Western Digital My Book Studio Edition review

Is this the solution to your backup needs?

26 November 2007 13:00 GMT / By Stephen Patrick

The PC in the typical home is becoming the hub for all our media – music, photos and videos, so it pays to have as much backup storage has possible. The My Book range is about at attractive as current external hard drives get.

As the name suggests, it's intended to look like a book, so won't look out of place on a shelf near you computer. To differentiate itself, this latest model is silver in colour but keeps to the same trim design.

This latest version raises the capacity stakes to an impressive 1TB – that's 1000GB of storage space, which should be more than enough for any one looking to do more than simply back up their hard drive.

Designed for use with Windows as well as Apple Mac machines, you'll find a nice array of ports of the back of the device. So there are two Firewire connections, covering 400 and 800 connections so it can be used with older machines, while for Windows machines you can opt for USB 2.0 of eSATA.

Choose your connection, plug in the power and hook it up to your machine and you'll find it's instantly recognised. This isn't just a high capacity drive, as Western Digital ships it with backup software, so you can use it for creating an exact copy of your PC's hard drive.

Verdict

We found Western Digital My Book Studio Edition a fast and effective device that connected easily and backed up files quickly.

At £200 (inc. VAT), the Studio Edition represents a great investment for anyone who is serious about the long-term storage of their data.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Western
Price as reviewed: £200
The good: Huge capacity, plenty of options
The bad: Quite expensive
Quick verdict: It’s got plenty of storage and works with a host of platforms, making this a near-perfect peripheral
Score