Best Buy Ratings and Reviews

Despite its compact exterior and small footprint, this massive hard drive features 1TB of storage space for all your movies, music, data and more. This model meets our Professional Series criteria Shop all products in our Small Business Center Take a product tour.

Average Customer Rating:

3.9

out of

(14 Reviews) 14

Rating Snapshot 14 reviews

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

64% of customers would recommend this product to a friend

(

9 out of 14

)

Customer Reviews for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Review 1 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

So far - Perfect!

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: BuKaNoCo

from Lebanon, NH

on 12/29/2008

Value for Price

4.0

Ease of Use

5.0

Performance

4.0

Ease of Installation

5.0

After reading all the reviews here, I decided to take a chance. Now I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. This drive is perfect right out of the box. Super easy install. The included backup software is so good I might not use TimeMachine. I bought this drive to replace a dead WD Mybook Essential that died at 2 years. That one had a one year warranty. This one has five. My only gripe is that it seems a little busy. I'm not sure what it's up to yet, but it is very quiet. Two weeks ago this drive was $271. If anything changes I will update this post. So far a safe and good choice.

What's great about it: Set up was a snap. It was easier than I expected. At $199, a solid deal. Perfect match next to the new iMacs.

What's not so great: Plastic housing - just looks like metal.

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Review 2 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Solid and Stylish Hard Drive

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: Fenixfire077

from Hamptons, NY

on 10/21/2008

Value for Price

4.0

Ease of Use

5.0

Performance

5.0

Ease of Installation

5.0

Images for this Review

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I love the way this hard drive blends in with the aluminum on my Apple products. It really looks great. I use this as my Time Machine hard drive, and it's really solid! also, many people may not know this, but the dots and dashes on the western digital drives, are morse code, they spell out different adjectives about the product. just an interesting fact.

What's great about it: Beautiful Design, Ease of use, GREAT warranty!, Formatted for Mac, Matches Apple's aluminum styling

What's not so great: Slightly expensive when compared with similar drives.

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Review 3 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Do not buy this!

Customer Rating

1.0

Posted by: admente

from Cumberland, RI

on 08/29/2008

Value for Price

1.0

Ease of Use

1.0

Performance

1.0

Ease of Installation

1.0

The drive freezes constantly requiring to disconnect power. Unmounts by itself. Sometimes keeps mac from shutting down. Power button never worked. Horrible. I will never buy from Western Digital again. They should not have marketed this as mac compatible. Don't buy!

What's great about it: None

What's not so great: Unstable! Freezes and unmounts!

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

-2points

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Review 4 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Awesome!!!!

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: CPhoto

from Columbus, OH

on 07/23/2008

Probably one of the best storage devices that i have used to date... i am a digital photographer so one of my files may be up to 20 mb, having the firewire connection and the fast spin rate.... this makes life really easy when it comes to backing up information.... very secure... me and my customers know that if something happens to my computer i have a safe and secure storage device to pull from.... awesome.... will definitely buy more when expansion is needed....

What's great about it: Easy Interface with mac....fast with usb and even faster with firewire....

What's not so great: gets hot when doing larger data transfers....

I would recommend this to a friend!

+1point

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Review 5 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Has issues with Mac OS X Leopard

Customer Rating

2.0

Posted by: digitaledit

from Orlando, FL

on 05/24/2008

Have had problems with this drive since many attempts at installation. I did not discover the drive has issues with Leopard until opening the box. WD includes a slip of paper that congratulates your purchase of the My Book drive, and then tells you to search for a support article on their site to upgrade the drive to be compatible with Mac OS X Leopard.

I downloaded the firmware update they recommended to be compatible, but the upgrade aborted on its own halfway through the process. After several attempts and lots of troubleshooting, the drive is on but now dismounts by itself at random!

And despite WD's large knowledge-base, tech support's help response was to offer links to articles I've already found on my own, while troubleshooting the product.

I wanted to use this drive to backup my files, but I am seriously doubtful about its reliability. I'd rather just take this one back to the store and try a different manufacturer's product entirely (after some more research). This drive was pre-formatted to run on Mac out of the box, and it has issues.

Very disappointed...

What's great about it: Dual FW 800 ports, eSata, and USB 2.0; compact size

What's not so great: Confusing firmware upgrade requirements; issues with Mac OS X Leopard

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

+1point

1out of 1found this review helpful.

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Review 6 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Not what they say it is.

Customer Rating

1.0

Posted by: Doorgunner

on 05/13/2008

They won't let me write what I really think so... I don't recommend this product. It is not as described.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

-3points

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Review 7 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Great drive for time machine

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: OsoBuddy

from Columbia, MD

on 03/13/2008

Utter disaster (constant freezes on my G4) for about 4 days until I found the Studio Edition device manager and firmware updates on the WD web site "http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?item=WDH1Q10000N" for compatibility with Leopard and time machine. Works great now. Presume that WD has included the updates on drives made after Feb 08, if not, go to the web site.

What's great about it: With updates, works well with Leopard and time machine.

What's not so great: Cost. Lack of compatibility with Leopard was not mentioned.

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Review 8 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Excellent Value and Performance

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: BillytheKidd

from Denver

on 02/13/2008

I found this drive on sale and was did not hesitate to purchase. I use it for Time Machine on the Mac and it has worked like a champ. I have found that if I power the Mac and the drive at the same time it does not appear, but if I power the drive first and then power the Mac alll is well. I use the Firewire 800 connection (cable included) and have had no issues with the drive.

What's great about it: Great connections, firewire 400/800/ Esata/Usb2, Works great with Apple Time machine

What's not so great: Drive needs to be powered up before Mac or it does not power up

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Review 9 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Time Machine? Good luck.

