Backup Solution Western Digital My Book Review
June 19, 2007 by Victoria Stankard
Filed under Backup Solutions
A while ago I wrote a post about Western Digital Hard Drive Recovery that outlined different WD hard disks. I had mentioned the My Book as being one of the best solutions. Now that I have been using them (I bough 2 more) I wanted to give everyone a review.
While DTI doesn’t officially recommend any products, we can tell you our honest opinions. Since my husband Michael and I work from our home we have a lot going on, more than the average household. We have 6 computers on our primary network that also has a Network Attached Storage Device attached to it. We are very paranoid about losing data so we have a few backup plans in place. At first the My Book was being used for just backing up, but since Michael has been getting more involved with music producing he has been using the My Book as a full service drive.
We are both very impressed not only with the speed and capacity (1.5 TB), but also how cool it runs. The My Book Premium Edition 2 has 2 hard drives that can either be mirrored or striped depending on if you want safety or performance. We went for performance since everything is backed up on the NAS. The drive is fantastic in every aspect of what we do. We are using Firewire 800 and have it hooked up to one of our Kubuntu machines and it screams!
If you are looking for a solid external hard drive whether for storage or as backup to avoid hard drive recovery, this is the best we have ever used. As far as technical specs I grabbed the main points off of the WD site. If anyone has any questions please leave a comment.
WD’s My Book™ Premium Edition II dual-drive storage system offers RAID mirroring for extra data protection or RAID striping for extraordinary capacity and performance. Triple-interface and a powerful combination of features and performance make this system the storage solution of choice for creative professionals, workgroups, small offices and anyone looking for extra assurance that their data is safe.
My Book Premium Edition II Features
| Extraordinary capacity - With up to 1.5 TB of storage in an elegant, small footprint design, you have plenty of space to store an entire digital photo library, your HD movie collection and hours and hours of DV video.Extra data protection - For extra data protection, dedicate half the capacity for mirroring and automatically and instantaneously back up data every time you save it.
Extra-fast performance - The lighting-fast combination of FireWire 400/800 and RAID striping yields the speed you need for fast, smooth video editing, an extra-responsive Photoshop scratch disk, rendering complex 3D objects or special effects, and saving huge blocks of data in record time. Easy to set up, easy to use - You’re up and running in a few simple steps. RAID configuration is easy with WD’s intuitive RAID Wizard software User serviceable - Easy access allows you to open the case and replace a drive. No need to send the entire system in for service. Triple interface - Provides flexibility and performance with connections for ultra-fast FireWire 800, as well as FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. WD Backup Software - A simple file-based backup system that’s extremely easy to use. Capacity gauge - See at a glance how much space is available on your storage system. Intelligent drive management features - Automatic power-up, Safe Shutdown™, and LED activity lights make this storage system especially easy to use. Quiet and cool - An efficient convection cooling system and a thermostatically controlled fan keep this unit reliably cool and remarkably quiet. |
Hi
Thanks for the Review
What about the noise? I have a mybook 500GB and it is VERY quite since the disk is quite and there is not fan inside.
I read that this double disk model has a fan inside, is it quite?
Thanks, Ciao
Antonio
Antonio,
Yes it is very quiet. I almost always have music blasting out of my computer so I never noticed how quiet it runs. It also runs very cool. I use it all the time transferring large music files back and forth and it stays pretty cool. We also have a Buffalo NAS device that is over by my wife Victoria’s desk and that thing is pretty loud so we are moving it, I am probably going to get another My Book for her since it so quiet and move the NAS into my office where it is always loud with tunes.
Even though I have had no issues with it, one of our readers Rob, bought a My Book and had problems with it. You can see his comment on Victoria’s Hard Drive Recovery Profile: Western Digital. SO the moral of that story is to back up your backups if that is what you are using it for. They are so inexpensive that it makes sense to buy 2 of them and use one just for backing up. The one thing in common all hard drive have, is that they fail. They all fail, it is just a matter of when.
Regards,
Michael
Hello,
Do you know if the software that comes with the ‘320GB MyBook Premium Edition’ will provide disaster recovery?
Thanks for your time,
Todd
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We have a 500GB My Book that has been nothing but trouble. Two days ago, we attempted to access the HD and received error message that the drive must be formatted. We cannot access the data (200BG) to backup before formatting. Any suggestions?
I have owned a WD MyBook Premium Edition for about 6 months. It runs pretty quiet and cool. It has about 500GB storage and I managed to fill it up with 200 GB of my video and pictures from my overseas trips, my contract work data and University Thesis including recorded interviews.
A week ago while using it I noticed that the folder containing 150BG of data was empty. I immediately looked at all the folders and most of them were empty with a couple of exceptions. Even the ones that were not empty did not allow me to open the files.
