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WD My Book

Matt T

Matt T

macrumors regular
Original poster
I'm considering buying a WD My Book external drive (probably the 500GB) but I've been hearing that they provide slow transfer speeds and are loud. I don't know if it matter, but I'm planning on using it over FW400. If anyone with one of these could let me know what you think of it, I'd appreciate it.
 
Well, I have the 500 gb MyBook Pro, and its not loud at all. In addition, the FW 800 is absolutely blazing fast, and I love it. My only issue with it is when it needs to come out of sleep mode and it takes a few seconds, but I've found it to be a minor issue with an otherwise sick drive.
 
I have the mybook 250gb (black) drive and the world edition (nas) one. The world edition is LOUD when the fan gets up to max speed, but the other one is nice and quiet at all times. And that one is on my desk by the monitors.
 
Veritas&Equitas said:
Well, I have the 500 gb MyBook Pro, and its not loud at all. In addition, the FW 800 is absolutely blazing fast, and I love it. My only issue with it is when it needs to come out of sleep mode and it takes a few seconds, but I've found it to be a minor issue with an otherwise sick drive.
Click to expand...

My MyBook Pro is quite loud. Can really hear it when it's in operation although it does seem to spin down when not in use. Makes Time Machine very annoying...
 
splashtech said:
I have the mybook 250gb (black) drive and the world edition (nas) one. The world edition is LOUD when the fan gets up to max speed, but the other one is nice and quiet at all times. And that one is on my desk by the monitors.
Click to expand...


Splashtech.. I am curious how yoar accessing your World Edition drive on your Mac. I am having an issue with a Brand New World Edition II (terrabyte model)... I can see the drive from my IMac, and I can even write files to the drive, but I cant see what I write. If I look on my windows system, I can see the stuff I wrote with the Mac. Very odd.. according to WD, the drive is compatible with the MAC.

My 500GB MyBook Pro works fine with the mac.. even though only through USB because of some other issue where we cant use firewire for some reason, but I am using it for Time Machine so I am fine with that.

Thx
 
I have a mybook pro 500gb

In terms of loudness, when running, it is louder than my iMac (when the mac is running at normal levels). If I work the iMac hard and the fans crank up, it becomes louder than the mybook.

Speedwise I find it ok for speed FW400. I only really use if for storage not for 'live' stuff. What I have noticed however, is when I transfer data from the mybook to my iMac or to another external device (usb stick), my system really slows down (responsivness, jerky windows etc). Bear in mind my iMac is a G5!

Overall, I am really happy with it. Does what I need.
 
I have the 320GB My Book USB only and I can't hear it at all. Even when doing my initial backup it was almost silent. It would only be slow because of USB. Took me about 4 hours to backup 55GB. Firewire 400 would be faster but I honestly didn't want to fork over an extra $50 for it.

Time Machine works beautifully with the drive as it doesn't slow anything else down when doing it's hourly/daily backups. They take a few minutes and then it's done if you downloaded some media files, etc.

Also, as a bonus there is no power button and when you unplug the usb cable from your computer it automatically shuts down. Plug it back in to your computer and it starts up and mounts in about 5 seconds.

The only annoying thing is the blinking light ring which only tells me if it's writing or reading and if it's on. Other than that it's useless. But apparently some of the other and new ones have a light gauge that shows you how full the drive is.
 
I replaced my Lacie external drive with the new 1TB Studio My Book becuase I found the lacie too loud. I can't even hear the MyBook. I think it is great.
 
I have an older 250gb that is usb and fw400 and it can get loud. It also sits on my desk that seems to resonate the vibration so that might be part of it. I picked up a 500gb essential yesterday and it is quiet as a mouse.
 
From WD Support

This is direct from WD Support:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

The drive may work on Macs attached to the same local network as the drive. However, the bundled remote-access software will not install and the remote-access function will not work. Additionally, we could not help you troubleshoot the drive if you bought it and it didn't work with any of your Mac computers. Unfortunately, we have no plans to support the Macintosh platform with our newer MyBook World drives.

