My Book Duo 4TB for MAC

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I have a Mac mini with 256SSD in which I store my iTunes library. I now need a (much) larger external drive to transfer my library to. Amazon has the subject external drive for $219.99, a great price. So I reviewed the WD tech support instructions for reformatting the drive for a Mac. Easy to follow but I have a few questions:

I plan on using the two drives as independent drives. Do I have to reformat both drives, or does one reformat take care of both drives? I understand that reformatting will wipe the drives clean. Will I be able to choose independent drives after the reformatting? Will Time Machine, which I currently use for backing up the SSD to an internal 500GB HD, recognize the two external drives?

If not the subject drive I’ll probably order the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual at $294.99 introductory price.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Russ

2

Probably should have included the following above:

Late 2012 mini
El Capitan 10.11.2

3

Hi there,

If you use the drive manager that comes with this drive, you will be able to format the drive in a JBOD setting, the software will take care of both drives on the external unit. Time machine should be able to se both volumes, but i have not tried this lets see if anothe ruser can share some tips and information on this matter.

4

Hi ArMak- thanks for the response. Are you saying that I should partition the drive from software that comes with the Duo and not with the Mac Disk Utility? Does the software manager get loaded on the Mac? How does JBOD differ from the two independent drives I desire? Thanks.

Russ