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WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces

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Walljasper
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
What moron-of-design is still putting the annoying (if-not-oversized) lights on the face of these devices? At least include a small roll of tape so we can immediately mask off the stupid thing in a matching color. Bah.
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Kaiser-Machead
06/09/09

@Walljasper: It's not as bright as my OWC Mercury USB drive. It's a translucent plastic, and the light is a bright blue LED right on the chip, so the whole thing lights up like a tiny blue Christmas tree.
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Kaiser-Machead
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
After living with my 500GB WD MyBook and its triple interface, I vowed never again to subject myself to such a shitty peripheral. Sure, I could just swap the drive out when the chip dies, but who wants to deal with that bullshit? It became way too obvious how WD managed to sell these things for such a low price.

I now opt to buy a proper high quality enclosure and just stick in a drive of my choosing. It's well worth the extra money, but after looking at the prices of drives and empty enclosures individually, the premium is not that great either.
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Kaiser-Machead
06/09/09

@Kaiser-Machead: I will say, however, that the drive's single press power/dismount procedure was pleasant, at first. After mounting and dismounting became an issue, that feature wasn't quite so golden anymore.
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devianaut
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
i'm still wanting a petabyte harddrive.

...what?
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@devianaut: A pedophile hard drive?
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Nick
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
as long as the thing still fits in my microwave.
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D0rk
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
eh, if I need 4 TB for data, it will be in a RAID format.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@D0rk: Uhm, it is in RAID format. Striping is a RAID format. I think you mean a fault-tolerant RAID format.
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MushyHeirloom
06/09/09

@Carradine Dies of a Stroke Film at 11: Lite: *nod* I'm not so sure I trust any two drives in RAID 0 in a warm little case, honestly. Two separate drives? That I could live with.
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OMG! Ponies!
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
It's a Western Digital MyBook. That's enough to make me keep walking.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@OMG! Ponies!: As opposed to a Seagate one that will crash out because the firmware is flaked from the factory due to poor firmware quality controls?
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MushyHeirloom
06/09/09

@Carradine Dies of a Stroke Film at 11: Lite: Dead controller boards (MyBook) are no better than dead drives (Seagate) to the average hardware-ignorant consumer.

Those of us who know that there's just a regular SATA drive in there, though? We'll buy the MyBooks if they're cheaper than an identical drive and an enclosure. And if part of the MyBook enclosure dies, we'll shuck it, throw out the shell, and stick the drive in another case.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@Floozy Plushbroom will eat 60 figs: Right, but I'd still rather have a drive I can salvage myself than one I have to send back to Seagate (and hope) that they do a data recovery on the drive.

While I know how to, and have the gear to, unlock a Seagate drive that has firmware failed... I really don't like to do it. It's a pain in the ass.

But at least the WD failed for a legitimate hardware issue.
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MushyHeirloom
06/09/09

@Carradine Dies of a Stroke Film at 11: Lite: I definitely agree with you. Most people won't understand that, though, that was my point.

And last I checked, Seagates had to be returned in "two-inch-thick foam rubber". Not sure if that's any different now.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@Floozy Plushbroom will eat 60 figs: I have now replaced 9 failed Seagate drives at the office. Unfortunately the firmware patch software doesn't work on all machines of the same model. I don't get that one. Heh.
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OMG! Ponies!
06/09/09

@Floozy Plushbroom will eat 60 figs: @Carradine Dies of a Stroke Film at 11: Lite: Wouldn't it just be easier to have a drive that doesn't fail? I don't care if it's the controller board or bad firmware. Failure is failure.
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Kaiser-Machead
06/09/09

@OMG! Ponies!: I agree. A low quality chipset can be a huge inconvenience if you need the data right now. Then there's the added cost of replacing the drive's original enclosure with one of your choosing, which you couldn't very well done in the first place.
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MushyHeirloom
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
As opposed to four 1TB Greens in their own dirt-cheap whatever-interface-you-want enclosure for less?

Maybe I'm too into this "value" thing.
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thePrototype
06/09/09

In reply to WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces
Nice idea, but I am glad i got rid of my WD MyBook drives, they kept on failing on me, and it was controller board failure, not power supply failure like LaCie.

I personally am running 2 1TB drives independent of each other and I feel much safer with my data set up like that, as opposed to two drives set up in a proprietary RAID array... I'm looking at you LaCie!!
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@thePrototype: All raid arrays are handled in a proprietary manner by the controller. Sorry to be the one to tell you that.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@thePrototype: What I don't get is why you'd ever want a striped array for data integrity.

I've had 0 problems w/ getting LaCie to replace failed gear. I've yet to have a MyBook WD external drive die ever, and my External Seagate drive barfed due to firmware issues.
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GitEmSteveDave_My Brute Dojo CDIAFIFE
06/09/09

@thePrototype: I too have had a WD MyBook start failing twice. This second time I said screw it, and put the drive in a 3rd party enclosure.

If your looking for NAS, have you tried taking an old system and setting it up w/freeNAS?
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thePrototype
06/09/09

@Carradine Dies of a Stroke Film at 11: Lite: I get that, but the problem is if I bring a BigDisk to a data recovery expert, they won't touch it, but if I bring my tower in they will. The prob with RAID 0 (correct me if I am wrong) is that there will be some data that will span the two drives, and if there is a failure, that data is gone.

@Carradine Dies of a Stroke Film at 11: Lite: You are very lucky then, I have had three Big Disks and two MyBooks fail, and none of them are in extreme heat, and are plugged into UPS's.

@World'sFastestBrowser_GitEmSteveDave: I have my two drives connected to my AP extreme for NAS, and so far it has been flawless, no speed issues streaming vids to my PS3 while performing backups.
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PurpleMonkeyDishwasher:
06/09/09

@World'sFastestBrowser_GitEmSteveDave: You have any references you can give me for how to do that? What do you need to set something like this up?
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@thePrototype: Right, Raid 0 = striped array. 1 drive failure will toast the entire setup. So yeah, data gone between them. Thus why I said, "Why would you use a non-fault tolerant raid mode for crucial data?"

Mine are on a UPS as well. I used to run them 24/7 but as the LaCie's started to eat it I stopped doing this.
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GitEmSteveDave_My Brute Dojo CDIAFIFE
06/09/09

@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: how I did what? Remove the drive? I found some guides online, and it was pretty easy. I then took a 9.00 USB2.0 enclosure I believe I bought from Daelzmodo and stuck the drive in there. So far no problems. I'm still backing it up though, in case the drive fails.

As for FreeNAS, all you do is take a old system(mines a 800mhz Athalon), and install this BSD derived OS, either on a cd, usb stick, or actual hard drive, and then shove it full of as many drives as you can fit. I have two 640gb's in mine now, and after setting it's DDNS service, I can access the NAS from anywhere in the world.
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enki
06/09/09

@World'sFastestBrowser_GitEmSteveDave: That's pretty cool if you've got a very lower power old system laying around, but you'll eat up the money you saved in utility bills in no time running the extra PC.
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GitEmSteveDave_My Brute Dojo CDIAFIFE
06/09/09

@enki: Well, I'm guessing this thing is eating at least 2amps at 12 volts, all day long, even when the drive is powered down. FreeNAS allows you to hibernate/sleep the system, spin down the drives, etc. for a lot of power savings.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
06/09/09

@World'sFastestBrowser_GitEmSteveDave: 2 amps at 12 volts isn't quite the same as 2 amps at 120 volts though...
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