Where can i find a clear procedure for getting My Book Duo RAID up and running on Mac?

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I have a brand-new My Book Duo, 8 TB version, ready and waiting for me to set it up on my LAN for network access by my Mac computers running Mavericks. I’ve set up many external drives in the past - but I am finding the WD user manual and various help pages to be VERY confusing. The user manual says to reformat the drives as HFS+J and then to reinstall “WD Drive Utilities and WD software and disk image” - and that’s it. No more help than that. So . . . 

  1. I assume I can  just hook the unit up via USB to my Mac and use iPartiion to reformat the drives, assuming each of the 4T drives will be seen by iPartition as a separate drive. That much seems straighforward.

  2. Is my next step to reinstall the WD software and how do I do that? I’ve downloaded the Drive Utilities and Securities install apps - I assume I just run these with the drive still connected and that’s all I need to do?

3) What about the firmware update for Mac - when should I run that??

  1. And what about the “Quick View” software for Mac - is that optional & I don’t need to bother with it unless I want it??

  2. And what about the “My Book Live Duo Setup” app for Mac - is that for a completely different model? What’s the difference between “My Book Live Duo” and “My Book Duo”? It’s these little things that I find so confusing. 

  3. Lastly, when I have all the software installed, is that when I follow the procedure described in the Knowledge Base article ID 5724, “How to install a My Book Live or My Book Live Duo on Windows (8, 7, Vista, or XP) or Mac OSX for the first time”? Or is that procedure only for “My Book Live Duo” but not for “My Book Duo”?? 

Thanks for any help you can give - 

Randy Burgess

2

Welcome to the WD Community.

1) I assume I can  just hook the unit up via USB to my Mac and use iPartiion to reformat the drives, assuming each of the 4T drives will be seen by iPartition as a separate drive. That much seems straighforward.

Yes, and in case you ipartition dont see the unit properly, you can use the disk utilities on your Mac and you will be able to reformat the unit to make it compatible with your system.

2) Is my next step to reinstall the WD software and how do I do that? I’ve downloaded the Drive Utilities and Securities install apps - I assume I just run these with the drive still connected and that’s all I need to do?

Yes, just run the applications.

3) What about the firmware update for Mac - when should I run that??

Normally, firmware updates are released to fix any issues that you might encounter on the drive. the latest one was released on 9/24/2014 and it fixed an issue with the drive dropping off of the list after system wakes up from standby mode. 

5) And what about the “My Book Live Duo Setup” app for Mac - is that for a completely different model? What’s the difference between “My Book Live Duo” and “My Book Duo”? It’s these little things that I find so confusing. 

Those are different units. The MBL Duo is a NAS (Network attached system) and the My Book Duo is a DAS (Direct attached system)

6) Lastly, when I have all the software installed, is that when I follow the procedure described in the Knowledge Base article ID 5724, “How to install a My Book Live or My Book Live Duo on Windows (8, 7, Vista, or XP) or Mac OSX for the first time”? Or is that procedure only for “My Book Live Duo” but not for “My Book Duo”?? 

That procedure is for the network units, not for your drive.

1 Like