get the Ultramax at Costco?
 
Mr.nix said:
I've also read that people where where taking the fan out and turning it around. Seems to help.
Click to expand...

Help ruin your hard drive, more like. I would love to see the effects after about a month. Fans are placed in one direction for a reason.
 
Fan Replacement

I just wanted to add to this discussion: I was having serious overheating problems on my MyBook Pro 1TB drive. Twice I had to reformat the individual drives and put them back in the case to restore proper functioning (the second time, I wrote zeros over both drives).

After reading about the possibility here of replacing the entirely too small and loud stock fan, I found this fan:

Spire 70×70×15mm Fan 3 pin Model SP07015S1L3

Half as quiet, more air flow--easy to install. I simply spliced the wires into the existing connector (the yellow wire isn't connected to anything), used double-sided tape to hold the fan in place and voilá! A silent, and cool external drive. No more random disconnects or lock ups.
 
DoFoT9 said:
hey all,

i have had a wonderful experience with my 2xdrive macpower-taurus
http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/hddmulti/

has too many ports to name haha. its super quiet and all that. no complaints from it at all, found it to be cheaper & better in the long run as i can replace the drives as i see fit.
Click to expand...

I have several of those and while I consider them a good product I find it misleading to call them super quiet. The fan is always on and quite audible. Another drawback I find is that while the enclosure supports turning the disks on and off when you switch power on the computer, the fans and the blue leds that glow inside the case are always on.
 
alfogator said:
I have several of those and while I consider them a good product I find it misleading to call them super quiet. The fan is always on and quite audible. Another drawback I find is that while the enclosure supports turning the disks on and off when you switch power on the computer, the fans and the blue leds that glow inside the case are always on.
Click to expand...

ok i can see your point. i have the version we are talking about, a smaller 1 bay model and a lacie external. i consider it the quietest of them all, i can fall asleep with it on (im a very light sleeper). i guess its just personal preference, maybe its really really loud lol?? anyways.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back