-
Buy Used and Save: Get the "WD My Book Studio II - 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/Fir..." for a lot less. Amazon Warehouse Deals offers deep discounts on open-box or used versions of this item. Products are eligible for Amazon's 30-day returns policy and Prime or Super Saver Shipping. See all Used offers from Amazon Warehouse Deals.
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Capacity: 2 TB
Technical Details
Capacity: 2 TB
- Brand Name: Western Digital
- Model: WDH2Q20000N
- Hard Disk Size: 2.5 TB
- Hardware Platform: PC
- Hard Disk Description: Desktop
Product DetailsCapacity: 2 TB
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Product Description
Capacity: 2 TB
Western Digital 2.0TB MyBook Studio Edition II Hard Drive Fast,Green and Mac Ready! Quad interface, RAID-enabled, about 30% less power consumption, formatted for Mac. The My Book Studio Edition II treads lightly on the earth and carries big performance for creative professionals. Features: * The speed you need - Lightning-fast FireWire 800 combined with RAID 0 (Striped) yields the speed you need for smooth video editing, rendering complex 3D objectsor special effects and saving huge blocks of datain record time. * Cooler, quieter, eco-friendlier - Designed to use only WD's GreenPower drives,this system uses about 30% less energy than standard systems and runs quietly because it doesn't need a fan. (* Based on comparison between a 1 TBdual-drive system using 7200 RPM drives and a 1 TB dual-drive system using WD's GreenPower drives.) * Formatted for Mac - Works with Apple's Time Machine. Includes software and instructions for reformatting to Windows. * Quad interface - Power your creativity with connections for ultra-fast eSATA and FireWire 800. For flexibility and convenience, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 are also included. * User serviceable - Want to upgrade a drive? Simply open the case and replace the existing drive no screwdriver needed. * Automatic backup software - Back up important projects to multiple destinations including file servers, portable drives and My Book. Set it and forget it; every time you save a change it's automatically backed up. * Capacity gauge - See at a glance how much space is available on your storage system. * Intelligent drive management features - Automatic power-up, Safe Shutdown, and LED status and activity lights make this storage system especially easy to use. (Works with USB and FireWire connections only.) Specifications: FireWire 800: Serial Bus Transfer Rate (1394b) 800 Mbits/s (Max) eSATA: Serial Bus Tr
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
129 of 130 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some technical tips on this great drive for Windows Vista or Windows 7, very big and reliable and inexpensive
June 21, 2011
Size Name:6 TB|Amazon Verified Purchase
[Updated this review on 28-Jun-2011]
I have purchased 4 of these Western Digital Studio II external hard drives over the past 18 months (three of them are 4TB, one of them is 6TB), and they are great. The first 3 of these I bought have been chugging along with constant use for more than a year, with nary a hiccup. I just purchased the 6TB model about a week ago, and it looks identical to the 4TB models -- I have high hopes for it as well.
For some context: In the past, I purchased 2 Iomega external drives and 4 LaCie external drives, and ALL of those external drives completely failed after a few months of use, while connected to 3 different computers. Unbelievable! But these Western Digital Studio II drives are a dream. They keep going and going...
These Western Digital Studio II drives have a choice of 4 different interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA), and I've used them with all of the interfaces. I've also used them on Windows Vista and Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit), on three different computers. No matter which interface you use, or which version of Windows, they work right out of the box, are immediately recognized by Windows, no drivers needed. No fuss, no bother, no reading the user manual, etc. (You just need to remember to format the drive for Windows; see below.)
Over the past 18 months or so, I have discovered some technical tidbits about using these drives that I wanted to pass along, because it might help someone who is stuck. Most of this information applies to any large external drive that you attach to a Windows computer; this info is not necessarily specific to these Western Digital drives.
