Western Digital unveils slimmer, sleeker My Book lineup

Just months ago, we saw Western Digital offer up a 2TB version of its My Book dual-drive line, and now the firm is introducing a "smaller, sleeker" family for those obsessed with style. Among the newcomers are the slimmer My Book Home Edition, My Book Office Edition, and My Book Essential Edition 2.0, all of which will be available in sizes ranging from 320GB to 1TB. Of note, you'll still find the same USB 2.0 connectivity (plus FireWire 400 and eSATA on the Home Edition), bundled backup features, and SmartPower functionality that automatically powers the drive on and off with the attached PC / Mac. The recently made-over trio is available now for $129.99 to $379.99 depending on model and capacity, and you can take a look at the rest of the gang after the break.

[Rob @ Sep 20th 2007 9:15AM]

Shiny ... Me wants shiny.

[Michael Mendoza @ Sep 20th 2007 9:18AM]

I bought a 500GB about 5 months to attach to my home network to stream HD movies and keep all my music library on. It's perfect and I absolutely love it! I've almost filled it up so I'm going to have to pick up one of these!

[Me @ Sep 20th 2007 9:19AM]

Where's Firewire 800?

[Chekote @ Sep 20th 2007 9:39AM]

Cowering in the corner under the impending shadow of USB3.0

[mannequin @ Sep 20th 2007 9:33AM]

old My Books die with the infamous "click noise" error within 1-5 months of use.

[Zadillo @ Sep 20th 2007 9:49AM]

Yeah, I have to admit, I'm reluctant to get another MyBook. I had a 500GB one that worked well, but it also died out (although after about a year of use); wasn't a click noise issue, but it started saying that certain files couldn't be read, and eventually it got to the point where Windows would hang as long it was trying to open the drive.

[Blackster @ Sep 20th 2007 10:28AM]

well i have a rather old version of the 250gb and it runs flawlessly

[Big Donny @ Sep 20th 2007 10:57AM]

Yep, I've had one of my three "My Books" get the click of death and, just last week, my tiny WD USB 2.0 portable 160gig just got the click of death, too. No more Western Digital Drives for me, thanks very much... I've learned my lesson. The USB drive clicks and clicks, but i can access the directory structure... just cant do anything with the files on the drive (no copying or moving them works at all).

[Tim Brown @ Sep 20th 2007 11:10AM]

This is usually die to the MBR getting corrupted. I had two drives fail on me over the weekend with the click of death. Try r-studio to get your data back. It ignores the MBR and goes straight for the data.

[akumal @ Sep 20th 2007 12:13PM]

just this morning the second i had died on me. no more WD for me either.

[Chroma @ Sep 20th 2007 9:36AM]

I have the 320G flavor and mostly use it for video storage, and have to say that I have no complaints at all, I really enjoy using it. The firewire is fast enough that I can keep my videos on the drive without having to transfer it to my computer for editing.

[fd @ Sep 20th 2007 9:38AM]

At least they did away with the horribly confusing circle.

Curious if they'll update their horribly slow my wook world models. (even though they have a gigabit port are only capable of 5mb/s ... come with some horrible software bundle ... etc).

[Akshat @ Sep 20th 2007 9:47AM]

'horribly confusing circle'? What about the circle confused you?

[Blackster @ Sep 20th 2007 9:51AM]

yeah know that confusing circle was a actually a button!

[Akshat @ Sep 20th 2007 9:58AM]

Whaaaaaa? I have a 160GB My Book! I dinno it was a button ... what does it do?

[fd @ Sep 20th 2007 12:33PM]

I'm fully aware that one is the power, which will flash in a circle, that the inner one had 5 or 6 sections that would indicate free space. Light from those would bleed through to other sections, so you never really knew. Also I'd prefered the free space lit up, rather than the other way around. Anyhow, it all seemed very gimmicky. I'll take a normal linear (horizontal or vertical) gauge any day which has 10 sections or so.

Also the unit ran very hot. 24/7 not spinning down with fan running. Could not power it down.

People who've had the world editions can write a whole article about what's wrong with them. Just look for reviews on common online retailers that offer customer reviews.

[FreshJulius @ Sep 20th 2007 10:01AM]

It had no end... no beginning!!?!?!?!

[netposer @ Sep 20th 2007 10:02AM]

I have 2 500GB USB/Firewire here in my office. Had them for almost a year and no problems at all...except they came formatted as FAT32. Did not realize that until larger (2GB+) files failed to copy. WTF? Kept getting errors during the copy process that the disk was full. Took a bit to figure out they cam pre-formatted..so I had to format each NTFS--LOL.

[joe23521 @ Sep 20th 2007 10:04AM]

Avoid these "My Book" drives. I have personally been burned by one, which clicked to death after only a few weeks of usage, losing tens of GB's worth of data in the process. According to online forums, a lot of unfortunate users suffered the same fate. I don't think I can bring myself to buy anything from WD again.