Customer Rating

1.0

Posted by: Hodgi

from Olympia, WA

on 02/12/2008

I got this drive for my 15" Macbook Pro so that I could store my 180GB (and growing) collection of uncompressed RAW files from my dSLR. I also was planning on using it for my Time Machine backup.
When purchasing this drive I overlooked the fact that the drive was slow and only 5400 RPM.

First thing I did when I got the drive is to format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and had it write zero's to zero the drive and start on a clean slate. This took like 8 hours to do! I then put all my pictures on it from my other external drive and let it do the copy overnight.
I wasnt impressed with the speed of the drive very much when hooked up with Firewire 400 using the supplied Firewire 800 to 400 cable. I decided to see if I could get a little more speed out of the drive by using the eSATA interface instead (which the macbook pro doesnt have).

So I went back to Best Buy and bought a eSATA expresscard ($40) and eSATA cable ($20) both by PNY.
Initially the eSATA expresscard didn't work with my MacBook Pro. I located the drivers for Mac OS on PNY's website and then it worked! I was impressed with the speed increase of viewing and browsing files on the drive. So I decided to backup my machine next using Time Machine. I set it to backup and left it overnight.
In the morning the backup was complete but the drive was frozen and unresponsive. I was unable to eject it or anything.

When I tried doing another Time Machine backup a day later it ended in an error and didn't work. I tried many more times unsuccessful to do a complete error free Time Machine backup.

So then fearing it was something with SATA I tried going back to using Firewire 400 and it still was unable to do a Time Machine backup and ended with an error.

Long story short I am now taking all my photos off the drive and putting them back on my previous one and I am going to return this back to Best Buy along with the eSATA expresscard and cable.

What's great about it: Great choice of interfaces including Firewire 400 and 800, looks cool, matches my MacBook Pro, LED's are cool.

What's not so great: eSATA didnt work well with Leopard, drive freezes a lot, didn't work with Time Machine, FW400 requires a FW800-400 cable

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

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Review 10 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Great Device

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: byxaggie

from DFW, Texas

on 02/11/2008

I use this for backing up our company computer and for video editing. I have not have any real problems yet. It was a little tricky getting my computer to recognize it at first, but realized it was a user error. It is pretty picky about the process of turning it on and plugging it in. Great product.

What's great about it: Very fast and quiet.

What's not so great: I haven't found any yet.

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Review 11 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Affordable and Reliable

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: Icabod

from Denver, CO

on 02/10/2008

I purchased this product as and external storage drive for music and photos as well as finsihed video projects. The 5400rpm drives limit the capabilites for video editing but the drive appears fast and reliable. I am using the FW800 connection to a MacBook Pro and am very impressed with its performance. If you purchase when its on sale it is very affordable for what you get. I have not tried it with Time Machine yet but I presume it should work without any problems.

What's great about it: Affordable, Reliable, Pre-formatted for Mac, USB 2.0/FW400/FW800/eSATA connections

What's not so great: 5400rpm

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Review 12 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

So-so External HD

Customer Rating

4.0

Posted by: LanceK713

from Houston, TX

on 12/28/2007

Apart from freezing up periodically (while not in use), it's been OK. When it freezes up, the power button behind the unit is ineffective. You have to yank the AC. Not nice.
The FireWire 800 port is fast attached to my iMac. Full backups are still gonna take a while though, but USB would be way slower.
The software & drivers that came with the unit (which as you may have noticed is branded mainly for Mac systems) are unintuitive and I can't really even say what they do. There is a driver that is supposed to tell OS X how to monitor the unit (for what it isn't clear -- I suspect so the system is aware of the units current operating state). When I install this driver, there is no evidence of it anywhere and apparently no UI. I wonder if it even installed.
It's relatively quiet while not in use, and makes quiet seek noises (like a coffee percolator) when in use.
At first I attached it to my AirPort Extreme USB port so I could use it easily across the network, including from Windows, but quickly understood why Apple crippled support for this with Time Machine. Oh, yes, you can fool it into using this configuration, but it's pointless.
However, I did find that a better solution was to attach to my iMac (with FW800) and use the volume as a share through the iMac when using my Macbook Pro. So my Macbook Pro has the benefit of extra storage and trouble-free support for Time Machine.
Trouble-free, that is, until the unit seizes up. I'd say this happens every week or two. I just hope the unit lasts in spite of this flaw.

What's great about it: variety of ports, capacity, relatively compact size and good design

What's not so great: freezes up periodically

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

+2points

2out of 2found this review helpful.

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Review 13 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

Great Drive

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: hsatt

from CT

on 11/29/2007

I replaced a 500 GIG LaCie Drive with this drive on a Quad ppc Mac with Leopard. Installed in 30 seconds - immediately recognized in finder and was correctly formated at the factory. Immediately noticeable is that the drive makes no noise at all and is cool to the touch even after hours of use. The LaCie was HOT to the touch and made noise. XBench performance benchmark shows this drive with firewire 800 connectivity to score slightly better than the internal drives! This has to be the benchmark of price performance to beat for an external drive.

What's great about it: Fast, Quite, Cool Running, Small, Vertical or Horizontal Mounting

What's not so great: Auto power down is great, but takes a second to spin up if a file is called for on the drive.

I would recommend this to a friend!

+2points

2out of 2found this review helpful.

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Review 14 for Western Digital My Book Studio 1TB External USB 2.0/FireWire/eSATA Hard Drive

all the conections

Customer Rating

5.0

Posted by: jakefeb3

on 10/10/2007

this is probably the best external hd out there. It is one of the first hds to have all the connections. Noce.

What's great about it: It has every connection you could want

What's not so great: None

I would recommend this to a friend!

+3points

3out of 3found this review helpful.

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