Western Digital My Book 3.0 goes SuperSpeed USB
By Nilay Patel 
posted January 5th 2010 11:38AM
posted January 5th 2010 11:38AM
Western Digital's kicking off the expected flood of USB 3.0 announcements here at CES with the new My Book 3.0 series. The 1TB version of the SuperSpeed drive is actually available now for $179, or $199 in a kit with a USB 3.0 adapter card, while a 2TB version will hit next week. That's actually not a terrible deal if you're into futureproofing, since USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 -- you could theoretically use this drive with both your current machine and your next one. Or you could just keep buying cheap storage for the thrill of it. We won't judge you.
That's not too bad for the price. I'll definitely pick one up, especially if it's on sale.
@BuryTheCastle I'll wait till I can find a 3.0 enclosure and card for cheap. I picked up a 1.5TB 7200 drive for $99.99 black friday. Enclosure and card for under $50 and I am way ahead of this 'deal'.
"Futureproofing" with hard drives is just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Drive prices just keep going down. All you're future proofing is a higher price tag.
@(Unverified)
It's not futureproofing with the hard drive....it's the USB 3.0 adapter card.
That is a surprisingly good price, given that a 1 gig drive with firewire will run you about $150 or so. Does it mean I'll get one? Nope! I'll take my internal 1.5 GB SATA drive for CDN$99 thank you very much :)
@iamnotafish Fantom drives - 1TB for @1c-note.
So are currently laptops being sold online at HP, Dell, Toshiba, etc have USB 3.0 ports or the older ones?
Cuz I really do want the faster transfer speeds. But I'm sorta hesitant to start all over with my hardware.
@ME2Adept
I have yet to see a laptop with USB 3.0.
@ME2Adept
None of them sell a laptop with USB3 yet however getting USB3 in a laptop couldn't be any easier all you need is a USB3 Express Card (They are getting released now and come with 2X USB3 slots)
@ME2Adept
the only laptop I know of with usb 3.0 is the new Lenovo W510 thinkpad.
@Nighthawk007x
HP and Asus 2010 Laptops come with USB3 too (Not all models though)
USB3 will properly be a standard by this year end holiday
what is USB 3.0's advantage over eSATA?
@SirNoDroin
a couplethings:
Powered Port, Backwards compatable to 2.0, mindshare name that'll make it instantly accepted.
Don't get me wrong i like eSata, it just has a lot against it come usb 3.0
@twellzer
I believe you can use any Sata drive with eSata. but its max bandwidth is 3.0Gb/s so a 1.5 drive would work but only run at 1.5 Gb/s. i could be wrong.
the Usb 3.0 would be about 25 MB/s faster then current eSata too.
and of course Usb is a powered port, as you said above.
@SirNoDroin
I had problems with hot-swapping eSata drives.... I had to restart computer to make it recognize external eSata drive.
I believe this will not be a problem with USB 3.0
@SirNoDroin
That's based on your motherboards support for eSATA not the eSATA protocol.
The reason I ask, is for devices such as hard drives, when using QPI wouldn't the actual speed on eSATA be faster, since it goes right from the harddrive controller to the harddrive driver to the processor, rather than going from the USB to the USB host driver, to the USB mass storage driver, to the processor....seems like an extra layer of obscurity that might negate benefits. But please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding of the USB protocol is pretty elementary.
I have purchased 3 of the mybook series of hard drives--all of which have failed after several months of use. It seems to be the enclosures (not the drives) but I would never buy another western digital enclosure product again.
Don't buy WD enclosures, I have the My book World Edition, it's supposed to have gigabit network speed, i am only getting about 600k/s max
@elibi
Are you sure that's not your drive?
now when can we see some usb 3.0 notebook adapter cards :)
Worst backup software I ever tried to use.
While you kinda can use it as just a hard drive, if that is your intension by a cheap enclosure and save the $$$ and the hassle.
Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that WD is changing the industrial design of the cases for the MyBook line again? I already own a couple of the 2.0 models, and I was hoping to add a couple more for a matched set.
It's a bummer that eSata is not as mainstream as USB2.0.
The concept of future proofing is flawed. There is always advancement in technology that will make another technology obsolete. While some some technology does stick around for a few years, you can always by it alot cheaper when you are ready to buy.
Am I wrong or does the PR state nothing about working with Mac? I like to store music and movies on a MyBook and switch between my PC and Mac