Western Digital Announces 20TB My Book Duo RAID Desktop Storage System

[MacRumors]

Western Digital has announced the 20TB My Book Duo, the company's highest-capacity desktop hard drive ever. The storage system comes with proprietary RAID 0/1 support offering speeds of up to 360MB per second sequential reads, as well as auto management of drive operations to help ensure read/write cycle data integrity.

The My Book Duo also comes with a USB Type-C port with all cables included for universal compatibility (USB 3.1 Gen 1/3.0/2.0), and two additional USB Type-A hub ports to allow for additional accessories, including drones, action cameras, card readers, keyboards, mice, USB drives or phone syncing and charging.

Available in 20TB, 16TB, 12TB, 8TB, 6TB and 4TB capacities, the storage system also comes with password protection and 256-bit AES hardware encryption with WD Security software built in.

The drive is Formatted NTFS for out-of-the-box compatibility with Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8.0 or Windows 7, and therefore requires reformatting to work on OS X and macOS.

The My Book Duo includes a three-year limited warranty and is available now from wd.com and at select retailers and distributors, retailing at $799.99 (20TB), $599.99 (16TB), $419.99 (12TB), $329.99 (8TB), $289.99 (6TB) and $259.99 (4TB).

Article Link: Western Digital Announces 20TB My Book Duo RAID Desktop Storage System

 

[profets]

I hadn’t paid attention to HDDs for the past few years. Didn’t realize we’ve hit 10TB drives and are going to see 16TB next year.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

No GB LAN, No TB3 = Not a viable shared access storage solution for most applications.

 

[robertosh]

I Don't see the point of this things. Too bad for a enterprise use and too much for a home use.

 

[stukdog]

It’s nice to see the disks are replaceable.

This would be ideal for an inexpensive hardware backup of material I keep on a more enterprise system I use everyday.

Good job WD. Nice option.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

I Don't see the point of this things. Too bad for a enterprise use and too much for a home use.

Plenty of home use. Great system that could back-up my existing 20 TB RAID 5 array.

 

[Marx55]

Bring SSD. Once you try it, you do not want mechanical rotational disks, even for free!

 

[bartvk]

No GB LAN, No TB3 = Not a viable shared access storage solution for most applicaitons.

The fact that GB LAN wasn't included, simply means it's a directly attached storage. That's a choice and it's fine by me. It makes some things simpler: BackBlaze would include this device when backing up.

What I do find remarkable, is that it's definitely meant for slow spinning drives: it's got USB 3.1 gen 1, not 2. So it's limited to 5 Gbit/s, instead of 10 Gbit/s.

Plus, it looks like it doesn't supply power to your laptop when you connect a MacBook to the My Book Duo. That's a shame.

 

[Avieshek]

PCIe 5.0 is the future.

 

[Corrode]

More and more devices shipping with USB-C. Apple's decision to drop the USB-A connector continues to be affirmed as the right choice.

 

[gian8989]

I suggest you to stay away from wd hdd 6tb+. They are so noisy that you would think of throwing them against the wall.
I have a 8tb my book that i had to move away from my mac and put on a soft surface to reduce the noise.

It’s nice to see the disks are replaceable.

This would be ideal for an inexpensive hardware backup of material I keep on a more enterprise system I use everyday.

Good job WD. Nice option.

No. They have hardware encryption so you can't take them out and use them elsewhere without format.

My Book pro can be used without problem.

 

[MacFan23]

I Don't see the point of this things. Too bad for a enterprise use and too much for a home use.

Prosumers?

Amateurs can easily rack up TBs of 4K video these days.

 

[cloughenough]

Why no thunderbolt ?!

 

[reallynotnick]

If this was $500 (or less) I would be all over it. (8TB drives regularly go for $160, so I think $500 is a fair price for 20TB)

I suggest you to stay away from wd hdd 6tb+. They are so noisy that you would think of throwing them against the wall.
I have a 8tb my book that i had to move away from my mac and put on a soft surface to reduce the noise.