Sincerely,
Don S.
Western Digital Service and Support
----------------------------------------------------------------------
and about transfer speeds on a gigabit network, this is what they said...

We never advertise sustained transfer rates on any of our internal or external drives. Instead, we advertise the interface speed that the drive supports. The 3-5 MBps is a sustained transfer speed whereas 10/100/1000 is an interface specification. Similarly, we advertise our internal drives with SATA-150 or SATA-300 interface compatibility but the sustained transfer rate is not 150 or 300MBps. Nonetheless, the MyBook World will show a 1000Mbps interface connection when connected to a router Gigabit-capable router.


Just some information for you guys, but I think at this point it is safe to say that Mac users should not purchase the Western Digital World Edition II if they want to be able to use it with the MAC. I may still keep mine since I do still have a couple of PC's. My work is dealing with PC's, so I cant remove them from my life completely.

Take care all..
 
Very oddd..

Somehow my WD World Book Edition II is working fine from the MAC, and I have made no changes.. The only thing that I know that changed is the Imac update that came down this morning. I am able to copy files to the drive, and view everything that is there.. all over the network.
 
I have 2 - 500GB of the black my books and 1 - 500GB pro version (with the firewire 800). The black ones are fairly quiet, I have it on top of my hunch so I don't hear it.

The pro version is very loud and tends to vibrate a loud which only increases the noise a lot.

Other then that, they are great drives I use them a lot. I love WD.
 
WD My Book Studio

I just got the newer/smaller My Book "studio" made (formatted) for the MAC. It includes the autobackup software, but I'm using leopard 10.5 so I didn't install that. It is backing up the drive via Time Machine as I am typing this and it's very fast (via fw800) and as far as I can tell virtually silent.

I'll let you all know how it works when it's finished (roughly 100G on a new MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz).

Cheers,

KE
 
I have a 1TB mybook pro drive and am upgrading to a 2TB, The drive is really fast when in FW800 or ethernet. It is a bit loud. I don't think the 500G has a fan though so you wouldn't have the noise issue.
 
Success...

Ok, My friend hooked up his WD Mybook 1TB WorldBook II to his network, and despite WD saying it wont work for the MAC.. It works perfectly.

Basically, you have to remember to turn on the File Sharing, and SMB Sharing under Sharing / File Sharing / Options from System Preferences.

Also, under Security / Firewall, either accept all incoming connections, or Accept File Sharing (AFP, SMB).

Both of these things combined make it all work.

After doing this you should be able to see any shares on your Windows PC's as well as see any shares you have turned on on the WD World II.

Happy My Booking.
 
My roommate has a WD MyBook Pro 500Gb. FW800 is crazy fast, and while it's silent most of the time, after it starts to get into some heavy use, there's an annoying high-pitched whine. Coupled with the mass-produced-quality of WD products, I'm going to put together my own external instead.
 
Nightline said:
Ok, My friend hooked up his WD Mybook 1TB WorldBook II to his network, and despite WD saying it wont work for the MAC.. It works perfectly.

Basically, you have to remember to turn on the File Sharing, and SMB Sharing under Sharing / File Sharing / Options from System Preferences.

Also, under Security / Firewall, either accept all incoming connections, or Accept File Sharing (AFP, SMB).

Both of these things combined make it all work.

After doing this you should be able to see any shares on your Windows PC's as well as see any shares you have turned on on the WD World II.

Happy My Booking.
Click to expand...

I am trying to get my wife's PowerBook G4 to recognize a MyBook World Edition 500 she bought me for Christmas with no luck. I contacted WD and their pat answer from Chennai/Bangalore/wherever is that they don't support Mac for any networked drive!

I tried checking her networking settings, and being unfamiliar with the Mac networking interface could not really tell whether it was set up or not (the options you referred to weren't exactly what I can see from the Network panel). I tried typing in the IP address directly from a browser window but it could not see that either.

Any suggestions as to how to proceed?
 
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