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WD MyBook Studio Edition II 2 TB - RAID1, multiple partitions? NTFS?

T

TechViking

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 3, 2009
188
9
I am looking at the WD MyBook Studio Edition II 2 TB and have some questions I need answered before getting it. Perhaps someone who uses it with their mac knows the answers.

I want to use it with the RAID1 configuration. As I understand it it will then be seen as a 1 TB drive to the operating system, and the 1 TB data will be mirrored on the dual 1 TB drives.


1) Can the 1 TB RAID1 drive be partitioned into multiple logical partitions? An example:

D: 250 GB
E: 250 GB
F: 500 GB

If not, why?

2) Can the 1 TB RAID1 drive be formatted as NTFS?

3) Can the 1 TB RAID1 drive be partitioned into multiple logical partitions formatted with different file systems? An example:

D: 250 GB formatted as NTFS
E: 250 GB formatted as FAT32
F: 500 GB formatted as HFS+

I will be using it with a 2009 Mini and would like to use it with both OS X and XP in boot camp.
 
My 2tb LaCie max is raided down to 1TB and that is then split into three partitions, one for my Mac Mini time machine, one for the Mac Book time machine and one for Media.

1) 100 Mini
2) 100 MB
3) 730 Media

the missing 70 gigs is normal HD size loss based on the way the size is figured.
 
I asked their customer support via email the same questions as in my first post and I just got the following reply:

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

I'm sorry but in RAID 1 multiple partitions is not possible."

This does not make any sense to me. Why would the RAID controller care about what the file system is on the drives? Shouldnt it just have to care about reading and writing data to sectors on the drives?

Anyone with the Studio Edition II drive that can confirm this?

Also still needs an answer to if its possible to format drives as NTFS. And if it's not, why isnt it?
 
Well I can confirm that I used ntfs on mine.

Not sure about the raid 1 with multiple partitions. Never really found WD support of any help.

One thing I have noticed after owning this drive is that it seems to sleep less when connected via firewire 400 versus firewire 800. Don't know why, but I guess I'm going to have to wait for monoprice to get their firewire 800 to 800 6ft cable back in stock.
 
milk242 said:
Well I can confirm that I used ntfs on mine.

Not sure about the raid 1 with multiple partitions. Never really found WD support of any help.

One thing I have noticed after owning this drive is that it seems to sleep less when connected via firewire 400 versus firewire 800. Don't know why, but I guess I'm going to have to wait for monoprice to get their firewire 800 to 800 6ft cable back in stock.
Click to expand...

Are you using it with RAID0 or RAID1? And when formatted as NTFS?
 
well I started out as raid 0 ntfs then let wd drive manager turn it to raid 1. I assumed it stayed ntfs. Give me about an hour, I'll try it on my drive and see if raid 1 ntfs works and with multiple partitions after I move my files to another drive.
 
Okay, I've tested it.

In Windows Vista, using the WD Raid Manager; you can only format it as NTFS. To format it as fat32, you will have to go and use disk management after you have set it as RAID1.

In OSX, using the WD Raid Manager; you can only format it as HFS+ or FAT32.

While the drive was under OSX, I used disk utility to add more partitions to a fully formated HFS+. I added two partitons, both fat32 and 250gb. I then disconnected the drive and connected it to my windows machine. I formatted one of the fat32 partitions into NTFS.

Overall, I had 1 hfs+ partition, one fat32 partition, and one ntfs partition.

Please take note that I have no idea if raid 1 is still working as it should. The only information I have that its still good is looking under WD Raid manager (Raid manager won't list the other partitions.)

//Edit:

Also, after I already partitioned the drives and plugged it into windows, the windows disk manager showed 2 disks. I believe they correspond to the WD drive. One was uninitialized and I couldn't initializes it. The other had the partitions, I expected to be there.
 
milk242 said:
Okay, I've tested it.

In Windows Vista, using the WD Raid Manager; you can only format it as NTFS. To format it as fat32, you will have to go and use disk management after you have set it as RAID1.

In OSX, using the WD Raid Manager; you can only format it as HFS+ or FAT32.

While the drive was under OSX, I used disk utility to add more partitions to a fully formated HFS+. I added two partitons, both fat32 and 250gb. I then disconnected the drive and connected it to my windows machine. I formatted one of the fat32 partitions into NTFS.

Overall, I had 1 hfs+ partition, one fat32 partition, and one ntfs partition.
Click to expand...

Wow great tests, thanks!

milk242 said:
Please take note that I have no idea if raid 1 is still working as it should. The only information I have that its still good is looking under WD Raid manager (Raid manager won't list the other partitions.)
Click to expand...

