Reviews

Hardware review: Drobo

➡ Updated 1/14/19: I have revised my opinion of Drobo devices. After experiencing multiple, serious data loss events on multiple Drobo models, even recent ones, I no longer consider them safe for my data.

➡ Updated 3/18/09: My review of the new Firewire Drobo is now published. You may want to have a look at that as well.

The Drobo is a new way to store your data. It works like RAID, only better. Made by Data Robotics, the Drobo is an enclosure that can use anywhere from 2 to 4 SATA hard drives of any size and brand to keep multiple copies of your files and ensure against hard drive failures.

It’s all about the data

The main advantage is that consumers are freed from the problem of having to use identical hard drives (which is how things work in RAID) and can rely on the largest and cheapest drives they can find on the market for their data storage. In a word, the Drobo turns hard drives into a commodity, a building block of your data storage that can be replaced at any time with any SATA hard drive without negatively affecting your data.

Depending on the amount of total space available on the Drobo, it can withstand the failure of one or even two of its hard drives without losing any data. (Naturally, you’ll need to have more than two hard drives in there in order for it to protect against a double hard drive failure…)

It is its capacity to withstand drive failures and use any SATA hard drives that makes it both remarkable and unique for a consumer product.

I bought a Drobo a few weeks ago, and have been using it since to store my photo library. You may recall I first tried a WD My Book World Edition II, then a WD My Book Pro Edition II to store my photos, and both failed me. The My Book Pro failed me miserably, but that’s another story. (Incidentally, I’m working with WD’s advanced tech support to see if my issues can be resolved, so I may have an update on that in the near future.)

I believe I’ve finally found my storage solution with the Drobo. It offers the data redundancy I need to keep my over 36,000 photos alive and well, and it works on both my Mac and my PC. Not only that, but I know it will grow with me as my data storage needs expand.

➡ Updated 1/6/08: Since writing this article, I purchased two more Drobos. An additional one to store my videos and other files, and one more for my parents.

How it works

I bought two 500 GB SATA hard drives with 32 MB buffers and installed them in my Drobo. Installation is a snap, you just need to slide them in and a locking lever snaps into place, securing them in their slots. (If you think a 32 MB buffer is overkill for a hard drive, you might want to have a look at my review of the Dell OptiPlex 745.)

The two drives give me about 464 GB of total storage. There’s a wonderful tool called the Drobolator that lets you see exactly how much storage you’ll get with your Drobo when you stick in drives of various sizes.

There is one detail I want to point out here that you may or may not be aware of, depending on how well you read through the Drobo literature. Because there’s an upper limit of 2 TB on a single USB volume, if your Drobo’s storage capacity exceeds that limit, your computer will then see two Drobo volumes.

Let me put it another way. If you use the Drobolator and you stick 4 (four) 1 TB hard drives into the Drobo, your total available storage will be 2.7 TB. This means, according to Drobo’s literature, that you will see two volumes on your computer. (This is because of that pesky 2 TB limit on USB devices.) Given that USB 3.0 specs are in the works now, and that Data Robotics has acknowledged they’re looking at the possibility of Firewire connectivity in the future, that may be a non-issue at some point, but it is something to know about now.

➡ Updated 1/17/08: Data Robotics will soon release a firmware update that will bump the upper limit up to 16 TB for a single USB volume. Those who already own the DroboShare accessory will already be able to format the Drobo volume at 16 TB. To get the details on how this works, read my comment below.

The perceived vs. actual size of the volumes can be confusing, so let me explain it a bit further. Even now, my computer sees my Drobo as having a size of 2 TB. The Drobo only has 2×500 GB drives in there, and the total size of my available storage is 464 GB. But since the Drobo’s storage can expand or decrease, and it needs to be a platform-independent device — one that does not depend on the computer for sizing information or partition tables — it has to declare its maximum size (2TB) from the start. That’s the perceived size. The actual size is indicated by the capacity meter, and if you’ve installed it on your machine, the Drobo software, which communicates with the device and displays information from it locally. In our case, if we were to put in 4×1 GB hard drives in the Drobo, we would have two actual volumes: a 2 TB volume, and a 700 MB volume. Their perceived size will be 2 TB each. If this is still confusing to you, don’t worry. Just go by the Drobo’s capacity meter to monitor how much free space you have left, and don’t worry about the perceived size.

Transfer speeds

Some people are saying that it’s slower than other storage solutions. In terms of speed, I’ve found it to be equivalent to RAID 1 drives like the My Book Pro II (which can be configured in RAID 0 or 1). I haven’t done benchmark testing, and I don’t intend to — I focus on real world use in my reviews, not lab tests — but it’s not what I’d call slow, and it’s not what I’d call fast. It’s somewhere in the middle, and it’s good enough for me. I’m willing to give a little when it comes to transfer speeds in exchange for data redundancy and safety.

