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Mac users steer clear of Western Digital My Books

wlaidlaw

By wlaidlaw
in Digital Forum

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wlaidlaw

wlaidlaw

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I have just had the IT day from hell. I bought a new Western Digital My Book Essential II 500Gb external HD. My existing Connectland 250 Gb which backs up both my iBook and iMac plus stores all my DNG's was nearly full. I copied and verified all the contents of the old 250 Gb drive to the new WD one using Chronosync, intending to then delete the back ups from the old drive but have duplicate sets of the DNG's, as these are not stored on any of the Macs. All seemed to go fine and everything copied across by 11PM yesterday. I then put all the systems into sleep as usual. This morning, when I fired everything up, the WD drive would not mount nor would any of the usual disk utilities help. The drive was shown as having total input output failure. I then found that the old Connectland drive appeared to be empty. Finally everything ground to a halt, both the iMac to which the WD was connected via USB and the networked iBook totally locked up. On restarting them from the Tiger DVD, the hard drives had been damaged on both but were repairable. On the old external HD, the FAT seemed to have been wiped and would not re-create. The WD was as dead as a dodo and has been sent back for a refund. I am currently running Data Rescue II on the old ext HD in the hope of finding my DNG's. I spoke to a very helpful German Lady at WD and she seemed to imply that there could be a compatibility problem between WD My Book II and Macs. The file system is FAT32 and you cannot reformat to HFS - I suspect this is the root of the mess. I think I will buy an Iomega, which has Mac as it's primary OS with Windows compatibility as an afterthought.

 

Wilson

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stunsworth

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Hi Wilson, my commiserations. That's the nightmare we all hope to avoid.

 

If you had problems with two external drives - one corrupt, the other reporting that it's empty, doesn't that imply that the source of the problem lies somewhere other than the new hard drive? Cable problem or USB port maybe?

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wlaidlaw

wlaidlaw

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Hi Wilson, my commiserations. That's the nightmare we all hope to avoid.

 

If you had problems with two external drives - one corrupt, the other reporting that it's empty, doesn't that imply that the source of the problem lies somewhere other than the new hard drive? Cable problem or USB port maybe?

 

Steve,

 

Everything went haywire while the WD drive was connected and everything, other than the missing FAT is working fine now it is disconnected. I am 100% sure that it was at fault. In four years of having Macs, I have never seen anything like that. It looked just like a nasty Virus in Windows. I have an up-to-date copy of Intego Virus Barrier X4 running, so I am assuming it is not a virus.

 

Wilson

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wlaidlaw

wlaidlaw

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Wilson, have you used LaCie drives? They have very nice prices in their refurb section.

 

Bill,

 

Unfortunately the Online seller from whom I bought in France CDiscount, does not offer Lacie or Buffalo, which would now be my choices. They may give me a refund or it may be a credit, I just don't know yet. I think I might go and buy a Buffalo from the Apple shop in St Rafael and get the Iomega as an additional HD if I only get a credit. The way file/image sizes are going, you just can't get enough HD's. My daughter has her eye on the Connectland (Maxtor HD) anyway. I would just need to reformat it from HFS to FAT32, as she is the last family stop out not using Mac or Red Hat Linux.

 

Wilson

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4season

4season

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The Iomega Netstor and LaCie's networked drives are all based on a version of the Windows operating system, for what it's worth.

 

I purchased a Excito "Bubba" mini server. It was about the smallest and most energy-efficient server I could find, and quiet too, because it has no fan. I installed a 500 gigabyte Seagate hard drive into mine: Besides the 5-year Seagate warranty, it's got a fluid main bearing, so what noise it does make is pretty inoccuous. You can't really tell from the photo, but server's housing is barely large enough to wrap around the hard drive.

 

The internal OS is based on Debian Linux, so you are free to hack with it as you please.

 

As shipped from the factory, it has Mediatomb and Firefly pre-installed: Drop your photos and movies into the appropriate folders and devices like Sony's Playstation 3 will detect them over the network (but won't display DNGs, sorry) And Firefly shows up as another shared iTunes library.

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wlaidlaw

wlaidlaw

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The Iomega Netstor and LaCie's networked drives are all based on a version of the Windows operating system, for what it's worth.

 

I purchased a Excito "Bubba" mini server. It was about the smallest and most energy-efficient server I could find, and quiet too, because it has no fan. I installed a 500 gigabyte Seagate hard drive into mine: Besides the 5-year Seagate warranty, it's got a fluid main bearing, so what noise it does make is pretty inoccuous. You can't really tell from the photo, but server's housing is barely large enough to wrap around the hard drive.

 

The internal OS is based on Debian Linux, so you are free to hack with it as you please.

 

As shipped from the factory, it has Mediatomb and Firefly pre-installed: Drop your photos and movies into the appropriate folders and devices like Sony's Playstation 3 will detect them over the network (but won't display DNGs, sorry) And Firefly shows up as another shared iTunes library.