So, here are some technical tips when using these Western Digital My Book Studio II drives:
1. When you receive the drive, it is formatted for the Mac, rather than Windows. No problem, you just need to format it for Windows, which takes less than a minute. IMPORTANT: When you are formatting the drive for Windows, you MUST use the USB 2.0 port on the drive (with a USB 2.0 cable -- included with the drive) to format it. After that, you can use any of the interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 or 800, or eSATA) to access the drive. If you try to format the drive while connected to your computer with eSATA, your computer will only see about half of the drive's capacity. Again, this only affects initial formatting. After formatting, use any interface, and your computer will see the full capacity of the drive. HOW TO FORMAT: Choose Start, right-click on Computer, choose Manage, and select Disk Management. You probably know the drill from there, but if not, see the documentation that comes with the drive. Do a "Quick Format" -- no need to do the lengthy normal format.
2. The fastest port on these drives is the 3Gbit/sec eSATA port. If you only have one eSATA port on your computer, and you have more than one of these drives (like me), you might think you can use an eSATA external port multiplier to turn your one eSATA port on your computer into multiple eSATA ports so you can connect multiple external drives to one eSATA port on your computer. However, this only works if the eSATA port on your computer supports an eSATA port multiplier. Some computer eSATA ports do not (for example, I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop, and its eSATA port does not support an eSATA port multiplier). If you are in this situation, or if you don't have any eSATA ports at all on your computer, but you DO have a USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port on your computer, you are golden. You can use a StarTech.com USB3S2ESATA 3 Feet SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to eSATA Cable Adapter or similar product, which is a USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter cable, to connect the eSATA port on your external drive to the USB 3.0 port on your computer. Most USB 3.0 ports run at 5Gbit/sec, and even though most eSATA ports only run at 3Gbit/sec, this adapter cable lets you use the drive at 3Gbit/sec from your computer's USB 3.0 port, which is 6 times faster than the slow 480Mbit/sec speed of a USB 2.0 port connection.
3. I discovered, on my computer, that when I attached one of these drives to my laptop computer via my computer's eSATA port, that my computer would no longer reboot successfully, unless I unplugged the eSATA cable and plugged it back in after my computer got past the initial stages of rebooting. This is not the fault of the drive. As noted on the Western Digital knowledge base on their web site, the BIOS of many computers cannot recognize hard drives larger than 2TB (even though Windows Vista and Windows 7 can recognize much larger drives), so the BIOS stops rebooting when it sees my huge 4TB or 6TB drive plugged into the eSATA port on my computer. I rebooted my computer and pressed F12 to change the "Boot Order" on my computer, but there was no way to tell the BIOS NOT to look at the eSATA port when rebooting. However, my computer BIOS DOES let me tell it to ignore the USB 3.0 ports on my computer when booting. So, I plugged my 6TB (or 4TB) drive into my computer's USB 3.0 port, using the above USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter cable to connect to the drive's eSATA port, and told the BIOS boot order on my computer to ignore the USB ports, and now my computer reboots fine when my big Western Digital 4TB and 6TB drives are plugged into it. Plus, it still has 3Gbit/sec transfer speed, which is great.
4. With Windows 7 (and perhaps with all versions of Windows and Macs, I'm not sure), these external drives will go to "sleep" after somewhere around 15-30 minutes of inactivity. In theory, this is not a problem, because the next time you try to access the drive from Windows, the drive will automatically spin up, and about 10-15 seconds later it will respond as normal. However, it takes sufficiently long for the drive to "awaken" from sleep that Windows 7 sometimes records the drive as no longer available, until you unplug and re-plug the power to the external drive. There is a little bit of discussion about this problem on the Internet. No one seems completely certain why the drive goes to sleep (is the it the firmware in the drive, or is it a "sleep" command from Windows 7?) and there does not seem to be a consensus on how to solve it -- different people offer different solutions. However, I wanted to share the solution that I found for this problem, if you are using the external drive via the USB port (or via the drive's eSATA port going to a USB 3.0 port on your computer using a USB 3.0-to-eSATA adapter): Under Windows 7, go into the Control Panel. At the top right of the screen, choose "View by: Small icons." Click on "Power Options." Look at which "power plan" you have selected (that has the radio button selected), and click the "Change plan settings" to the right of that. On the next screen, click on the "Change advanced power settings" link, toward the bottom. In the next dialog box, scroll down and click the "+" next to "USB settings." Then, beneath that, click the "+" next to "USB selective suspend setting." Change the "Plugged in" setting to be "Disabled," and if you also use these external drives on battery power, change the "On battery" setting to also be "Disabled." Then, click OK to close the dialog box. Making this change to the Power Options under Windows 7 seems to prevent Windows 7 from putting the external drives to sleep. Alternatively, other people have had success using a free utility called "xSleep" at [...]that periodically accesses your external drives so they won't go to sleep under any version of Windows (and you can put it on a schedule, so the drives can go to sleep at night, for example).