I have 2 of the 8TB WD drives and they are infinitely quieter than my 8TB Seagate drive. Just streaming a movie off it from across the room from me with the fridge running and AC going and I STILL want to chuck that thing against the wall.

 

[KanosWRX]

Bring SSD. Once you try it, you do not want mechanical rotational disks, even for free!

This is rather short sighted, HHD is so much cheaper. Show me a 8TB SSD for $230 bucks. It's easier just to build a good Raid (preferably RaidZ) solution and if a disk goes bad pop it out and pop in a new one. Sure if all you need is 1-2 TB of storage SSD is fine if you direct attach the storage but most people will be good with a good NAS for backing up and doing work off of.

 

[profets]

Bring SSD. Once you try it, you do not want mechanical rotational disks, even for free!

While I absolutely love SSDs and replace traditional HDDs with SSDs wherever I can, it’s not always feasible in large storage devices.

And if HDDs in a NAS or other storage solution are more than sufficient for the performance needed, and if you have the device tucked away / out of sight and not audible, I don’t think it’s that big a deal.

 

[alphaod]

I've been running 20TB for years now granted I've been using 2TB drives in RAID 6.

Honestly I might still retain my system. It's not as fast, but sure as hell is easy to maintain. If two drives go bad, I can just swap them. Granted when I started those 2TB drives were really top of the line, and how they're cheap!

That said all my new storage is SSD only. There is just no comparison in speed and portability of solid state storage.

 

[WilliamG]

I suggest you to stay away from wd hdd 6tb+. They are so noisy that you would think of throwing them against the wall.
I have a 8tb my book that i had to move away from my mac and put on a soft surface to reduce the noise.


No. They have hardware encryption so you can't take them out and use them elsewhere without format.

My Book pro can be used without problem.

I have quite a few Western Digital RED 8TB drives (latest model with 256MB cache). They are so quiet it’s unbelievable. I’m pretty sure there’s no quieter 3.5” disk of this size on the market.

 

[Adrian Andrews]

Only USB 3.1 Gen 1, not good enough Gen 2 has been around for long enough and should be used if they're not going to support Thunderbolt.

 

[gian8989]

I have quite a few Western Digital RED 8TB drives (latest model with 256MB cache). They are so quiet it’s unbelievable. I’m pretty sure there’s no quieter 3.5” disk of this size on the market.

7200 or 5400? The elio enclosure model?

 

[guzhogi]

I hadn’t paid attention to HDDs for the past few years. Didn’t realize we’ve hit 10TB drives and are going to see 16TB next year.

Same here. Kind of crazy.

This is rather short sighted, HHD is so much cheaper. Show me a 8TB SSD for $230 bucks. It's easier just to build a good Raid (preferably RaidZ) solution and if a disk goes bad pop it out and pop in a new one. Sure if all you need is 1-2 TB of storage SSD is fine if you direct attach the storage but most people will be good with a good NAS for backing up and doing work off of.

I guess it depends on whether you need speed or space.

 

[nrose101]

If this was $500 (or less) I would be all over it. (8TB drives regularly go for $160, so I think $500 is a fair price for 20TB)

I have 2 of the 8TB WD drives and they are infinitely quieter than my 8TB Seagate drive. Just streaming a movie off it from across the room from me with the fridge running and AC going and I STILL want to chuck that thing against the wall.

Would never buy a segate again. Everyone I have had dies in less than a year. I don't get how they are still in business.

 

[jblagden]

"proprietary RAID 0/1 support"
Isn't that the same as setting up four drives with RAID 0 and then putting all four of them in RAID 1 so one set of drives will mirror the other and both sets will be striped?

 

[manu chao]

Only USB 3.1 Gen 1, not good enough Gen 2 has been around for long enough and should be used if they're not going to support Thunderbolt.

With 'only' two HDDs, 5 Gbit/s is fully sufficient.

 

[TMRJIJ]

More and more devices shipping with USB-C. Apple's decision to drop the USB-A connector continues to be affirmed as the right choice.

Now if we could just get Apple to do that with their iOS devices, perhaps that will push the standard much more.