Michal Ždanský Towards the end of last year, Western Digital introduced several new USB 3.0 drives for Mac. Last year, Apple computers received a new USB interface that brought a much higher transfer speed, albeit lower than that offered by Thunderbolt. One of these discs is the revision of My Book Studio, which we had the opportunity to test.
Western Digital offers the drive in four capacities: 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB. We tested the highest variant. My Book Studio is a classic desktop drive designed for a stable location powered by an external source and offers a single interface – USB 3.0 (Micro-B), which is of course also compatible with previous USB versions and a MicroUSB cable can be connected to it without any problems.
Processing and equipment
The Studio Series features an aluminum construction that blends in perfectly with Mac computers. The outer shell of the disc is made of a single piece of anodized aluminum that has the shape of a book, which is why it is also called My Book. On the front there is a small hole for a signal diode and an almost faint Western Digital logo. The aluminum plate surrounds a black plastic "cage", which then houses the disc itself. It is a 3,5″ Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 with a speed of 7200 revolutions per minute. On the back we find the connector for the power adapter, the USB 3.0 Micro-B interface and the socket for attaching the lock (it is not included in the package). The disc stands on two rubber bases that dampen any vibrations.
My Book Studio is not a crumb, thanks to the aluminum casing it weighs a respectable 1,18 kg, but the dimensions (165 × 135 × 48) are favorable, thanks to which the disk does not take up much space on the table. One of its nice features is its quietness. The use of aluminum probably also serves to dissipate heat, so the disk does not contain a fan and you practically cannot hear it running. In addition to the disc itself, the box also contains a 3.0 cm USB connecting cable with a USB 120 Micro-B end and a power adapter.
Speed test
The disk is pre-formatted to the HFS+ file system, i.e. native to the OS X system, so you can start using it right out of the box, it can of course also be reformatted to Windows file systems (NTFS, FAT 32, exFAT). We used a utility to measure the speed AJA system test a Black Magic Speed Test. The resulting numbers in the table are the average values measured from seven tests at 1 GB transfer.
[ws_table id=”13″]
As expected, the USB 2.0 speed was standard, and other lower-end WD drives achieve the same speed. Most interesting, however, were the USB 3.0 speed results, which were higher than, for example, the portable drive we reviewed My Passport, by almost 20 MB/s. However, it is not the fastest drive in its class, it is surpassed by, for example, a cheaper one Seagate BackupPlus, by roughly 40 MB/s, yet its speed is above average.
Software and evaluation
As with all Western Digital drives for Mac, the storage contains a DMG file with two applications. First application WD Drive Utilities it is used to diagnose the state of SMART and the disk itself. It also offers the option of setting the disk to sleep, which is useful, for example, when using it for Time Machine, and finally formatting the disk. Unlike Disk Utilities however, it only offers HFS+ and ExFAT file systems, which OS X can write to. Second application W.D. Security is used to protect the disk with a password if it is connected to a foreign computer.
We thank the Czech representative office of Western Digital for lending the disc.
What about transfer speeds via firewire 800?
The drive has only USB, FireWire, it was, as I mentioned, in the previous generation.
And how does the speed of firewire800 compare to USB3.0?
We only had the newer version available, but the difference will be approx. 60-70 MB/s.
The fundamental difference is mainly in the load on the CPU to the detriment of USB.
I have the previous generation with FW800 and 3TB, total satisfaction. It differs a little in terms of design – it is all-aluminium, whereas this USB 3.0 is, I see, black on the back and top (probably also the bottom). Is that plastic? That they would save? :)
Yes, it's plastic.