I hope the above info is helpful to someone. These Western Digital My Book Studio II drives are awesome.
I have purchased 4 of these Western Digital Studio II external hard drives over the past 18 months (three of them are 4TB, one of them is 6TB), and they are great. The first 3 of these I bought have been chugging along with constant use for more than a year, with nary a hiccup. I just purchased the 6TB model about a week ago, and it looks identical to the 4TB models -- I have high hopes for it as well.
For some context: In the past, I purchased 2 Iomega external drives and 4 LaCie external drives, and ALL of those external drives completely failed after a few months of use, while connected to 3 different computers. Unbelievable! But these Western Digital Studio II drives are a dream. They keep going and going...
These Western Digital Studio II drives have a choice of 4 different interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA), and I've used them with all of the interfaces. I've also used them on Windows Vista and Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit), on three different computers. No matter which interface you use, or which version of Windows, they work right out of the box, are immediately recognized by Windows, no drivers needed. No fuss, no bother, no reading the user manual, etc. (You just need to remember to format the drive for Windows; see below.)
Over the past 18 months or so, I have discovered some technical tidbits about using these drives that I wanted to pass along, because it might help someone who is stuck. Most of this information applies to any large external drive that you attach to a Windows computer; this info is not necessarily specific to these Western Digital drives.
So, here are some technical tips when using these Western Digital My Book Studio II drives:
1. When you receive the drive, it is formatted for the Mac, rather than Windows. No problem, you just need to format it for Windows, which takes less than a minute. IMPORTANT: When you are formatting the drive for Windows, you MUST use the USB 2.0 port on the drive (with a USB 2.0 cable -- included with the drive) to format it. After that, you can use any of the interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 or 800, or eSATA) to access the drive. If you try to format the drive while connected to your computer with eSATA, your computer will only see about half of the drive's capacity. Again, this only affects initial formatting. After formatting, use any interface, and your computer will see the full capacity of the drive. HOW TO FORMAT: Choose Start, right-click on Computer, choose Manage, and select Disk Management. You probably know the drill from there, but if not, see the documentation that comes with the drive. Do a "Quick Format" -- no need to do the lengthy normal format.
2. The fastest port on these drives is the 3Gbit/sec eSATA port. If you only have one eSATA port on your computer, and you have more than one of these drives (like me), you might think you can use an eSATA external port multiplier to turn your one eSATA port on your computer into multiple eSATA ports so you can connect multiple external drives to one eSATA port on your computer. However, this only works if the eSATA port on your computer supports an eSATA port multiplier. Some computer eSATA ports do not (for example, I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop, and its eSATA port does not support an eSATA port multiplier). If you are in this situation, or if you don't have any eSATA ports at all on your computer, but you DO have a USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port on your computer, you are golden. You can use a StarTech.com USB3S2ESATA 3 Feet SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to eSATA Cable Adapter or similar product, which is a USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter cable, to connect the eSATA port on your external drive to the USB 3.0 port on your computer. Most USB 3.0 ports run at 5Gbit/sec, and even though most eSATA ports only run at 3Gbit/sec, this adapter cable lets you use the drive at 3Gbit/sec from your computer's USB 3.0 port, which is 6 times faster than the slow 480Mbit/sec speed of a USB 2.0 port connection.