 

Jeff,

 

I am not currently looking for a network drive but for a straight Firewire connected one. Apple recommends LaCie, Iomega and Buffalo. Given my experience of today, I want a drive I can format as HFS not FAT16 or 32.

 

Wilson

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miami91

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I can highly recommend G Technologies drives ( G-TECHNOLOGY - External Storage Built on Performance, Reliability and Style ). I have a 1 terabyte G-Raid (a raid 0) and a 1 terabyte G-Safe (raid 1). I use the G-Raid for backing up my Mac and use the G-Safe for photos (no backup needed --- mirrored drives). Their stuff is expensive, but very high quality, and IMO this is not an area to skimp on costs. In addition to their online store, many quality resellers also stock their products (B&H, for example).

 

Jeff.

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4season

4season

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I am not currently looking for a network drive but for a straight Firewire connected one. Apple recommends LaCie, Iomega and Buffalo. Given my experience of today, I want a drive I can format as HFS not FAT16 or 32.

 

Got a bunch of the aluminum-cased LaCie drives (not the Porsche drives) at the office, and they've worked fine, though standing it vertically is a little bit risky!

 

At some point, you may also want to consider using Sun's ZFS, which is supposedly an option with OS X 10.5 "Leopard": Looks very interesting, and it's more of an open standard than Apple's HFS+.

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stephengilbert

stephengilbert

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I, too, can recommend the G-Tech drives. I bought a G-Safe when they first came out, and had some trouble with it, and they immediately sent me a new one, along with a shipping label that allowed me to return the old one. They were very helpful and apologetic. The new one works perfectly, and looks cool, too.

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wlaidlaw

wlaidlaw

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I just reformat them to mac journaled extended and not a issue at all.

 

Guy,

 

That is what I assumed I could do. Maybe it was an early sign of the problems with that particular drive but it came up with the message "format not permitted" when I tried that. It is normally the first thing I do when I get an external HD, as apart from anything else it wipes all the proprietary rubbish they put on them. I have ended up ordering last night, a RAID 0/1 Firewire Freecom Datatank 1TB drive. If I get a credit rather than a refund from CDiscount, I will just buy HP B9180 carts.

 

Wilson

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Guest GuyMancusoPhoto

Guest GuyMancusoPhoto

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That is what surprised me is you could not do that from the start. I do know they say on the box Mac and PC too from memory.

 

I see some folks are not working with fans. I highly recommend fans. The science may say not but i lost several drives to heat. i just won't work without fans anymore. To me heat and lots of it will just wear down electronics. Now a engineer may say differently but I am going by logic. Heat kills. it surely wears me down

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wlaidlaw

wlaidlaw

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That is what surprised me is you could not do that from the start. I do know they say on the box Mac and PC too from memory.

 

I see some folks are not working with fans. I highly recommend fans. The science may say not but i lost several drives to heat. i just won't work without fans anymore. To me heat and lots of it will just wear down electronics. Now a engineer may say differently but I am going by logic. Heat kills. it surely wears me down

 

 

Guy,

 

Initially the WD My Book seemed to work perfectly well and I managed to copy all the files across even though it would not allow me to re-format the disc. I did a random check to see that files were all as they should be and it seemed fine. It was the next morning when I woke the iMac from sleep that all hell broke loose. First the WD would not mount and showed up as broken in disc utility and then I started to get problems with the iMac for about 10 minutes until it locked up. My iBook was open when I awakened the iMac so it automatically networked in. I needed urgently to send a fax, so until I could sort out the iMac, I tried to use the iBook and it very quickly succumbed to the same problems. Both machines needed restarting from the OS DVD and running a full HD repair. Since I disconnected the WD both have behaved impeccably. I have managed to recover all my DNG's from the Connectland external HD, which had its FAT wiped but they all have funny names like T3920x2638-00467.dng rather than L1001871.DNG.

 

Wilson

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Guest GuyMancusoPhoto

Guest GuyMancusoPhoto

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Really sounds like a USB connection with the My Book. Now the name change really has me baffled. This is weird to say the least. At least happy to hear you got your files back , that is the important part

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Bill W

Bill W

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I have a Mac G5 dual 1.6. I added an additional drive in the open bay. It is a WD 500gig. I formatted it as Mac Journal extended. I am using this as a back up for my data on the primary drive that came with the computer. My question. Is this a good way to back up my important data, principally my photo files. Obvioulsy since it is my hobby, I do not have the capacity needs that a professional does. I figured if the primary drive fails, I have the back up and I can just pop it out and move to a new computer. I bought two of the WD drives with the intent of using them when I buy my new system a MacPro and I will have three drives in it. Any syggestions or help appreciated as usual. Mac offers a raid card as an option in the Macpro for a mere $900.....

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