Western Digital MyBook: 250GB Pro or 320GB Premium

I was wondering if anyone has a MyBook external hard drive made by Western Digital. I'm needing extra storage and backup for my photos and am looking at MyBooks.

I'm trying to decide between two particular models. For anyone who doesn't know about them, let me give a brief description:

1. MyBook Premium 250GB: 7200rpm drive, 1 USB 2.0 connection, 2 Firewire 400 connections, 1 year warranty, Basic WD Backup software.
   
2. MyBook Premium 320GB: 7200rpm drive, 1 USB 2.0 connection, 2 Firewire 400 connections, 1 year warranty, Basic WD Backup software, $40 more than #1.
   
3. MyBook Pro 250GB: 7200rpm drive, 1 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire 400, 2 Firewire 800, 3 year warranty, EMC® Retrospect® Express software, $30 more than #2, or $70 more than #3.

I bought a 250 from B&H for $114. I don't think Firewire will be the new standard unless they've made some changes. i see less and less with firewire and as i recall it is slower than USB2.0. I could be out of date though...

I would go with the firewire 800 also. I have a my book, but without firewire. It's a good drive, but if I had to do it over again, I'd go with Seagate, which is regarded as the best hard drive made.

mark

If you MUST go for West Digital, go for #3.. I have 6 WD hard drives that have failed in a year or less (Not all ones I bought, ones I got from retail machines and 2 I did buy.) WD wouldnt offer any kind of warranty work, even though the things were built less than a year from the date of failure, and only recommended "upgrades".. Oh, you can buy a Raptor.. Yea, ok..

What I am getting at is the 3 yr warranty is well worth the extra by itself.. Plus the firewire 800

I've used WD drives off and on for years and have never had a problem. I agree that the 3 year warranty is attractive, and the Firewire 800.

I didn't mean to imply that Firewire 800 was going to "take over" other types, I guess I meant to say that it is the fastest as of right now.

I'm worried that I'm going to regret not getting the extra 70GB, although I've heard some people say that when they install some of their larger drives that the OS doesn't recognize it as being the "advertised" size. Something to do with the way each company deals with the size issue. I merely glanced at the info while I was looking for something more specific.

I have the My Book 250 Premium and it's a fine drive. It's fast and quiet and I've never had any problems. I also own a pocket sized Western Digital Passport (120 GB) and I love it.

Get the best you can afford. Best Buy has sales every single week. Sometimes they have amazing savings.

I believe that subdividing data onto somewhat smaller drives will result in less lost data one day in the future, when a drive fails. So two 250GB drives would be better than one 500GB drive, according to that logic.

newegg.com has great deals on externals. Here's a link to some of the WD's they have on their site. I have the 500gb...works just fine.

AccidentalArt wrote in post #2489025
i see less and less with firewire and as i recall it is slower than USB2.0. I could be out of date though...

On paper, USB 2.0 is slightly faster than firewire but everything I've seen says that firewire (400) is still faster in reality. Here's one example of what I've read: http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

Michael

i have the 1TB mybook pro. i'm a fan.

awad wrote in post #2491965
i have the 1TB mybook pro. i'm a fan.

TB...now that's where it's at! That's my next purchase...once my 500gb fills up. And imagine, just 3-5 years ago, thinking about picking up a 500gb external drive would have cost you and arm and a leg...now it just costs a toe or two.

I'm in this same situation. I picked up a Seagate 400GB external hard drive yesterday from BestBuy. It was 199.00 . After I got home I checked Amazon and their price was 5 bucks more, so the price was right. However, there were 47 reviews and 42 were negative. Most were almost a year ago. I have not opened the box and was wondering what my options would be. I saw the MyBooks... I see that earlier in this thread MDJAK said look at Seagate, I just want to see some more opinions on the 2(mybook and seagate) or more hard drives that are out there.

I have had the WD 250GB Pro My Book for about 6 months now (or close to it) and have had no problems with it other then trying to figure which side was up (my not paying attention) and it shut itself down to prevent over heating. After a bit of checking I noticed the vent holes were only on one side, that fixed the problem.

I have over the past 4 years bought about 7 WD drives (2 internal, 5 external (1 My book ) ) and have only had a problem with one and am not sure if it the drive or the enclosure I put it in causing the problems - it works but sometimes does not copy data correctly. And to add to my opinion, it is my plan to go out and purchase another My Book Drive or two in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile as to USB2.0 vs firewire 400. My experience is USB2.0 goes about 10% faster then firewire for transfering files. I don't have firewire 800 on my machine so don't know how much faster that would go. So given other says firewire is faster, I would have to guess it is machine dependent.

Well, I have decided to go with a MyBook. I have placed an order for a 250GB MyBook Pro drive from a company here in Canada. Looking forward to having more space and something to backup my photos on. Will let everyone know what I think about it when I get it.

Thanks again for your advice and experiences!!