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

Western digital mybook 500gb external?

Z

zipper1022

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 13, 2006
234
1
Long Island, NY/ Boston, MA
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I don't have first hand experience, but tons of Mac users here on MR have that HD and are very happy with it. You can't really go wrong with that brand.

Hope this helps.

Kevin.
 
Western Digital makes great drives and for a great price. However, the only enclosures I'll buy are those from www.macsales.com Either the classic Mercury Elite (the clear plastic one) or the Mercury Elite AL (aluminum) are the best enclosures I've ever dealt with. Sleek, slim, and cool.
 
I've had one of those (black casing) since the beginning of August and haven't had any problems (it cost me considerably more than $280 back then, though. HD prices have dropped a lot recently). Works well with the Mac, but the fan is a bit loud. But it does sleep when not in use and wakes quickly when needed.
 
I own 3 of those at 329 each. I am very happy with them that I am getting rid of my other brand enclosures. I do FW800 backups from drive to drive and I am amazed of the speed compared to FW400. It was more than twice the speed and the drive enclosures didn't get too hot when the backup finished. My only regret was not getting these from the start and buying a Maxtor FW800 enclosure with 500GB. I like the Book concept too.
 
I researched these before I got my Mac Pro. They seem to be a great Hard Drive and a very nice price. I don't think you would go wrong with it.
 
These WD drives look enticing, especially after seeing one in person at the Apple store.
If you aren't using an external drive, is it worth the added cost to have FW800? Just wondering, I would mainly use an external for photos and have a FW800 port on my powerbook.
 
Can I ask why this particular external hdd is popular with Mac users? Is it made specifically for Macs? Can it be interchangebly used between a Windows machine?

schaef2493 said:
I don't have first hand experience, but tons of Mac users here on MR have that HD and are very happy with it. You can't really go wrong with that brand.

Hope this helps.

Kevin.
Click to expand...
 
scan said:
Can I ask why this particular external hdd is popular with Mac users? Is it made specifically for Macs? Can it be interchangebly used between a Windows machine?
Click to expand...

There are companies who don't put a "Macintosh compatible" sticker on their hardware. There are other companies who put a "Macintosh compatible" sticker on their hardware and charge three times as much. And finally there are companies who put the "Macintosh compatible" sticker on their hardware and don't charge more. These companies tend to be quite popular with Mac users.
 
scan said:
Can I ask why this particular external hdd is popular with Mac users? Is it made specifically for Macs? Can it be interchangebly used between a Windows machine?
Click to expand...

WD MyBook is a popular drive these days because it is availible in FW400 and FW800 versions and is cheap for the amount of storage you get. It's also aesthetically pleasing compared to some of the other boxes out there.

As far as shared compatibility between windows and OSX, the answer is yes: the drive is compatible with both windows and OSX machines simultaneously, out of the box. They are formatted at the factory using a FAT32 file system, which both windows and OSX can read. Unfortunately, the largest FAT32 partition size Windows XP can read is 32gb, so you will be limited to that maximum size if you wish interoperability between both windows and mac. Windows 2000 doesn't have that limitation. If you use XP, you can forget about sharing the drive.
 
I bought 1 of the 320gb usb2 models (green ring) first and loved it.

Then they brought out the premium (dual blue ring) - so we bought 2 x 250gb of those.

All are pretty much silent and work great. Brilliant external hard drive.

I'm now trying to decided whether to get the 500gb white model with firewire 800 for my mac pro....
 
Jon'sLightBulbs said:
Unfortunately, the largest FAT32 partition size Windows XP can read is 32gb, so you will be limited to that maximum size if you wish interoperability between both windows and mac. Windows 2000 doesn't have that limitation. If you use XP, you can forget about sharing the drive.
Click to expand...
false

the largest FAT32 partition size windows XP can partition is 32gb, it can read how ever large you want... i currently have mbp, on windows xp, my fat32 partition of the ext drive is 100gb
 
I got the 250gb Essential Edition Mybook drive a couple months ago and it's great; fast and small, and it turns off automatically when you put your computer to sleep, so you don't have to worry about ejecting the drive. It's a nice feature.
 
I would just like to say that i just bought this drive from newegg and i love it-totally love it-price to ship to San Luis Obispo, CA was around 289 total plu S/H-

the reason that i bought the drive was no other drive had the capacity and FW800 for the price that this drive does-i say FW800 is worth it if you have it because it at least appears that it is faster-
 
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