WD MyBook Studio II Hard drive

[fungke]

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=410
wondering if anyone has experience with this unit. I was totally ready to buy it but received some conflicting news in regards to replacing it's drives.

My question is whether or not I am able to buy the 1TB version (2x500GB) and buy 2 1TB drives and pop them in and it work the same way. Anyone try this yet?

I am drawn to this particular solution because it offers no brainer raid solution and the prospect of being able to swap drives in. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Benchmob31]

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=410
wondering if anyone has experience with this unit. I was totally ready to buy it but received some conflicting news in regards to replacing it's drives.

My question is whether or not I am able to buy the 1TB version (2x500GB) and buy 2 1TB drives and pop them in and it work the same way. Anyone try this yet?

I am drawn to this particular solution because it offers no brainer raid solution and the prospect of being able to swap drives in. Any thoughts or suggestions?

The website says that you would only be able to do 1TB max for the one you like. I purchased the 2 TB version last night and am awaiting it to ship. I think its still so new that no one has done this yet. I did see somewhere though you can only use WD Green HDD in it. Now if that is WD saying that to trick you into only buying their HDD im unsure.

 

[fungke]

thanks for your response.
to my understanding, you can only use WD Green series HD's...which I don't mind...just wondering about HD capacity restriction. I would not even know what would stop it from running correctly.

 

[Benchmob31]

My question is whether or not I am able to buy the 1TB version (2x500GB) and buy 2 1TB drives and pop them in and it work the same way. Anyone try this yet?

I called WD today and asked the tech there and to answer your question, YES You can!!! He said as long as they match each other in size and performance you can put what ever size HDD you want.

I also asked him if it was true that you have to use the WD Green HDD. He said you can use whatever you want as long as they match.

It sounds like its really a great piece of hardware. I ordered mine online last night. I would have liked to have gotten the Drobo but the WD is $200 less and comes with 2TB for the one i ordered.

I will post a review on youtube as soon as I get and put the link up.

 

[ECJ]

Just a FYI. I have the previous version of this enclosure, and I just placed 2x 2TB Western Digital Green drives in RAID 1. It works great. It's great having the option to replace the drives, if they fail or larger sizes become available. With the green WD drives the unit is running a lot cooler.

 

[Benchmob31]

Just a FYI. I have the previous version of this enclosure, and I just placed 2x 2TB Western Digital Green drives in RAID 1. It works great. It's great having the option to replace the drives, if they fail or larger sizes become available. With the green WD drives the unit is running a lot cooler.

Thats great! What size hdd did you have in it before?

 

[Donar]

One thing you should keep in mind that the drives you place in it do not draw more power than it is stated on the power brick. And that 7200 rpm drives can go hot.

I ordered the 4 TB version some days ago, replacing a 2 TB device - so how do i open up the enclosure?

 

[dacreativeguy]

I've had the 2TB version for a few months and use it as my backup drive. Works great, is really quiet, and is fast with FW 800. Nice to know that I can replace the drives if they ever fail.

 

[sinoue]

Tried swapping in 3TB drives on My Studio II and it didn't work

I know this is a dormant thread, but I thought I'd update it for anyone wanting to know if you can successfully upgrade the 4TB (2X2TB WD) drives in the Western Digital WD My Studio II external drive.

Tried putting in 2 identical 3TB Hitachi drives and got the error message WU2Q10152492 has a drive rejection problem. Please replace all unsupported drives with supported drives."

I did update the firmware, but it doesn't appear that you can use the new 3TB drives in the My Studio II drives, or at least not a different vendors.

Oh well, putting the old drives back in.

 

[simonsi]

Just to further update this old thread, I have just put 2x WD Blue 3TB drives in to replace the original WD Green Caviar 1TB drives, the unit came straight up and recognised the full 6TB ready for managing into a RAID if required with WD Drive Manager.

No problems other than due to age one of the plastic tags broke of the outcoming Green drive as it was removed...

 

[mikedrinks]

I just updated with two Western Digital Blue 4TB 5400 RPM Drives (replacing Green) and they work fine via all interfaces including SATA. $129 each plus tax at MicroCenter (same as Amazon). Again, you first need to setup the drive as RAID 0 (8TB) or RAID 1 (4TB Mirrored) via USB. I'm getting great throughput via eSATA. Be careful updating/flashing these units with the latest firmware from WD, you may permanently lose SATA connectivity. Or it may be the drives themselves, possibly some greens won't connect via SATA, a pair of 2TB WD20EARX refuse to do so, no matter how I configure. The WD Blues work fine in the same housing. I imagine you could also put in two 6TB's for going rate of $209 each.