➡ Updated 5/1/08: When the Drobo will get up to and a little over 70% used space, and even before the orange light will turn on in a drive bay to indicate that you need to puchase additional hard drives, the transfer speeds will start slowing down. I’ve experienced significant slowdowns in transfer speeds, to the point where copying a 1 GB file onto the Drobo takes 10 minutes or more (when it usually takes 1-2 minutes) when the used space was 80% or more, and the orange light wasn’t yet turned on. You may want to keep this mind as you plan your storage needs. As soon as I put in another drive and the used space dropped back down, the transfer speeds went back to normal.

➡ Updated 7/1/08: Data Robotics has released a firmware fix for the issue pointed out above, and it doesn’t occur any longer.

➡ Updated 7/15/08: Data Robotics has recently released the Drobo 2.0, a Firewire/USB version of the Drobo, which is much faster than the original USB-only Drobo.

How it looks

In terms of physical size, or footprint, you should know that the Drobo is significantly larger than other consumer-level storage products out there. It’s big, as you can see from both the photos and the video that accompany this review. If you’re thinking about buying it, make sure you have enough space on your desktop to accommodate it.

In the photo shown above, I’ve got a NewerTech miniStack (1st generation) sitting next to the Drobo. I’ve also got a WD Passport Drive on top of the miniStack. This is to give you an idea of how it compares to other external hard drives. The miniStack, for example, is the same size as a Mac Mini, and is actually meant to be stacked with it. I’m using it as a standalone drive, because it has both a USB and Firewire hub built in, so it’s quite versatile.

I like the design of the Drobo. I like rounded corners and glossy surfaces. Apple has spoiled me that way. The Drobo’s black, glossy ends (front and back) are really beautiful.

How it sounds

I think it’s quiet — when not accessed. Even though it has a big fan in the back, it makes barely any noise. The Drobo becomes audible when you are reading or writing to the hard drives. Because it’s a metal enclosure, the sounds generated by the seek operations are amplified slightly by it. The metal adds a melodious echo to each sound. It’s not what I would call loud, and I find it somewhat interesting. Ligia doesn’t share my opinion, but I guess you can’t please everybody. At any rate, just be aware of the fact that you will hear sounds coming from the Drobo when you’re actively using it.

➡ Updated 4/2/08: I had some noise issues with my Drobos, which were resolved nicely by Data Robotics. You can read the details at the end of my review.

➡ Updated 5/1/08: When you fill up the Drobo (all four drive bays are taken) you will notice that the fan will kick into high gear a lot more often, and even when the Drobo is barely being accessed, or not even accessed at all — only plugged into the computer’s USB port. It’s not an overheating issue, because I put my finger on all four drives, and they weren’t hot to the touch, only warm, so I think it’s a firmware issue. This has happened with two of my Drobos. It seems that if the temperature gets above 75 degrees Fahrenheit in the room, the fan will start spinning faster, and if it gets close to 80 or over it, the fan will start going nuts and will generate quite a bit of noise. For a consumer device which isn’t meant to sit in a server room (controlled temperature environment), I think this is excessive, and the fan speed needs to be adjusted in one of the next firmware releases.

Video review

I hope this video will give you a better idea of Drobo’s looks, size and functioning, as well as its sounds. I tried to make the video as useful as possible by looking at the Drobo from various angles and by comparing its size with other external drives that I own. I also pulled out one of the drives with the Drobo turned on, so you could see that that they’re hot-swappable and that it wouldn’t miss a beat. You can also watch it here, and download it as well.

If you’ve just finished watching the video, don’t worry, the hard drive status lights stopped blinking after the data check. It’s just that when you remove a drive and stick it back in, the Drobo does a thorough check to make sure all the data that should be there is there. It may even re-sync all the data across the drives. It took a few hours for that check to complete since I had over 300 GB of data. By the way, all of it (the data, that is) was accessible during the check, so yes, you can work with the Drobo immediately after you do a hard drive replacement.

A few thoughts on the design

I like the idea of the lights on the front of the drive. It’s great to have an easy-to-use capacity meter, and to indicate the health of each drive through different-colored lights next to it. What I don’t like is the blue LEDs used for the capacity meter. They’re very blue, and very strong.

Generally speaking, blue LEDs cause headaches, because the eyes can’t focus properly on them. They always seem out of focus when you look directly at them. Every time I see blue LEDs on something that’s meant for constant use I cringe. Fortunately, the Drobo isn’t meant to sit directly in front of the user, but off to the side, which is where I have it.

It would be nice if Digital Robotics would do something about the capacity meter in their next build of the Drobo. They could even leave the blue LEDs in there, but obscure the light slightly by orienting them at an angle instead of having them point straight out toward the user. I’ve found that when I look at blue LED light from an angle, it doesn’t cause the same vision problems.

