Western Digital's My Book is a desktop external hard drive that connects to a PC or Mac via FireWire, USB, or eSATA. Though targeted primarily to small or home offices, the external drive additionally includes backup software (in the Premium, Pro, and World versions) and could conceivably find use as an IT backup tool or as a backup device for home-based telecommuters, etc. The My Books are based on (include) the vendor's Caviar desktop drives, and currently range up to 2 TB of raw capacity in the dual drive versions.

The vendor bills the drives as plug-n-play ready; after plugging in the drive the necessary software (which is pre-loaded on the drive itself) is automatically installed. Additionally, the drive powers up/down automatically when the computer powers up and down; though the drive is powered by a separate AC adapter (included with the package) and not through the USB cable. For power-conservation, most editions go into standby mode after 10 minutes of inactivity.

The drives themselves resemble books and can be stood up or laid flat on the desktop. Multiple drives can be stacked on or next to one another. Both single and dual-drive (the "II" versions of the drives) My Books are available; the latter capable of RAID 1 mirroring.

Other features of the drive include a front panel LED to indicate drive activity, and, in the Premium and Pro versions only, an LED indicator that shows the drive's current used/free capacity. The Essential and Premium versions also include Google software for locating drive files and managing photos; and the World versions of the My Book include WD Anywhere Access, which enables file accessing and sharing from the drive directly over a network/Internet connection.

A key feature of the higher end drives (Premium, Pro, World) is the inclusion of backup software.

The Premium My Book includes the vendor's own WD Backup, with a wizard-based interface that allows for the backup of particular types of files (photos, videos, music, or specific file extensions) or specified folders in either full or incremental (files that are new since the last) backups. Scheduled backups are also supported.

The Pro versions of My Book include EMC Retrospect Express sporting both data backup and system (bare-metal) recovery capabilities. Bare metal recovery is facilitated for Windows via a bootable CD/DVD; while Mac recovery is via a bootable external hard drive. Other backup features include full data backup (O/S files and settings, device drivers, etc.), encrypted data backups, support for backup of open files (Windows XP), "Progressive" (differential) backups, point-in-time restores, backup scheduling, and archive support.

The Premium ES and World versions of My Book also include EMC Retrospect Express, but without the system recovery features.

The My Book is offered in four primary flavors: Essential, Premium, Pro, and World; with the Premium, Pro, and World editions all available in single or dual drive (with support for RAID 1 mirroring) configurations. The Essential version is offered only with a USB interface; while the Pro and Premium versions are offered with USB, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800 interfaces (Premium Edition II only; the single-drive Premium edition has only USB and FireWire 400). A specialized version of the Premium (Premium ES) supports eSATA or USB connections; and the World Editions are all accessible via Ethernet connectivity, only.

New to the My Book line is the vendor's announcement of their GreenPower (GP) line of drives; making their company wide debut in the My Book series this month. First available in the vendor's Caviar drives (in 1 TB capacities), the GP drives boast reduced power consumption by way of three primary technologies: IntelliPower, which the vendor describes as a tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and cache size; IntelliPark, which automatically unloads the heads during idle; and IntelliSeek, which calculates optimum seek speeds depending on the physical location of the target data on the disk. According to the vendor, the technologies combine to reduce power consumption per drive by 4-5 watts on average. The 1 TB Caviar GP drives debut first in the My Book offerings; with desktop Caviar GPs to follow in August. The vendor plans to introduce GP versions of their WD RE drives (drives targeted to RAID implementations) and WD AV drives later in Q3.

Visit the Western Digital Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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