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Overall Rating
4 Star Review
Reviewed by: SDTechDeals
Updated:07-20-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: Plenty of storage, cool LED on front, plenty of connectivity
Weaknesses: Ocassional funky connectivity; strange firewire connectors; confusing WD software
Overall Evaluation: I am a PC user, but picked up this MAC version as it was on sale (cheaper than the eSATA 1TB version for PC). I primarily wanted both eSATA & USB connections, but thought that Firewire might come in handy at some point. I went to the WDC web-site, and it had instuctions on how do use this with a PC. You basically have to use your computer's Disk Management utility to format the drive, as it's default format is Mac friendly. Basically, right-click on "My Computer", then select "Manage". When the "Computer Management" windows opens up, select "Disk Management" toward the bottom left. Find the new drive listed in the window on the bottom, then right click and format. That should do it! I also downloaded the WDC DriveManager utility, which allows you to make some tweaks to the drive, and provides a convenient tray icon indicating that the MyBook is attached to the computer.The drive should power-on once it's connected to your computer. Alternately, there is a hidden power-button on the back-panel. The LED slide bar will light up when powered, and slide up and down (like Battlestar Gallactica Cylons!) when being accessed. I have had some connectivity issues that required me unplugging, then replugging in. Have not figured out why. And I have one USB port that it just won't work in!Okay, back to the firewire connections. While firewire 800 is backwards compatible with firewire 400, the connections are *not*! The 1394a (firewire 400) uses either the mini 4-pin connector or larger 6-pin connector. Meanwile, 1394b uses a 9-pin square connector. They only provide a Firewire 800 cable, which cannot hookup up to most of the firewire connectors out there. I don't think the PC world has adopted 1394b, so this will only work with Apple computers, I imagine. Oh well, so I guess I cannot use the firewire connection, or I need to find a cable that has a 1394b connector on one end and a 1394a on the other.
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Overall Rating
2 Star Review
Reviewed by:
Updated:12-04-07
Duration of ownership:20 Days
Strengths: Big, quiet, quad interface
Weaknesses: Not supported under Mac OS 10.5, weak support
Overall Evaluation: I bought this drive to be my Time Machine backup drive. I needed a big drive that would spin down when not in use to save power. I use it with the FW800 interface. The SW which comes with the drive crashes immediately under Mac OS 10.5 and 10.5.1. Without the "Button Manager" software, the drive does not reliably sleep or wake. Sometimes my computers is a alseep and the drive is spinning anyway and other times, the computer wakes, the drive doesn't and no backups happen because the drive in unavailable. I have to unplug and replug to get it going again. Question/report submitted to WD support site got no answer in several days, even though 24 hour turnaround is promised.
