| Article Index |
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| Western Digital 500GB My Book Premium ES Edition Review |
| Page 2 - Performance/Conclusion |
| All Pages |
Performance:
The performance of the drive when connected to an eSATA port is nothing short of brilliant, even slightly outperforming the SATA-II 250GB Seagate Barracuda ES we have on our test machine. The My Book recorded an average throughput rate of 69MB/s vs. the Seagate’s 67MB/s in a SiSoft Sandra’s File System Benchmark, and both drives had an average read performance of 81MB/s in SiSoft’s Hard Drive Benchmark. So here we have an external drive, that is as fast, if not faster than a desktop drive, all thanks to the eSATA connection, which I believe is one of the biggest steps forward in the external storage market.
There is still a USB2.0 port on the My Book for universal connect ability to any PC or laptop, even if they don’t have an eSATA connection. However if your PC does have an eSATA connection, it would be the one to use, as you still get the plug-and-play simplicity of USB, but with far greater transfer speeds.
Installation of the Western Digital My Book Premium ES is a snap, the drive is already partitioned and formatted (in FAT32 for compatibility with both Windows and OSX Macs) so just plug it in and it will appear in My Computer (or your OSX desktop) and you’re away, no drivers are required for either USB or eSATA modes so it couldn’t be easier. There is Retrospect backup software included both as install files on the drive itself as well as on a CD to make backing up all your files nice and easy.
Conclusion:
The 500GB My Book Premium ES Edition is a good looking and well made unit, that is blindingly fast thanks to the eSATA interface as well as being excellent value. Even if you made your own external drive with a 3.5” HDD and an external case you’d be hard pressed to beat this price with this level of quality. I’d highly recommend this for anyone looking for some bulk storage, who needs as high transfer speed as they can get.
OzHardware Rating – 9.5/10
You can purchase this product online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
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|203.206.162.xxx |2008-05-01 14:44:12 Chris Schaller - Unit overheats very easilyIf you were to place the unIt on top of or near your PC you might not think to make sure that there was adequate ventilation. By Adequate I mean more than usual. I thought i was being ultra careful, leaving a clearance of at least two inches but on an average heat summer day the unit died when it was idling. I was very disappointed as that was my main backup and file server. With no support from WD becuase the drive is physically ok, the allocation table was corrupted, I now have the daunting task of trying a quick format and recovering the data. I wont buy another unit unless it has cooling!
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|203.206.162.xxx |2008-05-01 15:03:22 Chris Schaller - Low Operating temperature LimitCan't believe the manual actually said to keep below 35 degrees. No wonder it died, am I supposed to keep it in the fridge?
Lets be realistic, on a mildly warm day am i supposed to not turn the drive on at all?
Environmental Specifications
Operating temperature 5°C to 35°C
Non-operating temperature -20°C to 65°C
