#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID FOR MAC#
#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID PLUS#
#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID MAC#
#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID WINDOWS#

The LaCie posted reads at 135.4MB/s and writes at 94.3MB/s. The My Book was in last overall for reads, but it came in second beating the LaCie in writes. In large-block random read and write, the My Book came in at 108.2MB/s and 145.5MB/s respectively. Clearly the drive is hampered by the 5,400RPM drives inside compared to the alternatives. The Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo posts 2MB sequential reads at 248MB/s and writes at 249.1MB/s, placing it far behind both the LaCie 2big which had reads at 327.1MB/s and writes at 273.5MB/s and the WD Velociraptor which had reads at 362.6MB/s and writes at 347.6MB/s.

Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor (2TB, 2 x 1TB 10,000RPM).

LaCie 2big Thunderbolt RAID DAS (6TB, 2 x 3TB 7,200RPM).

This makes long-term servicing simple, whereas with other devices like the aforementioned G-DRIVE, a number of screws may need to be removed. There are plastic pull tabs attached one to each Deskstar and with a simple tug the hard drive is extracted. Inside sit the two trayless bays firmly holding the 4TB Deskstar 5K4000’s. This feature is extremely convenient giving tool-less access to the drives. This provides access to a honeycomb metal ventilation grate removable by twisting a screw with your fingers like a wind-up toy. On the top of the Duo is a push-button latch holding the lid in place.

Nonetheless, it is still worth noting that while models like the G-Technology 4TB G-DRIVE are built with solid aluminum, the Duo relies on a lower cost plastic enclosure.

#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID MAC#

The Duo’s design, while not as sleek as it could be with more refinement, still matches the Mac scheme and is functional.

However, given the attention paid to performance, WD could have selected 7200RPM HDD’s instead of 5400RPM, but the high-performance line is generally left to sister brand HGST’s G-Technology line. Couple that with the ability to Daisy Chain the Duo, and there’s some serious performance application.

#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID PLUS#

The Thunderbolt connectivity is a huge plus as it allows for speeds around 2 times faster than USB 3.0 and 12 times faster than firewire–an important figure since this unit comes preformatted for Mac. On the rear of the unit, there are two Thunderbolt ports as well as the DC input and a Kensington lock slot. It also has four rubber feet and a ventilated black plastic top and bottom pieces for passive cooling which allows for sufficient circulation. The Duo is encased a glossy gray plastic enclosure. The exterior of the WD My Book Thunderbolt is similar to that of the Duo VelociRaptor line and has the book shape that gives the line its name (albeit a very thick book).

Operating Temperature: 41✯ to 95✯ / 5✬ to 35✬.

Dimensions (H x D x W): 6.5 x 6.2 x 3.9 in.

WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo Specifications The WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo is currently available for purchase, has a street price of $790, and comes with a three year limited worldwide warranty.

#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID WINDOWS#

This latter feature makes the Duo ideal for users looking to run Windows on a Mac, while the two former features provide users the flexibility to focus primarily on having secure storage or performance from their drives. The Duo is user-configurable and can be set to RAID 0 (striping) for performance, RAID 1 (mirror) for redundancy) or JBOD to use two individual drives selecting between HFS+J or ExFAT on either disk.

With individual customization in mind, the WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo is designed for both creative professionals craving performance and capacity and users that require loads of storage for local backup or archive. The Duo crams that exceptional storage capacity into a relatively small space using two 3.5' 4TB Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000’s. Our test model comes with a whopping 8TB storage capacity.

#WD MY BOOK 3TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE RAID FOR MAC#

Now, we’re examining the WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo formatted specifically for Mac and available in 4TB, 6TB, or 8TB. Near the end of 2012, we reviewed the WD My Book Essential which provided the highest capacity on the market in a single hard drive at 4TB. The Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo 8TB is an external storage unit that provides top-of-the-line capacity in a book-sized enclosure.

Wd my book 3tb external hard drive raid