WD Introduces 6 TB External HDD to Support Increased HD Content Creation by Pros

[btarunr]

Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its My Book Studio Edition II dual-drive storage system with a massive 6 terabytes (TB) of storage to meet the capacity needs of today's creative pros and Mac enthusiasts who create, store, edit and archive large HD video and photo files. The new capacity provides users 33 percent more storage than the previous capacity, while maintaining the same footprint.

Combining its extended 6 TB storage capacity and compatibility with Apple Time Machine, the new My Book Studio Edition II drive becomes an instant storage solution for a variety of professions including art and design, photography, legal and medical, and a host of other small businesses.



The system offers a quad interface providing maximum performance and flexibility including eSATA and FireWire 800 when maximum performance is essential, and FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 when system flexibility is most important.

"Thanks to advancements in HD video devices including digital SLR cameras and HD video cameras, the quality and quantity of video content being produced by professionals and enthusiasts alike has grown at an astounding pace," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD's branded products group. "The My Book Studio Edition II drive now available with 6 TB of storage provides creative individuals with the expanded storage and bandwidth they need to effectively shoot, edit, and safely store their video productions without the need to compress their videos or reduce the overall quality of them for the sake of available space."

Extra-fast Performance and RAID Supported Configurations
Fast eSATA or FireWire 800 interfaces, combined with RAID-supported configurations, will yield the speed and responsiveness users need for a variety of tasks including fast, smooth video editing; rendering complex 3D objects or special effects, and saving/transferring enormous blocks of data in a fraction of the time it once took.

Formatted for Mac computers, these new storage systems feature:

• Massive 6 TB capacity;
• Extra-fast performance with four interfaces (FireWire 800/400, eSATA, USB 2.0);
• Cool, eco-friendly operation with WD's drives with WD GreenPower Technology that consume approximately one-third less power than standard dual-drive external storage systems and efficient convection cooling architecture and power-saving mode and designed without a fan to run quietly;
• Automatic and continuous backup software;
• User serviceability, enabling the user to open the enclosure and replace the drive inside;
• Capacity gauge to see at a glance how much space is available on the system; and,
• 5-year limited warranty.

Pricing and Availability
My Book Studio Edition II dual-drive storage systems are available now at WD's online store (www.wdstore.com). MSRP for the My Book Studio Edition II 6 TB drive is $549.99 USD.

[jsfitz54]

All these new releases that I'm seeing are not including the newest USB 3.0 standard.

WD is not the only maker that is on this trend.

Why don't these companies step up and use USB 3.0?... It is backward compatible.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by jsfitz54

All these new releases that I'm seeing are not including the newest USB 3.0 standard.

WD is not the only maker that is on this trend.

Why don't these companies step up and use USB 3.0?... It is backward compatible.

I assume they have shitloads of 2.0 connectors they have to use somewhere. ^^

[timta2]

Uh, it's obviously aimed at Mac users. There are NO macs with USB 3.0 as of yet. Can the drives in the enclosure really make USB 3.0 worthwhile on a device like this?

I think that part of it is that consumers (non-ethusiasts) don't really care about USB 3.0, as USB 2.0 is plenty fast for them and it's cheaper and already in the components they have.

[A Cheese Danish]

lol Not compatible with Mac OSX Tiger.
Cool that they have this large amount of storage available in one box.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by A Cheese Danish

lol Not compatible with Mac OSX Tiger.

Wut? Why is that? File system or something? Pretty stupid either way.

[Mussels]

am i the only one who gets annoyed at seeing "6TB drive" and then finding out its just two drives?

while this is the fault of the marketers and not btarunr, damn it pisses me off.

[wiak]

Originally Posted by timta2

Uh, it's obviously aimed at Mac users. There are NO macs with USB 3.0 as of yet. Can the drives in the enclosure really make USB 3.0 worthwhile on a device like this?

I think that part of it is that consumers (non-ethusiasts) don't really care about USB 3.0, as USB 2.0 is plenty fast for them and it's cheaper and already in the components they have.

well usb 3.0 will make it do do around 300 MB/s if they have RAIDED the internals, if not it will be around 100 MB/s, not to bad, considering that USB 2.0 only does 35 MB/s

[twicksisted]

no active cooling, no USB 3, no ethernet - FAIL

First thing i see is this thing breaking when it gets hot, then how is a HD content creation pro going to benefit in any way?... its slow, much slower than an internal drive and any Pro working with HD content will have an internal/external raid storage setup to handle the streaming bitrates etc... this really is crap, its just another external drive but it has a capacity of 6TB (wonder how long that would take to transfer over usb2)

[A Cheese Danish]

Originally Posted by Frick

Wut? Why is that? File system or something? Pretty stupid either way.

Dunno. Thats what the front of the box says.

Originally Posted by Mussels

am i the only one who gets annoyed at seeing "6TB drive" and then finding out its just two drives?

Agreed. The average person also does NOT know that 3x 2TB HDDs are cheaper than this.
Hell, even 2x 3TB HDDs are cheaper. You also have some money left over to buy a hot swap bay in the front of your case or whatever.

Originally Posted by twicksisted

no active cooling, no USB 3, no ethernet - FAIL

Can't say I disagree.