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Now Available
Quick Test: Seagate's 1TB Portable FreeAgent Go
WD Puts E-Labels on My Book Elite and Studio, Includes Dock With My Passport Elite Portable Drive
WD's Ever-Smaller External Hard Drives Bring Better Security and Incremental Backups
Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
WD Scorpio Blue Drive Is First One Terabyte Mobile Drive Ever—Yes, 1TB
My Book World Edition II (4TB) Lightning Review
Western Digital's My Book World Edition II Offers 4TB of RAID Network Storage
Western Digital's SiliconDrive III Lineup Are Their First SSD Offerings
WD My Book Studio Edition II: 4 Terabytes + 4 Interfaces

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Canoehead
10/13/09

In reply to Now Available
Wish this had been out before - would have saved some bucks over the Popcorn Hour.
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Noobs-R-Us
10/10/09

In reply to Quick Test: Seagate's 1TB Portable FreeAgent Go
Wait for the new Intel/Apple optical cabled drives next year. It will put USB 3/Firewire 800 to shame.
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otko
10/10/09

In reply to Quick Test: Seagate's 1TB Portable FreeAgent Go
Seagate vs WD. Which is better? Is it a matter of preference or is there an actual difference in stability?
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jakebathman
10/10/09

@otko: I want to know this as well, because I'm looking to get a 1TB portable before the year is out, and I'll be keeping it for a few years
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chaos215bar2000
10/10/09

In reply to Quick Test: Seagate's 1TB Portable FreeAgent Go
Why would a larger drive be slower? I would think that packing the bits closer together would make it faster.
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lostarchitect
10/10/09

@chaos215bar2000: it's about the platter spin speed, not the density of data. this is a 5400 rpm drive, which is common but slowish. many people prefer a 7200 rpm unit.
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Argo117
10/10/09

In reply to Quick Test: Seagate's 1TB Portable FreeAgent Go
I think, now that TBs are becoming more feasible as common storage space, we should refer to them as "tubs" like we refer to GBs as "gigs"
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phunnyballs promoted this comment Argo117 was starred Argo117 was unstarred

phunnyballs
10/10/09

@Argo117: but when somebody writes

"whats the difference between tub and gig" into google, they may find themselves looking at a tub girl. And that would always be on my mind
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Edited by phunnyballs at 10/10/09 12:03 PM phunnyballs was starred phunnyballs was unstarred

Diziet_Sma
10/10/09

@Argo117: Or 'tebs'?
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Edited by Diziet_Sma at 10/10/09 1:21 PM Diziet_Sma was starred Diziet_Sma was unstarred

giusepe
10/10/09

@Diziet_Sma: Or tits? Oh, wait..
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Diziet_Sma
10/10/09

@giusepe: That's it! I don't care about anyone else, I'm calling them tits from now on. Then, next time I'm having a geek-chat with my husband, I can be all, "Cool, that [drive/laptop/tower] sounds interesting - how many tits has it got?"
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macserv
10/06/09

In reply to WD Puts E-Labels on My Book Elite and Studio, Includes Dock With My Passport Elite Portable Drive
I've been a big fan of WD's offerings lately, but this seems like a step backwards... If you're going to break up the clean lines of a MyBook, you need to use something pretty, and a segmented LCD display is not pretty.

Put an eInk or OLED matrix on there, and now you're talkin'. Oh, and make it thinner and longer, like an actual book spine.
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dingus promoted this comment macserv was starred macserv was unstarred

dingus
10/06/09

@macserv: These displays are probably cholesteric, which is kind of a precursor to e-ink. They're segmented because it's much cheaper to make than a full raster display. There's no way in hell they can justify $100 extra on their bill of materials to have a somewhat nicer display on a freakin' hard drive.

When the flexible, cheap, raster e-ink screens that have been talked about for years hits reality, I'll be the first to wrap one of these drives in one like a book cover.
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Odin
09/10/09

In reply to WD's Ever-Smaller External Hard Drives Bring Better Security and Incremental Backups
I have an old 320GB My Passport and 250GB My Book. While the My Book is nothing special (Lacie drives just feel more sturdy to me for the same size category) the My Passport is a brilliant little drive. It solves the biggest hassle I had with my old externals, while the drive itself wasn't overly massive they were still bulky and in addition you had to carry a cable and brick with it (adding the problem of finding a free socket wherever you wanted to set up).