I did check and to my surprise the same thing was shown on other machines. All machines are installed with NAV with daily virus signature upgrade and weekly scans. I had absolutely no issues with their hard drives or any other software installed on those machines.
I can still see the drive and directory structure in explorer and the drive is not noisier than before.
I downloaded the check disk utility provided by Wester Digital and ran it.
The first check stopped midway with an error code that does not appear in the list of errorcodes published by Western Digital.
The second type of check ran for 10 minutes and then displayed a “too many errors” message. It took me about 45 minutes to fill out all the extensive information Western Digital support page is asking for as mandatory to submit an inquiry. During that I discovered that the Western Digital utility that shows the type number was producing a different type number from the one printed on the box. After 3 days of waiting I finally got a stock response saying that Wester Digital does not know the explanation for all the error code produced by the Western Digital utility and a bunch of links for data recovery partners of Western Digital. I emailed back saying that is unacceptable for the support not to talk to the developers of the utility and ask for error code explanation. That was a week ago and I got no further response since.
It’s important to note that my WD MyBook Premium Edition was not dropped or hit and it was always disconnected using the appropriate Windows utility. Since then I tried several non-intrusive data recovery utilities and none of them were successful so far in reading any data off the disk.
I guess I’ll have to pay the 1000 $ and ship it to another company.
The drive is convenient to use as long as it works and you might be inclined (because it’s big) to put all kind of data. That leads to a very dangerous situation where all your data can be lost and the only thing you get is “talk to somebody else” from the manufacturers.
Beware.
Good Luck
Klip
D.A.
It really doesn’t matter which external hard drive you buy, they all will fail at one time or another. We don’t recommend one company/drive over another, but we do post info about drives that we use. I have 4 my books, and haven’t had any problems, but that doesn’t make your situation any different than others that have had issues with WD drives. Another visitor wrote that they had sent their drive in for recovery and that company had 3 other my books in for recovery as well. The my book is one of the best selling external drives so it stands to reason that a data recovery company would have a few in at all times, just like they would have in other external drives. They all fail!
The best thing to do is to use an external drive as a back up and only turn it on when backing up. One of the things that the my book does is automatically turn on when a computer is booted. I literally unplug my external drive after use so it won’t start up automatically.
Hi, I would like to know if it is possible to delete single files from the my book, I have the 500 GB essential edition running with a MAC. If file can be removed, can you tell me how?
hi, i bought a 500gb western digital my book esential edition in April 2007 and now its dead!!! i lost over 200GB of information, and i so mad!!!
I had the same problem as Michael had. i bought the 500GB My Book Essential also in April 2007 — and it just died today. I lost 500GB of data…. Hooray My Book >:O
can i get info how to get started . Setting fils up thanks Roland
Never, ever, ever, ever buy a WD external hard drive. I bought a 500 Gb My Book Essential, which had worked flawlessly for 6 months. So when I started to run out of space, I bought a second and transferred a load of the data across to it (about 200Gb or so). Within three weeks, the second one started fritzing out - it wouldn’t be detected, or it would be detected as empty, etc etc, and started making repetitive whirring start up noises. Reasoning that there was some kind of fault, I contacted Western Digital’s “technical support”. They took two weeks to get back to me with anything other than an automated response, and their only advice was to send them the drive for repair. All data would be lost, and if I wanted to recover it first I’d have to contact one of their “recommended third party data recovery agents”, and it would cost me a few hundred dollars.
I did so, and it came back, empty but working, and I haven’t had any problems with it since. Because I am clearly an idiot, I bought a 1Tb My Book Premium II. This worked for perhaps two weeks before dropping out. The system can still see the drive, via Disk Management and via the RAID Disk Manager utility supplied with the drive, but it doesn’t work. The drive does not appear to be partitioned any more, and nothing I can do will make it repartition itself. I again contacted WD to ask for advice, but their tech support is atrocious; it’s now two weeks since I initially emailed them, and still no response.
Because I have changed my email address at some point over the last 12 months, I am also unable to reconcile the two accounts I have with them, because I have to confirm the change in email address with the old account, which does not work any more, so any access to tech support for the old drives is impossible (I tried to re-register them but it refused as it recognised the serial numbers)
Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever buy a Western Digital drive. Ever.
Any other company’s product has to be better than this and has to treat their customers with more respect. Yes they’re cheap, but as I have learned, you buy cheap, you get cheap.
Hi there,
I have multiple MyBook World discs version 1 (without fan and 1 harddisk) and version 2 (with fan and two harddisks)
MyBook World Version2:
The MyBook World version 2 is NOT quiet at all, when using it in your living room it will drive u mad!
The Drive is verry stable and really fast.
I am really glad i found this solution.
I own a 1,5TB and a 2.0TB 2disk version!
MyBook World Version 1:
This device has it limits!!!