3. I discovered, on my computer, that when I attached one of these drives to my laptop computer via my computer's eSATA port, that my computer would no longer reboot successfully, unless I unplugged the eSATA cable and plugged it back in after my computer got past the initial stages of rebooting. This is not the fault of the drive. As noted on the Western Digital knowledge base on their web site, the BIOS of many computers cannot recognize hard drives larger than 2TB (even though Windows Vista and Windows 7 can recognize much larger drives), so the BIOS stops rebooting when it sees my huge 4TB or 6TB drive plugged into the eSATA port on my computer. I rebooted my computer and pressed F12 to change the "Boot Order" on my computer, but there was no way to tell the BIOS NOT to look at the eSATA port when rebooting. However, my computer BIOS DOES let me tell it to ignore the USB 3.0 ports on my computer when booting. So, I plugged my 6TB (or 4TB) drive into my computer's USB 3.0 port, using the above USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter cable to connect to the drive's eSATA port, and told the BIOS boot order on my computer to ignore the USB ports, and now my computer reboots fine when my big Western Digital 4TB and 6TB drives are plugged into it. Plus, it still has 3Gbit/sec transfer speed, which is great.
4. With Windows 7 (and perhaps with all versions of Windows and Macs, I'm not sure), these external drives will go to "sleep" after somewhere around 15-30 minutes of inactivity. In theory, this is not a problem, because the next time you try to access the drive from Windows, the drive will automatically spin up, and about 10-15 seconds later it will respond as normal. However, it takes sufficiently long for the drive to "awaken" from sleep that Windows 7 sometimes records the drive as no longer available, until you unplug and re-plug the power to the external drive. There is a little bit of discussion about this problem on the Internet. No one seems completely certain why the drive goes to sleep (is the it the firmware in the drive, or is it a "sleep" command from Windows 7?) and there does not seem to be a consensus on how to solve it -- different people offer different solutions. However, I wanted to share the solution that I found for this problem, if you are using the external drive via the USB port (or via the drive's eSATA port going to a USB 3.0 port on your computer using a USB 3.0-to-eSATA adapter): Under Windows 7, go into the Control Panel. At the top right of the screen, choose "View by: Small icons." Click on "Power Options." Look at which "power plan" you have selected (that has the radio button selected), and click the "Change plan settings" to the right of that. On the next screen, click on the "Change advanced power settings" link, toward the bottom. In the next dialog box, scroll down and click the "+" next to "USB settings." Then, beneath that, click the "+" next to "USB selective suspend setting." Change the "Plugged in" setting to be "Disabled," and if you also use these external drives on battery power, change the "On battery" setting to also be "Disabled." Then, click OK to close the dialog box. Making this change to the Power Options under Windows 7 seems to prevent Windows 7 from putting the external drives to sleep. Alternatively, other people have had success using a free utility called "xSleep" at [...]that periodically accesses your external drives so they won't go to sleep under any version of Windows (and you can put it on a schedule, so the drives can go to sleep at night, for example).
I hope the above info is helpful to someone. These Western Digital My Book Studio II drives are awesome.
413 of 448 people found the following review helpful
By Marmite
Size Name:2 TB|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have been using the WD Studio II 2TB on my 2008 iMac OSX 10.5.6 for two weeks. Connection: firewire 800. Today, it did not mount when I booted the computer.
Checked the WD Website Knowledge Base.
Discovered two things:
1. Knowledge Base Answer 1697: "This issue is caused by the external hard drive's built in auto on/off functionality not correctly receiving a command from the computer system to wake from a power saver mode."
Why does the auto on/off functionality not correctly receive the command from the computer system? WD goes on to suggest installing their WD Drive Manager.
Well, WD Drive Manager is already installed, how else could a user have arrived at this impasse to begin with?
