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Author Topic: Western Digital My Book  (Read 33822 times)

DarkPenguin

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Western Digital My Book
« on: April 24, 2008, 01:34:55 pm »

Looking at a 2TB  Western Digital My Book to toss on my machine.  Probably a firewire or usb version.

Anyone have any opinions?
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Jay Kaplan

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2008, 04:40:01 pm »

No direct experience, but all of the big box stores seem to have them on sale at least once a month.

You have to cross check prices both before and after the "rebates".

Jay
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JDClements

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2008, 06:19:08 pm »

I have a 500gig "Premium" Mybook. Sometimes it thinks it is a dryer and just starts spinning, and spinning, and...

I know nothing is accessing the drive, but the blue light is going round and round and the platter is spinning. I've caught it doing this overnight and the case was HOT. The only way to stop it is to shut the computer down.

I don't know what that is about, but luckily it doesn't happen often. Otherwise, it is quiet and problem-free.
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David Anderson

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2008, 06:58:29 pm »

I have a 1TB and a 750 gig Mybook and (I'm no geek) they seem to work fine, but they take almost 60 seconds to mount..
(USB)

They are cheap.  
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DarkPenguin

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2008, 07:49:15 pm »

Quote
I have a 500gig "Premium" Mybook. Sometimes it thinks it is a dryer and just starts spinning, and spinning, and...

I know nothing is accessing the drive, but the blue light is going round and round and the platter is spinning. I've caught it doing this overnight and the case was HOT. The only way to stop it is to shut the computer down.

I don't know what that is about, but luckily it doesn't happen often. Otherwise, it is quiet and problem-free.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191692\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Virus scan or scheduled maintenance?
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DarkPenguin

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2008, 07:52:47 pm »

Quote
I have a 1TB and a 750 gig Mybook and (I'm no geek) they seem to work fine, but they take almost 60 seconds to mount..
(USB)

They are cheap. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191705\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

A 2TB 2 disk model can be had for something like $440.  Would be nice to get rid of the sea of usb disks I have laying around.
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JDClements

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2008, 09:02:23 pm »

Quote
Virus scan or scheduled maintenance?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191720\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

No. I've actually shut everything down when it happened, including processes, and the drive kept on spinning. There was no reason for it that I could see.

This problem occurred something like 6 times over a two year period, so it was rare.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2008, 09:03:18 pm by JDClements »
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Paul Sumi

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« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2008, 11:59:20 pm »

I've got one (300 GB), which I use to back up photo work files.

Seems to work okay but is SLOW (USB2).  One thing I don't care for is that you have to install its software to get full functionality.

Going forward I am putting SATA drives in fan-ventilated enclosures for my off-computer backups.

Paul
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DarkPenguin

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2008, 11:46:15 am »

Quote
No. I've actually shut everything down when it happened, including processes, and the drive kept on spinning. There was no reason for it that I could see.

This problem occurred something like 6 times over a two year period, so it was rare.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191740\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I wonder if they automagically do raid or disk maintenance...
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Gordon Buck

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2008, 01:19:54 pm »

I got a 1TB WD My Book for $215 two weeks ago.  Seems to work.
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Gordon
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dalethorn

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2008, 07:42:33 pm »

When my Toshiba laptop is on and has no activity for 10 minutes, the system defrag utility starts automatically and works until it's done or I interrupt it. You could check Task Manager processes to see what's checking the external drive.
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JDClements

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2008, 08:18:25 pm »

Quote
When my Toshiba laptop is on and has no activity for 10 minutes, the system defrag utility starts automatically and works until it's done or I interrupt it. You could check Task Manager processes to see what's checking the external drive.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192055\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I use Magical Defrag 2, but am sure it was not running. I checked the running processes, and it wasn't there. This is probably an anomaly with my system.
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jjj

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #12 on: April 27, 2008, 06:47:19 pm »

Quote
Looking at a 2TB  Western Digital My Book to toss on my machine.  Probably a firewire or usb version.

Anyone have any opinions?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191643\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
My first thought is that it's 2 drives made into one big drive. Not good, twice the chance of losing your data.