The Passport however fits comfortably in a coat pocket and all you need is a mini-USB and you're set. My only gripe with it (though this may have been resolved in the new passports) is that WD provide you with a very short USB cable for it and the drive is very fussy about using other mini-USB/USB extension cables. To date I've found one extension cable that works with it. So yeah minor issue otherwise they're actually pretty damn good.
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Edited by Odin at 09/10/09 8:18 AM Odin was starred Odin was unstarred

Cash907Censored
08/16/09

In reply to Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
"Western Digital's decent WD TV was a moderately priced 1080p-pumping media player at $130. WD, apparently content to not mess with success, is preparing a slight feature update in the upcoming TV-2."

Slight update? Adding network support makes a great product absolutely perfect. There is nothing "slight" about that.

"and a component plug (for better picture quality on SD displays)."

OR early adopters like me, who own HDTV's built before HDMI became the new standard, and were pretty much fucked by the very movement we supported.

Christ, what is with your weekend writing staff Giz. Not only is this story almost word for word a cut/paste from Engadget's post, but you guys somehow managed to add an unhealthy amount of snark to a three short paragraph blurb. You all hung over this morning, or what?
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-zargon-
08/16/09

@Cash907Censored: "OR early adopters like me, who own HDTV's built before HDMI became the new standard, and were pretty much fucked by the very movement we supported."

HDMI has been on TVs for about 5 years now, it may be time to upgrade! I bought my first TV a little before DVI came out and a couple years before HDMI came out, I felt the same for a little while until I realized that my TV was 5 years old and I would just be better off upgrading the TV.

If you must continue to use your TV, look for a device that will output all the video to component, they are out there, but for the price, you probably are just better off buying a new tv...
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Cash907Censored promoted this comment -zargon- was starred -zargon- was unstarred

Cash907Censored
08/16/09

@-zargon-:
My TV is a 65" Mitsubishi, which I paid 7 grand for 6 years ago. To replace it, I would be looking to pay another 4 grand if I wanted to go flat panel, as the cheaper plasma's aren't an option because of the ambient light in my tv room. I could replace it with a similar sized DLP set for about half as much, but that would require me to A) invest a sizable amount on already obsolete technology, as well as B) spend about 200 bucks at least every 2 years or so on replacement lamps.

Beyond that, I don't feel that six years is enough of a return on a 7,000 dollar investment.
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Paul Fulbright
08/16/09

In reply to Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
Modest upgrades? It went from needing a USB HDD to being a network player. For me, that's the difference between "yes!" and "hell no!"

Also, DTS is a MUST, and I assume you meant decoding not encoding. So that's huge too.
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greenwald3132
08/16/09

In reply to Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
I think they should include directions on how to download a torrent in the manual, seeing how this could have no other use....
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drew00629
08/16/09

In reply to Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
i love my wdtv. you can stream over the internet wirelessly now if you have a dongle. no need to wait for a new one
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Ioncloud9
08/16/09

In reply to Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
Whats the difference between this and say an Apple TV or xbox media center extender?
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Cash907Censored
08/16/09

@Ioncloud9:
It works?
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Eruanno
08/16/09

In reply to Leaked Western Digital TV-2 Media Player Reveals Modest Upgrades, Codec Support
Ethernet? *Runs to the store*
Oh right. Not out yet. Damn.
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MePerson
07/27/09

In reply to WD Scorpio Blue Drive Is First One Terabyte Mobile Drive Ever—Yes, 1TB
Coming soon: the new iPod Classic 1TB! Up to 175 continuous days of your favorite music!
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VenomIreland
07/27/09

In reply to WD Scorpio Blue Drive Is First One Terabyte Mobile Drive Ever—Yes, 1TB
12.5mm is 2.5" right?
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MacBandit
07/27/09

@VenomIreland:

Wrong. 25.4mm in an inch. They are referring to the thickness of the HDD. Most 2.5" drives are 9.5mm thick and fit in any computer that uses 2.5" drives. These drives are 12.5mm thick and only fit in some laptops (mostly the thicker/bigger laptops that have the room to fit the larger size).
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VenomIreland
07/27/09

@MacBandit: Ah thanks. Very Strange size for a HD.
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FuturePastNow
07/27/09

@VenomIreland: 12.5mm is the thickness. Most mobile drives are 9.5mm thick.

This won't fit in very many notebooks.
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