WD My Book Duo Review: The Best External Hard Drive?

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The majority of people nowadays are amassing ever-increasing volumes of personal data. For obvious reasons, storing it on a single computer drive doesn’t seem a pretty good idea. Therefore, we usually often choose to archive it to the cloud or other backup drives. Western Digital is eager to support these trends and offers a wide choice of personal storage solutions for you. That’s why today, we’ll be taking a closer look at one of their products, the WD My Book Duo.

If you’d like to find out more, just keep scrolling to read the rest of our review.

See Where The WD My Book Duo Ranks In Our Top Picks For The Best External Hard Drives For 2021.

Overview Of The WD My Book Duo

While Western Digital was not the first company to create dual-drive storage devices for the market, their My Book line definitely popularized the concept. The My Book Duo’s predecessors used to have slow USB 2.0 connections and disks that couldn’t be upgraded by the user.

However, that is no longer the case. Western Digital’s most recent designs, such as this one, have come a long way from their humble beginnings. They now offer USB 3.0 connectivity, interchangeable drives, and massive storage capacity that would have appeared unthinkable only a few years ago.

What’s more, it’s the first desktop external drive I’ve encountered in the market with a built-in USB hub and two USB 3.0 connectors. Apart from that, it also supports hardware RAID, it’s easy to repair internal hard drives, and has a large amount of expandable storage for your data. Finally, it provides quick performance, particularly when working in RAID 0, and it does so at a fairly reasonable cost.

In terms of storage, the My Book Duo boasts a staggering 3TB of storage space divided between two hard drives at a minimum, and identical models with up to 38TB of storage are also available if you need that much more storage.

It’s also important to remember that the My Book Duo isn’t the most portable drive available. If you’re searching for a smaller external drive to take with you on the move, this isn’t the best option. As a result, this is an external hard drive that should be utilized on top of a desk.

Features & Specifications

Dimensions: ‎6.3 x 3.94 x 7.09 inches (9.9 x 9.9 x 16.5 cm)
Item Weight: ‎6.9 pounds
Brand: Western Digital
Storage Capacity: 3 TB up to 38 TB.
Read Speed: 360 mbps.
Compatible Devices: Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7, Requires reformatting for other OS.
Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 1 Ready, USB 3.0
User manual here.

What’s In The Box

Desktop RAID Storage
WD Discovery™ software for WD Backup™, WD Security™ and WD Drive Utilities™
USB-C to USB-C cable
USB-C to USB-A cable
AC adapter
Disk replacement tool
Quick installation guide

Check Out Western Digital’s Preview Of The My Book Duo Below.

Check Out Our Top Recommendations For The Best External Hard Drives For 2021.

What We Love About The WD My Book Duo

Design

The latest My Book Duo from Western Digital has definitely seen an upgrade from its predecessors in terms of design. The new My Book Duo now looks like a thick, monolithic black book that is standing upright with a wavy pattern on the bottom half and a mirror finish gloss on the top half after the plastic cover has been removed.

This may not be something of importance to some of you but keep in mind that once the cover is removed, the material of the My Book Duo is rather a dust magnet. So if dust is something you don’t want to deal with on your work desk, this is something to consider. Personally, I find this aesthetic really premium-looking and sleek. As long as I have a duster nearby, I should have no problems.

Moving on, when the unit is turned on, a line of white light appears on the front of the unit and gradually pulses away to show signs of activity. USB Type-C is used to connect to your computer, and cables are available for both this standard and for converting a normal USB 3.0 port to the Type-C kind if you haven’t yet adopted the newer connector.

WD specifies that this is a USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, but fails to mention that this is the current name for USB 3.0. Even if the output of two conventional hard drives is arranged in striped RAID 1, that connection has plenty of bandwidth, and any excess bandwidth can be used by other devices connected via a USB 3.0 hub.

Additionally, one micro-USB 3.0 on the rear of the My Book Duo connects to the host computer via the provided foot-long USB cable. It also contains two USB 3.0 A-female connections, which can be used to connect up to two more USB devices to the host computer.

RAID & Software

The My Book Duo’s two internal hard drives are configured in RAID 0 for optimal performance and storage space. Though it’s best to always keep in mind that RAID 0 has one flaw: if one of the devices fails, the data on both drives is lost. So I highly suggest switching to RAID 1, which protects data from a single drive failure. This will ensure that your most important information is stored safely and not lost forever.

The accompanying WD Drive Utilities program allows you to adjust the RAID configuration as well as perform drive diagnostics, wiping, and formatting. It’s important to note that changing the RAID configuration wipes out all existing data on the device.

Apart from that, the My Book Duo supports RAID natively. This means it doesn’t rely on the operating system of the host computer to set up RAID and will allow the RAID configuration of the drive to work across platforms without needing to be reconfigured.

On top of that, a few useful programs are also included with the My Book Duo. There’s WD SmartWare, WD Security, and Acronis True Image WD Edition, in addition to the WD Drive Utilities. You may always get these from WD’s website in case you accidentally delete them from your My Book Duo.

Smart Features

Another great thing about the My Book Duo is that the power status of the external drive is shared with the host PC. Meaning, it switches to the same state as the computer, whether that is shutdown, sleep, or currently active.

This particular feature is available on most Thunderbolt devices, which is preferable to the drive going to sleep on its own. Also, thanks to this clever design, the My Book Duo is always readily available to the host and saves a lot of energy depending on how you set up your computer’s energy-saving features.

Performance

When it comes to performance, the My Book Duo doesn’t disappoint either. After all, it’s no good having a lot of storage space tied to your system if it’s hard to access and has a sluggish performance. This hardware, however, displays brilliantly what the WD Red WD100EFAX drives can achieve with 256MB of cache along with seven platters of spinning disks.

The basic mechanisms’ advertised transfer speed is 210 MB/s, and in JBOD mode, that’s virtually exactly what you get. RAID 0 striping boosts read and write speeds to 335MB/s and 317MB/s, whereas a RAID 1 mirror reduces read and write speeds down to 205MB/s and 208MB/s, mimicking its average JBOD speeds.

Even if much of the shine comes from Western Digital’s drive engineering department’s helium-filled wonders, this is impressively rapid for an external drive that isn’t an SSD.

Our Least Favorite Things

Form Factor

With such an impressive product like the WD My Book Duo, admittedly, it was pretty hard to find flaws and at this point, I’m just nitpicking. But if you’re looking for a more portable external hard drive to add to your arsenal, then the My Book Duo might not work for you.

While the design is definitely appealing, it’s not the most lightweight device in the market. Not to mention, you certainly won’t be able to easily shove this in your bag without putting in any real effort. Besides, would you really want to carry this monolith around as you travel? If the answer is no, then it’s best to find more portable and compact external drives to take with you on the go.

In A Nutshell

Now that we have discussed the things we liked and disliked about the WD My Book Duo, here’s a narrowed-down list of the good and the bad with this particular external hard drive.

Pros

USB-C compatibility.
Reliable 3-year warranty.
Inclusion of a 2-port USB 3 hub.
RAID 0 along with dual-drives for substantially faster performance than ordinary external drives.

Cons

Not the most portable external drive.
RAID 0 has no redundancy, so if one disk fails, you’re out of luck.

Our Final Verdict

All in all, I believe that the WD My Book Duo is simply one of the best external hard drives due to its advantage over other competing external drives. Not to mention, taking into account Western Digital’s careful selections to balance performance, versatility, price, and overall dependability.

Have you already bought your own external hard drive? Did our review help you out in deciding to get the WD My Book Duo? Let me know in the comments section below if you have any suggestions to share, insights, or questions to ask. I would love to hear all your thoughts!