Ok. I wonder how it can be verified if RAID 1 is working. How about removing one drive at a time? If the RAID 1 was working, would the drive not look the same to the computer with one drive removed?

Or how about remove and put the 1 TB drives back, but switch drive bays - putting each drive in the bay the other drive was seated in? If it still looks the same to the computer, would that mean that the RAID 1 was still working?
 
Noise Level

I ordered and just received the My Book Studio Edition II 2 TB drive.

I am just starting to setup the drive, but just wanted to write down my first impression. This thing is LOUD! I was not prepared for this amount of noise. I have read that it is fanless and figured the noise would be minimal.

I have a Seagate Freeagent 500 GB firewire drive connected to my Mac Mini and I thought that that was kind of loud. But the Studio Edition II makes way, way more noise than the freeagent one. It has 2 drives, but I had not thought the difference could be this big because of this.

Perhaps it is because of the ventilation system with all the holes in the enclosure.

It also makes much, much more noise than my mac mini itself does...

I am not sure that I will be able to keep this drive because of the noise level :( . Will do some more testing and see but I probably have to replace it with some other drive. Does anyone know of a external 2TB FW drive with RAID1 which is really, really quiet?
 
Not slick

rgarjr said:
i've read somewhere that you can't use NTFS on these slick aluminum drives.
Click to expand...

NTFS works. RAID 1 works.

The enclosure is not aluminium though. It is silverpainted cheap plastic. And I am afraid slick is not even close to the word I would use the describe this drive so far.

The drives inside are 1TB WD Caviar Green 8 MB cache drives. The 32 Mb cache version would have been nice. The 8 and 32 MB versions seem to be priced the same when purchased on their own on the price comparison site I used.

The build quality of this seems BAD. To access the internal drives one opens the top which folds open. It is opened by gently pushing the lid which pops the lid open. However on my unit is not possible to close the lid afterwards!

No matter how gently or how I do it the lid does not want to close. It pops right back up. It is really annoying. I also removed the drives to see if they perhaps got in the way and result in the lid not being able to close. But that didnt help, it is the closing mechanism in itself which does not want to play nice.

Anyone else see this behaviour with their drives? Once the lid is opened it wont close? I am so underwhelmed by this drive.
 
I've never really noticed the noise when it sits next to my mac pro. I usually don't have a trouble closing the lid, I mostly have trouble opening the lid. You have to press down really hard on the latch point.

Sorry to hear that you don't really like the drive. I think its not bad for the price, although I rather have one of those raid boxes... but those are too expensive.
 
milk242 said:
I've never really noticed the noise when it sits next to my mac pro. I usually don't have a trouble closing the lid, I mostly have trouble opening the lid. You have to press down really hard on the latch point.

Sorry to hear that you don't really like the drive. I think its not bad for the price, although I rather have one of those raid boxes... but those are too expensive.
Click to expand...

I were never able to close the lid. It just pops right back up regardless how I try to close it. Perhaps my unit is defect.

Did you check what the model number / name is for the internal drives on your drive? Mine are the Caviar Green WD10EAVS 8MB 1TB.
 
Milk, did you ever verify if your raid setup worked? I'm looking to do the exact same thing in the next couple days also with the wd studio ii.

Any info would be appreciated.
 
watch out for the WD RAID Manager

Hi,

I just lost all of my data to the WD RAID Manager from my new 2TB MyBook Mirror edition. When I got it home, I plugged it in to format it from the default RAID 1 to RAID 0 and HFS+ (you only get the choice of FAT or HFS), however the software went ahead and formatted ALL attached drives! I had a 750GB CoolerMaster 3.5" USB drive attached and also a 500GB Mini G2 attached by FW400. They where about 80 - 90% full of data, now they are both blank with a HFS+ format and labelled as "MyBook".

All I can say is be careful! The software at no time warns you that anything other than the attached MyBook Mirror drive will be modified.

I've got a ticket open with WD but doubt their customer service will be effective at all.

BTW, the drive is a bit loud, but only during seeks... why wouldn't they set the acoustic mode to silent?

Unhappily yours,

Felixrising
 
i know this post is kinda old but what was then end results?

thinking about getting this drive and want to do three partitions and raid one ... does it work? any problems?

is the drive any good or sould i look for somthing different...?
 
Just to be clear

I'm sorry, I'm just a little bit noobish here. But just so we're clear on this - When I get my Mac Pro, I want to have a RAID 0 with 2 SSDs for a boot/applications drive, then a 1Tb HDD for media and then a 3Tb HDD partitioned into 1Tb and 2Tb. Would I be able to have the 1Tb HDD and the 1Tb partition in a RAID 0 config, then run the 2Tb partition for Time Machine backups of all the data on my system?
 
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