WDTV (Gen1) and Mybook Essential 3TB

Does this 3TB drive work with original WDTV gen 1?

I heard there was a problem with drives over 2TB for the WDTV.

Yes. All WDTV players not support more than 2Tb storages (exclude network connections for WDTV Live).  in 2010 year! Amazing, but it’s true. thereby WD disgrace oneself.

I have 4tb capacity on WD My Book Studio Edition II storage and it can not use with WDTV player!!! thank you WD for this :cry:

That’s not true…  The Live and Hub support > 2TB…

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Okay, so does that mean there been official confirmation that this drive doesnt work with WDTV Gen1 ? Either from WD themselves or from someone who tried it?

That really **bleep** if true. They are losing sales in that case.

Yes, there is an official statment, here:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/Seagate-3tb-hard-drive-not-recognized/m-p/71062/highlight/true#M14902

No, they’re not losing sales…  This product hasn’t been sold by WD in over a year, though there are still retailers out there that are selling old stuff…

I was referring of course to sales of the 3TB Mybook essential.

I would buy one for my WDTV but obviously if it doesnt work then I won’t, hence that is a lost sale.

I hope the packaging of the 3TB Mybook clearly explains that it is not compatible, otherwise I expect many people will buy it and then have to return it when they find out it doesnt work.

Thanks for the link, I guess that settles it.

Uh, OK…   What would you have them say on the box?

“Warning: This product is not compatible with devices that aren’t compatible with 3TB drives.”

That’s one of those things that kinda “Goes without saying.”   And, of course, expecting them to list every device that it does NOT work with is, well, completely unreasonable…  ;)

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It does NOT ‘go without saying’. If it did then I would not have started this thread. And I am sure it is not the only one that has or will be started.

Most people don’t know anything about drive limitations or issues with drives >2TB. Not everybody spends their life hanging out on WD forums and making thousands of posts per year.

Most normal people would just go into a store and see a WD 3TB drive and think ‘that’ll go nice with my WD TV’.

So yes, if a WD drive is not compatible with a WD media player then OF COURSE they will need to say something on the box. 

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farstep wrote:

Most normal people would just go into a store and see…

See?  There’s the problem.  Most people I know would check what they can and can’t use before just running off to the store and grabbing the first thing they see and then being all mad that it’s wrong.  I guess they’re not normal.

The WDTV list of compatable devices doesn’t list any 3TB drives… that should be a big clue.  The WDBACW0030HBK certainly isn’t listed as being tested and verified as being compatable.

They don’t need to say on the box every device it will and won’t work with, because they can’t possibly do that.  The shopper needs to make sure they buy something they can use.  WD isn’t in the babysitting business.

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This silly altercation, I like the user to don’t care about these technical details. 3-4tb in 2010 year it’s not a luxury, i’ts a commonness. Commonness for a home media devices!!!

  

 I need not know that in 2010 the leading company of hard drives does not know what is GPT (only MBR) or something like that.

 Again, I repeat, it is a shame for such global world company as WD.

Nothing difficult to support large HDDs by USB do not. Need only respect to consumers, at all.

I have WDTV gen1 and WDTV gen2 too. Almost a year there is not any support or improvements. nothing firmware update.

Hmmm…

“This device we’re building might not work with something developed a few years from now… we should make sure it’s forward-compatable with everything that can ever possibly be built in the future…”

Doesn’t seem like a reasonable expectation to have for any company.

Every time Microsoft has a new operating system and older programs aren’t compatable with it and you need a new version of the program to work under the new Windows, do you complain that the old programs didn’t forsee, and design for, the parts of Windows that are incompatable?  Grumbling over the fact that it doesn’t work, is one thing, but grumbling that the program didn’t forsee future changes that were out of their control is unrealistic and futile.

Cars that ran on leaded gasoline didn’t forsee the future switch to unleaded gas, either.

Whether it’s a 3TB MyBook Essential or a 4TB MyBook Studio II, they’re not listed as being compatable with the WDTV HDs… for the Studio II they even specify “up to 2TB”.

The knowledge that the drives wouldn’t work was readily available to anyone who cared to look for it.

RoofingGuy wrote:

See?  There’s the problem.  Most people I know would check what they can and can’t use before just running off to the store and grabbing the first thing they see and then being all mad that it’s wrong.  I guess they’re not normal.