If You are using it for a long time (lets say an houre) and really write/read allot in that hour IT WILL CRASH!!!
Because it has no fan it will crash becaus it will heat up!!
I found a solution for this, simply cool it with a fan on top of the device (let the fan get the hot air out the device)
Since i am using a fan on the device it doenst crash anymore!
Using a 500GB and a 750GB version of this device, both do crash when not cooled with a fan on top of it….
Overal its a good thing for your documents but when using it for something more u really need to use an external fan on it!!
When it crashes it will become accessible and u need to disconnect the power and wait for it to cool down!
The drives run on linux software wich is customizable to your need.
I installed a FTP server and download software on it, so i can acces it through the net without software and it can download using torrents without having my computer turned on!
If u want this search the net and u will find allot of solutions on how to do this, linux knowledge is required for this!
Is there a good free backup application for the WD 500 Gb My Book Essential?
The driver is coming with Memeo Autobackup (non-free SW).
I bought a MyBook 500 GB ten days ago. It’s dead. No noise, no power, no nothing. Any suggestions? Just died while it was connected to my Mac.
This thing is a piece of crap! Mine just died randomly after like six months and it won’t start up again. I’ve lost over 2,000 songs from iTunes and a bunch of video files. Now its just sitting dead on my desk and it smells like a permanent marker. I’m getting so frustrated with it!
Hey!
I’ve bought mine one week ago and I’me very very happy!
just found it very cheap at westernmybook.com!
cheers
Bad product, gives me lots of hard time!
I use it as external HD to a laptop with XP. It operates only through USB (disconnects Intermitently on Firewire connection).
Heats up a lot (had to take off the cover) and then shuts down. Sometimes its smart auto shutdown does not shut it down after I shut down my laptop. What can I say ?
Interestingly enough, I have the WD 250GB that works flawless.
From surfing the web, it seems to me the whole “MyBook” product line is f**ked up.
As a data recovery company we see a lot of failed hard drives. To be honest there are as many Seagates and other types of external drives that fail as do the My Book. I have had 4 My Books without any problems, but I actually unplug the firewire when I am done transferring files or doing a backup since the drive gets real hot if left on 24-7. All hard drives fail that is a fact! The best thing to do with external hard drives is to use them, then unplug them so they aren’t running all the time.
Hi, I am Tommy from Australia. I bought Western Digital My Book 500GB from a shop in Melbourne. My hard disk recently give me one major problem.
My computer can detect the external hard disk but when I try to access the hard disk, it kept prompting me to format the drive. I refuse to format as I have about 450GB worth of data in the hard drive.
I try the Western digital website and try to download the backup software, but it requires my serial key, which can only be obtained from Dixom shop in UK.
With this problem on hand, it would be great if someone can advice me on how to solve this issue. I can be reached via chillitong@yahoo.com
Thank you for everyone’s help in advance.
Cheers
I was running a backup to my WD 500G drive and left for an hour to comeback and find that the spinning wheel of death had appeared on my MAC and the system had been frozen for about an hour or more while the drive was trying to copy. My two WD 500G drives are next to each other and usually run really cool, but my AC was off and it was above 80 degrees in my office. When I returned I found that the one drive was really warm (almost hot and it was getting the other drive warm as well. I restarted my system backed up my files, let them cool and have been running them today with no problem. I have also run disk utility on them just to make sure. There appears to be no sustained damage to any aspect of the drive(s) from the heat and they are running as cool as ever today. Should I be concerned or just let it go?
I look forward to a response,
Joseph Carringer
info@didgetherapy.com
Joseph,
You should be very concerned! Once a drive starts acting up it is likely that it will fail sooner rather than later. Heat is the single most common reason for hard drive failures, especially in external hard drives. I would treat that hard drive with kid gloves and maybe look to replace it with a better backup type of system. I personally use a Buffalo Link Station NAS that I attach to my network and that has a RAID 1 in it, so the drives are mirrored. LaCie also makes a really good RAID 1 NAS as well as a RAID 1 Firewire drive. I would use that for data transfer and then use the My Books to backup that device and turn them off when the backup is complete. Once I backup files, I unplug the Firewire cable so the My Book doesn’t automatically start. I was able to get the Link Station for under $300 and love it. Since I am editing video and audio files for DTI’s marketing, I need a lot of space as well as quick read time.
Thank you Michael,
I also feel your concern and appreciate quick feed back. As of this moment the drive has been running again for over 7 hours and is still very cool. I was under the impression that it was more the fault of my machine crashing during a write function, then the fault of the drive. If it continues to operate cool and smoothly though and the diagnostics check out is it possible that it did not get damaged from the heat?
