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- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 4 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Works well but without the bells and whistles"
Pros: affordable, compact, silent, works like a 1TB hard disk
Cons: special features don't work on the latest OS X (yet), plastic housing is so-so
Summary: 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.
Where to buy
Western Digital My Book Studio Edition (1TB):
$285.00
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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HardDriveExchange.com
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$285.00 | No |
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