Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: mybook, mirror, raid | Themes: Desktop Computers, Business Notebooks
3. Software
Before installing the WD Anywhere Backup, we simply loaded the Mirror Edition CD to our test PC and selected Raid Manager to find out how to switch between RAID 1 and RAID 0. The drive and software can be used with either a Mac or Windows operating system. The different modes are described as a tradeoff between capacity and safety.
Switching from RAID 1 to 0 takes about three minutes. The Manager informs you that it has to format the drive each time you switch between modes. The “Quick Format” option takes 30 seconds to complete. The WD Anywhere Backup Software, also on the Mirror Edition CD and free with the purchase of a WD My Book drive, took about 8 minutes to install on our PC. First, it asks you to select a drive on which to create the backup (obviously, choose the Mirror Edition). You can choose to keep as many modified versions of a file as you like — we chose two. We opted not to encrypt our data.
Next, you are prompted to choose the types of files or specific areas you’d like to set in your “backup plan.” You can choose from WD’s presets (called SmartPicks), or select your own partitions, drives, and folders.
We choose a random selection of file types (photos and browser bookmarks), as well as everything on another external hard drive connected to our test PC. This added up to about 258 gigabytes. To find the other external drive, we first had to remove it from a list of excluded items found under “advanced options” on the backup selection page. This page also told us how much space we had left on the Mirror Edition and how much space this first backup would take up.
The WD Anywhere Backup software presented us with option to delay the backup, or to get it started right away with the promise that it would consume moderate system resources and yield resources to other applications.
We started immediately, then closed the application, and saw that a tiny box in the lower right hand corner continued to list the names of files being backed up. This “desktop alert” can be deactivated. Once it is deactivated, there is no noticeable way to tell that the backup is ongoing save from an icon the system tray that keeps tabs on the status of the Mirror Edition drive. WD offers an add-on called Anywhere Access that allows for remote online access to backed up data. We did not test this software since a full version is not available to consumers with purchase of the Mirror Edition.
Software Score: 4/5
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it's not called a drive...the drives are inside...it's called an "enclosure"
Actually, it is an external drive.
It looks like Morse code, and you can desipher letters in the plastic, but they read nothing (just two lines, read forwards and backwards) ETENESTT, TTSEANETE, EHSETENT, TAETESHE. In Morse code, some letters (like A and N) use the same digits, just backwards
It looks like Morse code, and you can desipher letters in the plastic, but they read nothing (just two lines, read forwards and backwards) ETENESTT, TTSEANETE, EHSETENT, TAETESHE. In Morse code, some letters (like A and N) use the same digits, just backwards
It looks like Morse code, and you can desipher letters in the plastic, but they read nothing (just two lines, read forwards and backwards) ETENESTT, TTSEANETE, EHSETENT, TAETESHE. In Morse code, some letters (like A and N) use the same digits, just backwards
It looks like Morse code, and you can desipher letters in the plastic, but they read nothing (just two lines, read forwards and backwards) ETENESTT, TTSEANETE, EHSETENT, TAETESHE. In Morse code, some letters (like A and N) use the same digits, just backwards
Yeah, I know it's an external drive...the part you call the drive, in the article, as in, "handling the drive (moving it from place to place) and grasping the sides, the plastic walls creak a little bit and give slightly under pressure. You don’t want to stack anything on top of this drive.", is actually the "enclosure" or "housing"...as in ENCLOSING or HOUSING the drives.
Sure, I am nit picking, but say the drives are great and the electronics are fine, but the housing falls apart; you cannot then correctly state that the drive broke because the "drives" are still fine and would still work.
It’s tough to make a 2 TB external hard drive look cute.
from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_My_Book
The Morse Code message written into the drive case is made up of a selection of the words 'personal', 'reliable', 'innovative', 'simple', and 'design'.[15] The first occurrence of 'innovative' on the My Book Pro and My Book World Edition features an error and reads 'innovateve'.
I'm assuming they've kept the morse code message uniform throughout the mybook series.
royalcrown a word's meaning comes not from it's hard-line definition, but from how it's used by a majority of people. Language is not mathematics. Most people would call Western Digital's system here a 'drive'. They would not be wrong, and neither is Rachel, except in a technical sense. Calling it an 'enclosure' is not only incorrect in a technical sense it is incorrect in the way people speak; to most of us, 'enclosure' would mean something provided that you put things in to, not something that comes already filled.
If you want to nitpick then be right; Western digital calls it a system, and that's what it is - 2 hard drives in an enclosure with software and hardware so it can be used in a 'Raid 0 or 1' configuration. If you want to be right, technically, call it a 'hard drive system'. If you want to communicate correctly, then use the language people understand; most would call this device a 'drive' over an 'enclosure'. Western Digital calls it a 'System'. Since I like to be right technically and say things in a way most would understand, I'd call this thing an external hard drive backup system. Off the cuff, though, I'd call it a 'drive', certainly not an 'enclosure'.
It’sQuote : STILLQuote : tough to make a 2 TB external hard drive look cute.
It's not 2 1TB drives it's 2 2TB drives as with the mirror edition something gets copied onto 1 drive the "mirrored" on the other for data protection. Just thought I should clear that up. You may want to edit the article.