Quote
Seems to work okay but is SLOW (USB2).  One thing I don't care for is that you have to install its software to get full functionality.
I simply plugged mine in and they worked. Maybe you are used one of those complex, fiddly Apple machines!    
Not yet tried my My Books with my Mac, to see if there is an issue.

Quote
Going forward I am putting SATA drives in fan-ventilated enclosures for my off-computer backups.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191979\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'm trying that at present. My first attempt with a 4 bay Icybox eSata drive was a complete failure, very noisy and wouldn't even recognize drives. Sent back.
 
Second attempt is with 4 separate enclosures with the Highpoint Raid card and no joy. It recognised the first one I tested and then refused to initialize the next 3 even though it knows they are there. Grr!  Not only that the card had no Mac software on disc, only Windows, which is a bit crap, so without an internet connection, you'd be stuffed.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2008, 06:48:18 pm by jjj »
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DarkPenguin

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #13 on: April 27, 2008, 08:08:52 pm »

Quote
My first thought is that it's 2 drives made into one big drive. Not good, twice the chance of losing your data.

It is but one can run it in raid 1 mode.  So it ends up as 1TB.  Provided it doesn't mistake which drive went bad it would give me two copies.
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Jonathan Wienke

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #14 on: April 27, 2008, 09:12:00 pm »

Quote
I've got one (300 GB), which I use to back up photo work files.

Seems to work okay but is SLOW (USB2).

Apple seems to have an issue with USB2 support. I have a Sony laptop and a Macbook, and the Macbook takes about twice as long to copy files from a thumb drive as the Sony.
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allan67

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #15 on: April 28, 2008, 08:47:31 am »

I have 2 MyBook 500G drives. One drive is 1 year old and the other about 6 months. Both on e-SATA. No problems at all.
Fast access, respond very well to energy management commands from system (Windos XP).

Allan
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DarkPenguin

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #16 on: May 03, 2008, 11:02:31 am »

One system restore later and the godforsaken WD software is off of my PC.  This is good as it means that I can use my PC again.

Here's a tip.  Don't install the WD software.

I don't think I needed to install it.  I'm pretty sure the Mybook World Edition works fine without it.  You just can't get to it from anywhere on the planet.

So far it is pretty slow but considering where it is on the network I'm a little surprised it works at all.  Going to move it to gig e switch along with my main PC.
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JDClements

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #17 on: June 30, 2008, 05:10:54 pm »

Well, my 500 gig My Book Premium just crapped out on me. That's when I discovered that my online daily back wasn't working properly, even though it happily reported it was.

First, I tried switching from USB to Firewire, and it worked! But not for long, and I couldn't get the last 3 weeks worth of files off.

Next, I tore the My Book to pieces (literally) to get at the hard drive inside, and installed it in a standard $30 enclosure. Once I hooked that up, I was able to get a bunch more files off before the I/O errors started up again. Eventually, I was reduced to turning it on, copy a single file, turning it off, turning it on and waiting for several minutes, copying another single file... I got all but 9 files back.

Someone tried to tell me that a unit like a My Book (or other dedicated external drive) would be faster than sticking a standard drive inside a standard enclosure. Not sure why that would be so, but I won't be buying any more "disposable" external drives like the My Book.
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ericisaac

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #18 on: July 20, 2008, 09:09:30 pm »

I had a very bad experience with a WD MyBook, which I blogged about here: http://realworldworkflow.com/blog/?p=171
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canmiya

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Western Digital My Book
« Reply #19 on: July 21, 2008, 10:14:43 am »

Quote
I have a 500gig "Premium" Mybook. Sometimes it thinks it is a dryer and just starts spinning, and spinning, and...

I know nothing is accessing the drive, but the blue light is going round and round and the platter is spinning. I've caught it doing this overnight and the case was HOT. The only way to stop it is to shut the computer down.

I don't know what that is about, but luckily it doesn't happen often. Otherwise, it is quiet and problem-free.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191692\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

same experience.....and i will not buy another one as thi si a royal pain in the --- when you want to shut it off or safely remove hardware and find that you can't do either.
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