Recently, I began ripping my entire DVD collection to save for viewing on my Mac. I have a BIG DVD collection and that requires lots of storage, which is where Western Digital’s (http://www.wdc.com/en/) newest generation of the My Book Studio comes in.
The external hard drives — great for use with Macs and Apple’s Time Machine — are now available with a 3TB storage capacity. When you’re ripping DVDs for convenience’s sake (and with an eye to the day when Apple doesn’t include any optical drives on a Mac)
Oh yeah: the 3TB My Book Studio is also great for videographers, photographers, video editors and other graphic professionals.
The WD product is as Mac friendly as a hard drive gets. Formatted for our favorite computing platform, this drive is plug-and-play ready for Mac OS X users. (Although formatted for Mac computers, the My Book Studio external hard drives can also be reformatted for PCs, but why would you do that?). What’s more, the design features a brushed aluminum casing to match the appearance of a Mac and serves to keep the drive cool while in use.
The aluminum exterior, combined with its WD Caviar Green drives, eliminates the need for an internal fan to extend the life of the drive. It also means the drive runs very quietly.
The WD solution is also extremely flexible. It comes with FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 connectivity, as well as user-controlled automatic backup software and drive management, password protection and hardware encryption. However, you should note that the My Book Studio doesn’t have the LED display of some other WD drives that show free space and other specs.
WD’s My Book Studio is available on the WD store (http://www.wdstore.com) and at select retailers and distributors. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for My Book Studio with 1TB is $149.99; MSRP for My Book Studio with 2TB is $199.99; MSRP for My Book Studio with 3TB is $249.99.
I’d spring for the 3TB version. You never know when you might start ripping your own DVD collection. And if you want an ever more spacious hard drive, check out WD’s 6TB MyStudio II (see our review at http://macte.ch/xPyhl).
Rating: 9 out of 10
— Dennis Sellers