And then they suggest to dismount the drive. How do you dismount an unmounted drive?
2. Knowledge Base Answer 1680: "This is an technical limitation between the FireWire interfaces on the Macintosh computer and the external hard drive."
By "the external hard drive" WD means THEIR brand of external hard drive. I have never had this specific problem with any other brands of external hard drives connected to my Macintosh computer.
When is WD going to fix this "technical limitation" that they have built into their Studio II external hard drive? I would say, that is a pretty serious "technical limitation."
1680 goes on to explain the workaround solution, essentially a routine disconnecting the power cable and reconnecting. Nice.
My hope is that this entire situation is the result of following the apparently misleading instructions shown in the Studio II manual: chapter 7, "Turning Off/Disconnecting the Device."
Since "Auto-off" is the first entry in this chapter, it leads the user to believe that this is the preferred way to operate the drive. Guess not: as it turns out, the hidden "technical limitation" of the firewire connection will eventually cause the problem I have described. I suppose I can't rely on "Auto-off." Use "Safe Shutdown" only, even though the instructions in the manual differ from the instructions presented in WD Knowledge Base Answer 976!
And, speaking of conflicting instructions, compare WD Knowledge Base Answer 1386 with the Auto-off instructions in the manual.
Based on all of this information from WD, conflicting and otherwise, my guess is that the Auto-off feature is problematic (at least with Macintosh computers) because of firewire "technical limitations" caused by the WD external drive design. This fact, if it is a fact, should be expressed clearly in the manual.
Checked the WD Website Knowledge Base.
Discovered two things:
1. Knowledge Base Answer 1697: "This issue is caused by the external hard drive's built in auto on/off functionality not correctly receiving a command from the computer system to wake from a power saver mode."
Why does the auto on/off functionality not correctly receive the command from the computer system? WD goes on to suggest installing their WD Drive Manager.
Well, WD Drive Manager is already installed, how else could a user have arrived at this impasse to begin with?
And then they suggest to dismount the drive. How do you dismount an unmounted drive?
2. Knowledge Base Answer 1680: "This is an technical limitation between the FireWire interfaces on the Macintosh computer and the external hard drive."
By "the external hard drive" WD means THEIR brand of external hard drive. I have never had this specific problem with any other brands of external hard drives connected to my Macintosh computer.
When is WD going to fix this "technical limitation" that they have built into their Studio II external hard drive? I would say, that is a pretty serious "technical limitation."
1680 goes on to explain the workaround solution, essentially a routine disconnecting the power cable and reconnecting. Nice.
My hope is that this entire situation is the result of following the apparently misleading instructions shown in the Studio II manual: chapter 7, "Turning Off/Disconnecting the Device."
Since "Auto-off" is the first entry in this chapter, it leads the user to believe that this is the preferred way to operate the drive. Guess not: as it turns out, the hidden "technical limitation" of the firewire connection will eventually cause the problem I have described. I suppose I can't rely on "Auto-off." Use "Safe Shutdown" only, even though the instructions in the manual differ from the instructions presented in WD Knowledge Base Answer 976!
And, speaking of conflicting instructions, compare WD Knowledge Base Answer 1386 with the Auto-off instructions in the manual.
Based on all of this information from WD, conflicting and otherwise, my guess is that the Auto-off feature is problematic (at least with Macintosh computers) because of firewire "technical limitations" caused by the WD external drive design. This fact, if it is a fact, should be expressed clearly in the manual.
105 of 112 people found the following review helpful
By jenny
Size Name:2 TB|Amazon Verified Purchase
I purchased this drive to go along with my intel mac. I was previously a happy lacie owner, but since WD came in at such a great price and was listed as great with macs, I went for it.
What a mistake. For the first month, it worked well... a bit slower than my lacie, but still worked. Then, all of the sudden, it began to dismount itself from my computer. I am currently using Lightroom to edit my work, and when the drive would fail, Lightroom would loose the catalog. When you have 500+ images to edit and the drive dismounts every 45 minutes, this can become a huge issue.