My goal is to upgrade all my drives to the LaCie firewire drives over the next year. I literally just bought these WD less than 6 months ago and had some disappointment with them in functionality. FYI: I would not buy a WD external drive again for a MAC. Many of the drives will not produce a bootable back-up when using Super Duper on a Power PC based MAC this comes with no explanation or warning from the manufacturer.
On the positive note I do have an 80G WD USB2 drive that I have beat the crap out of for almost 4 years, roasted it in an un-air conditioned workspace most of that time and it still checks out in TechTool and runs great. I only use this now as a working storage drive for graphic tools that are backed up on disk (CD or DVD).
I’ll run Tech Tool on the both 500G to make sure they check out and will baby them for a bit:) To set your mind at ease I redundantly back my system up 2-3 times depending on the files. The drive in question has a clone that it backed up daily!!
Thanks again,
Joseph
Joseph,
You are correct that a premature stoppage of the read-write heads can damage a hard drive because there is always the chance that the head could impact on the platter making a sector unreadable (or unwritable). That causes corruption of data and subsequent data loss. Heat however is an absolute killer. The larger the capacity and higher read write speeds cause natural inherent heat to the unit. We like the Seagate line of external hard drives because they not only use the same type of material that you would see in a high capacity lighting dimmer, but also have multiple cooling fans. The cooler your stuff runs the better.
I hear you on the 80gb drive that is 4 years old. I have a 3 year old Dell laptop that has a 60gb Fujitsu drive in it. This laptop has been beaten up, dropped, left on the roof of my car in the sun (I live in Florida and my roof is black) and for the last 3 months has been used by both of my 10 year old kids. Anyway this laptop has never had a problem and runs smooth as silk.
A couple of months ago I purchased a brand new Dell with all the bells and whistles and it came with a 250gb Fujitsu laptop hard drive. Within 2 weeks the hard drive crashed! So even though heat is the cause for 70% of the hard drive failures we see, hard drives are destined to fail. My wife wrote a great article about that called Hard Drives A Destiny Of Failure that talks more about it. The thing is for every horror story about hard drives failing after a week, there is another story like yours where hard drives last forever. There is no telling which one any person is going to get when they buy a computer, a good drive or a bad drive!
Thanks for the info for our Mac users. While we can recover data off of any platform, we are more of an open source shop and don’t have a lot of good content to support Mac users. I don’t even know what Tech Tool is, but then again I am the webmaster, SEO and marketing guy, not a tech or engineer.
I also agree with you the WD (and all of the other manufacturers) are week in the support area and they could care less about your data, even though the product you are buying is meant to be a backup device!
Hi do you know how to resotre what you have saved on your back up drive if you get a new computer? I previously had an ibook and now have an imac. When I backed up my info on the drive I could look it up and see that it was there, but now when I try to restore on this computer I can not find any of it. Help… please
Stephanie
Stephanie,
I just sent this to Jacqui Best our tech support wiz and she will be posting a solution very soon. You can always reach tech support by calling 727-345-9665 and ask for software support
Buy a Maxtor. I had my WD My Book Essential 500gb 11 mos. and it just died. I’ve had my Maxtor a year and a half. Knock on wood, no problems, but I had it backed up to the MyBook so I am praying I get what’s in it backed up to a new EHD soon.
I purchased the Western Digital hard drive My Book back-up system. I’ve just had my hard drive crash and this back-up saved me. It was so easy to reinstall all of my files. LOVE IT! However, I need to re-install the software for backing up files once again. How do I go about that?
Kathy,
The software should be on the hard drive itself and be auto discovered the first time you plug it in. Since it sounds like you already have plugged it in what you have to do is open the MyBook in Windowd Explorer and then open the folder:
WD_Windows_Tools
WIthin that folder is the setup.exe that will re-install the backup software
I’ve had a WD MyBook Essential Edition for about 1 week, and it just told me today that it needs formatting. I had about 300GB of info that I’d just spent hours and hours backing up and sorting, only to have this drive take a crap on me and require formatting within one week. NOT RECOMMENDED! I guess I’ll go back to Maxtor, never seem to have a problem with them.
Ok I have the WD 500 home edition. now what? When I plugged it in my drive was backed up. After a three day download my drive called it quits. I have a new drive up and running. Know how do I recover folders from mybook? I cannot find a users manual on mybook.
happy jack -
You should just have to plug in your mybook and run the setup.exe file. To do that just open the MyBook in Windows Explorer and then open the folder:
WD_Windows_Tools
WIthin that folder is the setup.exe that will re-install the backup software. At that point you should be able to restore your files.
Be careful with this box!
My mate just got one and I spent a while fixing it. He had problems putting stuff on it, would copy files ok but not folders.
A power reset (pulling the power cable) lost all data!
The fix is quite simple but should not be needed out of the box
So if you get one, copy some data to it, pull the power and see if the data is there once booted up.
If not check this out: http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/troubleshooting