Average user rating from 4 users
8 out of 10 - Excellent
Works well but without the bells and whistles
I don't know why it was mentioned that this thing is expensive. I live out here in Thailand and ...
I don't know why it was mentioned that this thing is expensive. I live out here in Thailand and this happened to be THE most affordable one available, compared to what Lacie and the others had to offer.
First off, I thought everything was working -- until I used it on my iMac G5 (I tested it at the store with my Powerbook). With the Powerbook it seemed to work as advertised -- it powers up and down as the Powerbook does. But when I connected it to the iMac at home, sure the drive powers down with the iMac, but the LEDs remain flashing slowly on and off unless the power button on the drive is held down for 5 seconds. If you press the power button just once, the LEDs go on steady and remain on (but the drive doesn't start up). This makes the power button's role quite confusing. Also, I have the drive plugged into a powerstrip that I unplug from the outlet regularly to prevent idle power drain and when I plug it back into the outlet, the drive goes on even when the computer isn't. This is a slight irritation if I'm not going to be using the drive or the computer (and also since I'm a fanatical energy saver).
Next up are the LEDs. Again. They don't work as indicated - they DON'T indicate the remaining drive space. At least not on the current OS X version 10.5.2. I confirmed this through Western Digital customer support, which finally gave me the answer I was looking for after a couple days from the time I sent my first query. Basically the reply was that they're still working on the WD Button Manager for Leopard.
The casing is plastic. Alright for those of us with terrible electrical grounding, but the plastic used is not really the prettiest and the pictures make it look much better than the actual thing. The plastic is painted silver. The silver paint scratches as easily as the plastic gets marred and dented. I would have had much more appreciation for the industrial design here if only it were housed in aluminium instead of plastic.
Well bells and whistles aside, it works like a 1TB drive is expected to work. I use the drive with TimeMachine on my iMac and Powerbook and am already down to about 500GB. I haven't had any problems with stalling or power issues. Seems everything is working peachy. However, I wouldn't want to jump the gun just yet and say it's perfect -- afterall I've only been using it for barely a month. It'll be 4 years of operation before I can really say that it's a perfect little thing. And if it fails then, there's the 5-year warranty to back me up (although if that is the case, I could say less for my data).
Overall, this is a nice, affordable drive. Nothing luxurious -- and if your dealer handles them well during transport, you'll likely get one that works as guaranteed.
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by theanimaster (see profile) -
February 16, 2008
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
5 out of 10 - Average
A reasonably priced, large capacity external drive. May freeze up from time to time.
I purchased this drive to primarily take advantage of the Time Machine feature of Mac OSX Leopard.
I have utilized ...
I purchased this drive to primarily take advantage of the Time Machine feature of Mac OSX Leopard.
I have utilized external drives for years so I know how easy it is to hook them up to a Mac. Imagine my surprise when I plugged the My Book Studio into my G5 tower and it was not recognized. Turns out that the drive never powered up when I plugged it in or pressed the power button.
It looked like it was Dead Out Of The Box. Unfortunately, it was the only My Book Studio available from Best Buy inside of 100 mile radius of my home. Rather than return it right away I unplugged the drive and plugged it in a few times before *presto* it turned on!!!
So this is a tough one to review fully - I like the design. The white LED indicator on the front of the drive is visually appealing and somewhat eerie in low lighting as it pulses in sleep mode and scrolls up and down when in use. It is an attractive and compact model.
However, I am having possible power supply issues and freezing issues that I have brought to Wester Digital's attention. The freezes, incidentally, may be an issue - I read a few complaints on the Best Buy web site reviews.
So it's the middle of the road for me at this point as compared to other external drives I have used in the past. I will update my review if I get a replacement.
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by theSman (see profile) -
January 13, 2008
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 out of 10 - Poor
Drive dismounts at random; has issues with Mac OS X Leopard despite firmware upgrade
Have had problems with this drive since its first installation late last night. Despite the large knowledge-base, WD tech support'...
Have had problems with this drive since its first installation late last night. Despite the large knowledge-base, WD tech support's help response was to offer links to articles I've already found on my own, while troubleshooting the product. In the beginning, the drive had trouble staying mounted, then the firmware upgrade aborted half-way thru. Finally got the drive reformatted and partitioned, but the drive still dismounts intermittently.
I wanted to use this drive to backup my files, but I am seriously doubtful about its reliability. I'd rather just take this one back to the store and try a different manufacturer's product entirely (searching for my receipt).
This drive was pre-formatted to run on Mac out of the box, and it has issues. Very disappointed...
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by digitaledit (see profile) -
May 24, 2008
8 out of 10 - Excellent
A disaster (freezes) until I updated the firmware and device manager for Leopard compatibility.
Utter disaster (constant freezes on my G4) for about 4 days until I found the Studio Edition device manager and ...
Utter disaster (constant freezes on my G4) for about 4 days until I found the Studio Edition device manager and firmware updates on the WD web site "http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?item=WDH1Q10000N" for compatibility with Leopard and time machine. Works great now. Presume that WD has included the updates on drives made after Feb 08, if not, go to the web site.
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by Jay Gensler (see profile) -
March 13, 2008
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