[lothar @ Sep 20th 2007 10:52AM]

Thats the problem with any of these units regardless of who makes them a harddrive can fail they're not perfect devices. Regarding you hear lots of complaints in the forums well duh of course do you think think the tens of thousands of people go on to the forums to say "its working"? The only time anyone visits a hardware/software forum is when they're running into problems. I worked phone support for Modem company and in the 5 years I worked there I never heard of anyone calling it to say its working, thanks.

The problem that many people do (including myself) is use these devices as a primary storage device rather than an archive unit. If your going to put important data on any storage device you should have a backup of it, my photos are backed up on DVD as well as on my external drive all my mp3s and pron are not backed up.

[Johnny @ Sep 21st 2007 6:35AM]

Just got the 'click of death' a couple nights ago. Lost about 400gb of data... WD and their pretty drives can suck it!

[Gregg @ Sep 20th 2007 10:06AM]

Another new revision and they still haven't figured out to put a fan in it yet to keep the drive(s) cool? Let's try to be realistic here. Any why are we still paying top dollar for these when you can build your own for lets say 50% percent less?

http://www.apricorn.com/products.php?cat_id=55

[Blackster @ Sep 20th 2007 10:27AM]

some prefer a good design too you know.
that linked stuff is fugly ;)

[Me @ Sep 20th 2007 11:56AM]

1. No Firewire 800 (It says Firewire, but doesn't mention 800 so it's probably just 400)
2. Fan = Noise, no thanks
3. I normally don't care, but those are ugly drives.

[Dennis @ Sep 20th 2007 10:42AM]

fudge! i just bought the old 1TB MyBook last week... and now this comes out! i hope my return policy is still valid

[Yes @ Sep 20th 2007 10:52AM]

Its all going Black. Just so everyone knows. Black is in. Sexy glossy rich black kit for us all. Throw out you retro white things. Apple listen up. Start making black cables too. Forget silver/gunmetal also. Its all about black. Take note style conscious tech geeks. Looks are important...

[pangelav @ Sep 20th 2007 11:45AM]

Apple is all about aluminum, now.

[c.Lake @ Sep 25th 2007 4:29PM]

Newsflash -- Black never left. EVERYTHING IS BLACK. Electronic companies are unable to select another FREAKING COLOR. I am SOOOO sick of black. (and White)

[strider_mt2k @ Sep 20th 2007 10:54AM]

I'll wait for the paperback.

[Adam @ Sep 20th 2007 11:11AM]

I have a My Book 320Gb, which works OK with my Mac. However, two points are worth noting:

1. Don't bother spending more to get the one with Firewire. I did, and due to an 'issue' it actually works slower over firewire than via USB2. Western Digital are still to offer a fix.

2. It is very VERY noisy. Far louder than my iMac and so loud that I now use it for backups only rather than it being on all the time, as originally envisaged.

WD support (in the UK at least) are non-existent. I wouldn't buy WD again.

[Carnaval13 @ Sep 20th 2007 11:32AM]

I have a My Book with Firewire and it works perfectly (much faster than USB). Got it from Apple Store so I don't think Apple would be selling them if the Firewire connection was not working properly. Check for firmware update on WD site.

[tn @ Sep 20th 2007 11:30AM]

when the hell is seagate gonna release their 1tb drives (they announce em in june)
im not buyin till they release 5 year warranty and should lower the price to around $300 since wd wont have the only single drives out anymore

[Steele @ Sep 20th 2007 11:49AM]

looks good but i really like the circular status light of my mybook 500gb

[ian @ Sep 20th 2007 12:51PM]

people who are happy with these tend not to post. I have a couple and they work fine for me.
Every drive will have a review saying it died after 2 weeks.

[geeniusatwrok @ Sep 20th 2007 1:18PM]

my two 500GB WD externals (FW400/USB2) are fine and been going for 18 months. they auto-stop after no activity and do not need fans.

I had the 1TB dual-drive model because it DOES have a fan that shrieks incessantly. supposedly that's been fixed w/a firmware update but I took it back to Costco before then. sounds like the FW800 500GB pro models will be super-cheap soon.

[John @ Sep 20th 2007 1:35PM]

Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click

Really there needs to be a class action lawsuit of the failure rate of these drives. Mine died, though under warranty, new ones warranties are only 30 days I think, mine was a year, so I replaced it with a new WD but don't even use it, through crap on there that is a backup. Don't get burned by WD drives, they suck.

Click, Click, Click, Click, Click

[staniel @ Sep 20th 2007 2:25PM]

samsung spinpoint T-series FTW!

no but really sammy needs to come out with a solution like this with their spinpoint drives...so quiet and cool (temp wise).

[Rapax @ Sep 21st 2007 3:51AM]

Personally, I prefer the old design, with the ring light/button.
But either way, these are awesome value for money. I have three currently (two at home, one at work) and have never had a problem with them. They're nice and quiet (hardly audible at all), the automatic spin- and powerdown works beautifully, in XP,OSX and Linux and they look nice too.