The Perfect Storage Device?
Written: Jun 04 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: RAID1, many interfaces, good price, quiet operation, security slot
Cons: you can't replace a failed drive with any standard eSATA drive
The Bottom Line: Fantastic set of features including RAID1 redundancy, at a good price.
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| Andyman's Full Review: Western Digital My Book® Studio Edition™ II... |
How do you store all the music, movies, and pictures you want and still make it easy to get at them? This is an increasingly difficult problem as time goes by and rich media becomes more and more accessible. I had to give up on storing anything on recordable DVD discs, which I used to do quite frequently. I was horrified to learn that these burned discs had a shelf life of as little as a year or two before they degraded to the point of uselessness. I mean, we used to talk about burning coasters if the process failed, but the chances are that everything you've ever burned is now a coaster.
So I've switched to hard drives. Big capacity, better longevity. The problem there is that they sometimes go belly up also. Drive mechanisms fail eventually, and ALL your stuff goes at once. Expensive recovery services will take you for many hundreds of dollars to get it all back. So what do you do?
I bought this device because it allows you to put two hard drives in it, and keep all your data on both of them, seamlessly mirrored in what's called RAID 1. You don't need to learn anything about RAID in order to use this device in this way. The software that comes with the device makes it easy. Once you set this up, you've got a built in backup that's always up-to-date, because anything you save goes onto BOTH drives. If one fails, the other is there to save you.
RAID is old news. What's great about this device is the following:
1) Easy setup - no hardware config to setup RAID1
2) Many interfaces - plug into USB, Firewire, or eSATA. This gives you lots of options: FireWire and eSATA for speed, and USB for compatibility most any computer out there.
3) Cost - I paid only $260 for this, which was a good price versus any single RAID 1 enclosure + two 1TB drives. Instead of building my own, I got the whole package for a very reasonable price.
4) Quiet - fanless enclosure uses generous ventilation slots and convection to keep the drives within operational limits without the roaring noise of fans. Good for the bedroom or the TV room.
5) Security slot - oh yeah and it has a security slot so you can lock it down. RAID1 doesn't help you if someone walks away with it.
So far I've had zero problems with this. It set up easy, it works as advertised. Transfer speeds have been satisfactorily fast over FireWire 800 on my Mac. Capacity is nice: it will be some time before I fill up 1 Terrabyte of space. And the redundancy is great. I don't back it up onto anything else, and I'm not worried about losing my stuff. NO backup software to hassle with. NO backup schedule to remember. NO lag time between backups. ALL your data is stored redundantly in real time, transparently. Nothing for you to do or remember.
Now keep in mind, when you see this advertised, it says 2 TB. That's because there are two 1 TB drives inside. If you go redundant, your total capacity will be only 1 TB. You're storing two copies of everything, and that takes up more space. So you have a choice. You can use it as a RAID1 device, and get redundancy, but only 1 TB of space. Or you can get 2 TB of space, but be more vulnerable if one drive fails. I prefer the peace of mind of 1 TB of rock-solid redudnancy.
Potential drawbacks:
If one of the drives fails, you need to call up WD and buy a specific part in order to replace it. You can't just pop in any old SATA drive. It's normal with a RAID setup to require identical drives, but in this case there's an added "assembly" structure that normal drives don't have, so you can't just pop in anything. It would be better if you could, just so you could shop on the open market instead of having to pay WD for what is likely a more expensive service part.
The fanless enclosure might not be the greatest if you intend to use this in very hot climes. Heat is the enemy of a hard drive mech over time, and if you intend to punish your storage device with sunlight or other heat sources you might want to consider an actively cooled enclosure that has a fan.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Andy Hilal
Location: Oakland, CA
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