So, I did some further research and found out that several other intel mac users are having the same issue with this product. This is very frustrating as it is advertised 'for your mac'. Most of the other posters mentioned that the drive worked well for about a month and then started having issues.
I called WD, and their customer service department was actually very helpful. The offered to send me a new unit, even though that unit would likely have the same issue down the line. I understand that there was not much they could do for me at WD, but they were concerned and helpful just the same.
Luckily for me, the customer service dept at Amazon is rockin' awesome and is allowing me to exchange the WD for 2 lacie units even though I am slightly past the 30 day return policy mark. While I have never had to return an item to Amazon before, I am very comforted to know that the customer service dept is really looking out for their customers.
If you are using an intel mac, I would move on from this product. It is not worth the headache. However, you can feel confident making your purchase from Amazon...
What a mistake. For the first month, it worked well... a bit slower than my lacie, but still worked. Then, all of the sudden, it began to dismount itself from my computer. I am currently using Lightroom to edit my work, and when the drive would fail, Lightroom would loose the catalog. When you have 500+ images to edit and the drive dismounts every 45 minutes, this can become a huge issue.
So, I did some further research and found out that several other intel mac users are having the same issue with this product. This is very frustrating as it is advertised 'for your mac'. Most of the other posters mentioned that the drive worked well for about a month and then started having issues.
I called WD, and their customer service department was actually very helpful. The offered to send me a new unit, even though that unit would likely have the same issue down the line. I understand that there was not much they could do for me at WD, but they were concerned and helpful just the same.
Luckily for me, the customer service dept at Amazon is rockin' awesome and is allowing me to exchange the WD for 2 lacie units even though I am slightly past the 30 day return policy mark. While I have never had to return an item to Amazon before, I am very comforted to know that the customer service dept is really looking out for their customers.
If you are using an intel mac, I would move on from this product. It is not worth the headache. However, you can feel confident making your purchase from Amazon...
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Setup as Raid1 with pogoplug
I set this up as Raid1 with pogoplug, it works great, a little slow waking up but after that it works good for my purpose. For the price, you can't beat it.
Published 8 days ago by S. Mansour
5.0 out of 5 stars
WD My Studio II
I bought this HD as I have 21.5 inch iMac with USB2/FireWire interface. This HD does its job perfectly, not loud, nice looking. Read more
Published 22 days ago by SERGEY KRAVCHENKO
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great product, does what I need it for
This product is great for the price and storing my information , music that i use for my iMac. Was told by a friend how great he liked it and would definitely buy another when the... Read more
Published 24 days ago by Justin
1.0 out of 5 stars
Failed
Do Not Buy This Drive. It will fail and you will lose everything. One day you will turn your computer on and it will say not formatted.
Published 24 days ago by Ballzy
4.0 out of 5 stars
I hate buying external drives
If I can figure out why sometimes it shuts down or unmounts from the desktop, I'll up the rating, but in the end, I'm more interested in it actually not failing in the first 18... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Shaun
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not well designed
This is a visually interesting design. It looks neat sitting on the desk.
But they have not paid adequate attention to heat dissipation. Read more
But they have not paid adequate attention to heat dissipation. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Leigh
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solod performer.
Does exactly what it claims. Using it with a 6' eSATA cable on the eSATA port on the minidock on a Dell Latitude E4310. Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Cole
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good But not That Good
hard drive out lasted for about 5 months then i hdd failed and other worked tried setting up a returned with western digital but wanted to charge a replacement fee with i was not... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Gregory Santana
1.0 out of 5 stars
lazy husband
This hard drive is similar to a lazy husband (not what I have). It was working well for the first 6 months. Read more
Published 1 month ago by May Pester
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great drive
Bought a like new for $95, needless to say a great price. Its fast on firewire 800 almost internal drive transfer speed. Its pretty quick just on usb too. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Garden Noam
|
|
|||||||
|