 

The WDTV list of compatable devices doesn’t list any 3TB drives… that should be a big clue.  The WDBACW0030HBK certainly isn’t listed as being tested and verified as being compatable.

 

They don’t need to say on the box every device it will and won’t work with, because they can’t possibly do that.  The shopper needs to make sure they buy something they can use.  WD isn’t in the babysitting business.

If Western Digital don’t update the firmware anymore, and have all but removed the device from the website, why would anyone assume they update the compatibility list?!

And if they don’t update the compatibility list, then of course there are no 3TB drives on it, since they were not on the market when WD released the WDTV Gen1.

So there is no logic to your answer.

farstep wrote:

 


RoofingGuy wrote:

See?  There’s the problem.  Most people I know would check what they can and can’t use before just running off to the store and grabbing the first thing they see and then being all mad that it’s wrong.  I guess they’re not normal.

 

The WDTV list of compatable devices doesn’t list any 3TB drives… that should be a big clue.  The WDBACW0030HBK certainly isn’t listed as being tested and verified as being compatable.

 

They don’t need to say on the box every device it will and won’t work with, because they can’t possibly do that.  The shopper needs to make sure they buy something they can use.  WD isn’t in the babysitting business.


 

If Western Digital don’t update the firmware anymore, and have all but removed the device from the website, why would anyone assume they update the compatibility list?!

 

And if they don’t update the compatibility list, then of course there are no 3TB drives on it, since they were not on the market when WD released the WDTV Gen1.

 

So there is no logic to your answer.

 

 

And since when WD has an obligation to update the firmware or compatibility list of a legacy, discontinued device which had its market role replaced with a physically better unit? How can you confirm that the unit’s current firmware is unable to exploit all of the features that the physical components allow the unit to perform? 

There are limitations that firmware is unable to overcome, hence, a new, better unit is needed to acomplish new functions. You can’t blame WD because a 2010 product works with another 2010 product, but not with a discontinued 2007 one.

ThePizzaMatrix wrote:You can’t blame WD because a 2010 product works with another 2010 product, but not with a discontinued 2007 one.

    • *> The WDTV gen1 was released in very late 2008 (most reviews are dated December), not 2007.> They arent obliged to update firmware or compatibility lists, but if the 3TB drive is not compatible then im not buying it, so the only one losing out is Western Digital. And if I had gone and bought it in a store (as im sure many WDTV owners will) only to find out it didn’t work, I would not be impressed. It would make me less likely to buy a WD product again.> I look around various forums and I see a lot of WDTV (gen 1, gen 2, Live) owners unhappy with updates or product support. It seems WD is only interested in putting out new units and abandoning the old ones as soon as possible. This might be more profitable in the short-term, but in the long term it will do a lot of damage in terms of customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Lost sale here too. I’d like 3TB of space but I won’t be buying any hard drives (3TB or othewise) until my other computery stuff supports 3TB. It’s not entirely WD’s fault though. There’s a very high chance that your computer won’t be able to use a 3TB drive either. It’s just the way it is. I’m very unimpressed at how unadvertised this issue is though.

Ok, actually there is a problem and it’s popping up on the web.  I recently purchased the WDTV Live Hub which I was running a 1TB and a 2TB WD drives for my movies and TV shows.  Well I got the bright idea to purchase a brand new shiny WD 3TB drive to just be able to run one drive.  Well it worked for a while about 5-10 viewings then all of a sudden all the files were unreadable or as the screen said in unsupported formats. All the same movies that were on the 2 drives previously.  I ejected the unit and connected it to my Windows 7 PC and all the files were listed there but were showing sizes of 0KB for all of them and the total size of the drive was only 1.74TB and listed as corrupted/unplayable.  So I formatted the drive thinking maybe something was just wrong.  Spent the next 24 hours copying the movies back onto the drive from the original drives again.  Hooked it up to the Live Hub and once again after 3 days of playing just fine turned the unit on and everything was listed as corrupted again.  Took the drive and the Live Hub back to Best Buys thinking something may be wrong with the units.  Got them replaced did the whole process again and once again files became corrupted.  So apparently there is a problem with the WDTV products working together.  I sent an email to WD Support but have not heard back from them yet.

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