I was pretty angry the last couple of days with this box (MYBOOK Studio Edition) but perhaps its my own fault because the package does say MYBOOK creative powre for the Mac. But iV eused other external drives aimed at Macs with PCs before so I didnt pay much heed to that, but I should have
Today I went out an purchased a Seagate Freeagent Extreme which doesnt say specifically for Mac or PC. Within five minutes of connecting to my PC through ESATA which is very fast (it also has Firewire and USB2) I was setting up a back up plan within minutes. Within a few hours its backed up over 500gb on sync plan. I am of course very pleased.
This is what I wanted the MYBOOK to do and in particular I purchased it for the ESATA connection. But it was never recognized by the ESATA ports on the PC, and the firmware and USB ports were transferring at a rate of about 200-300kb per second which is extremely slow.
Today I also took delivery of an Apple Imac not for the specific reason of using the MYBOOK…I purchased the IMAC to run a specific Apple only software Called Logic Pro. It was interesting to note that the second I plugged it in a little Western Digital Icon appeared without me installing anything. I still had issues trying to initialize the drive, format it etc because I had formatted and updated the MYBOOK on the PC non eof which really worked well. But it was clear to methat this drive is built and intended specifically for Mac users . There must be some sort of hardware chip or a section of the drive that holds some specific Apple Mac info. I did know when I purchased the drive six months ago that it was aimed at Mac users but I thought a drive is just a drive and as long as I format it for PC it will be fine. But that was not the case with the mybook. ANd why all the PC drivers/software and update firmware if it cant work well on a PC, because quite frankly it doesnt work well on PCs at all.
All is not well though. Upgrading the firmware on the PC corrupted a section of the drive. The Mac cannot erase it, verify it, or basically do anything with it. But I Have managed to rescue 80% of the drive. Right now Im using Apples time machine backup software (which is excellent) to back up stuff and the MYBOOK is working as it should be. Decent transfer rates through USB 2 (No ESATA on the Imac) and no western digital software installed at all.
So, the moral of the story is MY BOOK studio edition is not useable for PC’s in my honest opinion. Yes you will get it to work but it wont work like it does on a Mac. Teh best way to use it is to forget about its supplied back up software and drive manager software and just treat it as a drag and drop back up solution. WHen I did this the transfer rates were much faster but what I needed was a synced back up plan that can run in the background and update files as I change them or add new ones. Drag and drop means you cant do that. Im disappointed a section of the drive has been corrupted which was undoubtedly due to trying to get the drive to work with a PC, but at least for now I have something to back up on my Mac.
But I must say the Seagate extreme is an excellent choice for the PC user, particularly if you have ESATA connections, but even i fyou dont its a great little drive. I have a lot of confidence in it.
Im sure if I had started using the MYBOOK with a Mac in the first place I wouldn’t have had any of the problems I had trying to use it with a PC. BUt I must ask the question: Why all the PC drivers and software for it then when its clearly not intended for PCs. Yes, I know it will work to a certain degree but really only on a drag and drop capacity as if you were using it like a USB memory stick. I think WD should be a lot clearer about this, but the bottom line is sales and theres still a lot more PC users out there than there are Mac users. 94% of the worlds computers are PC.
I do think WD Could make the point a lot clearer that the MYBOOK is really for Mac users, but sales are sales and that’s the bottom line.
Thats all I have to say now. 