I like it

Is the Drobo a keeper? I think so. I’m happy with it. Even though there are a few sticking points, it’s nothing that would have dissuaded me from buying it, even if I had known about them beforehand. As a matter of fact, I’m so satisfied with it, that I signed up for the Drobo Evangelist program. That means that between now and December 31st, if you buy a Drobo from the Digital Robotics online store and you mention my evangelist code (EVPOP), you’ll get $25 off its purchase price. In the interest of full disclosure, you’ll also help me, because I’ll get $25 for each successful sale as well. Remember, this is only until 12/31/07, unless Data Robotics extends the program — and I haven’t heard anything about that. (Updated 1/2/08). I heard from Data Robotics today: they’ve extended the evangelist program until 6/30/08. That means the discount code will work until June 30th if you decide to use it.

Let’s review

The good points:

Data redundancy ensures availability, even if up to 2 hard drives fail
Virtually unlimited data storage (but remember the 2 TB limit for each volume when connected through USB 2.0)
Independence from hard drive size and manufacturer: as long as it’s SATA, it’s fine
Size can expand as your storage needs grow
Great design
Ease of use

The sticking points (nothing bad, just some things you need to consider):

Price is hefty: total cost is significant when you count in the enclosure and the individual hard drives
You may or may not like the sounds it makes when data gets accessed on the drives: make sure you listen to my video carefully to see what I mean (if yours is making too much noise, you may need to get it replaced)
Blue LED lights used for capacity meter are too intense and may cause headaches if you look directly at them
Transfer speeds may not be fast enough for you

Buy a Drobo

If you’re interested in buying one, here’s where you can find one:

Drobo Store (mention code EVPOP to get $25 off)
Amazon
B&H Photo

Updates

➡ Updated 1/6/08: Since I now own three Drobos, I can tell you that my first impressions about the noise were wrong. It seems my first Drobo is unusually loud. My other two Drobos are very quiet. I can barely hear them, even when writing or reading to the hard drives actively and for prolonged periods of time. I’ll need to contact Drobo Support to see if I can get my first Drobo replaced.

➡ Updated 1/7/08: I called Drobo today to ask them why one of my Drobos is making more noise than the other two. I described the situation to them, and told them I’m using the exact same drives inside each Drobo (2x500GB Seagate SATA drives with 32MB cache). Their initial response was to blame the hard drives. I doubt they’re at fault, but it’s possible, since it’s the hard drive churning noises that are louder in this particular Drobo of mine. So what I’m going to do later today, since I have the luxury of having more than one Drobo at home, is I’m going to take out the two hard drives from the louder Drobo and stick them in one of my two quiet Drobos. We’ll see what happens next. If the hard drives are at fault, then the quiet Drobo will start being loud. If not, then there’s a problem with my original Drobo. I told them all this, and asked for a case number. I indicated that I’ll be looking for a replacement if it turns out that the Drobo is at fault, not the hard drives. I’ll keep this review updated with my findings.

➡ Updated 1/7/08: Okay, spoke with Drobo again about the noise, and it turns out that the hard drives are at fault. I did just what I described above. I wouldn’t have thought it, but these two drives that I’ve got in the original Drobo are louder than the four I use in the other two Drobos, even though they’re the exact same size, brand and model. I’m going to return them and order new ones, and I believe the noise will go away. This is definitely something to keep in mind if you’re having noise issues with your Drobo. Don’t assume it’s to blame. If you can, check the hard drives first. Remember to do it properly though. You have to turn OFF the Drobo and unplug it BEFORE removing the hard drives, or you’ll lose your data. Read this clarification, and if you’re still not sure, don’t take risks, call Drobo Support and have them stay on the line with you while you swap out the hard drives.

➡ Updated 1/9/08: I still have noise issues with that original Drobo even after swapping out the hard drives. At this point, I’m not sure what to think. Could it be that Adobe Lightroom, the application I use to process my photos, places such a high I/O load on the Drobo that the hard drives will churn heavily no matter what, or could it be that this particular Drobo of mine is not phonically isolated as well as my other two? Not sure. I ordered hard drives of a different brand, to see if those will be quieter. I’m going to try those out for a day or two to see what happens. Then I’m also going to switch Drobos, and use one of my quiet Drobos for a day or two with the new hard drives and with the old hard drives, and then I’ll be able to get a better idea of what’s going on. Perhaps it’s just Lightroom causing this. Perhaps it’s the Drobo. Perhaps it’s the hard drives. But one thing’s for sure, while I was on the phone with Drobo Support, I didn’t use Lightroom heavily enough in order to compare the noise levels.

➡ Updated 2/6/08: I sent two of the original Seagate 500 GB drives back, and purchased two Western Digital 500 GB drives. The difference between them, specs-wise, is that the Seagate drives have 32 MB caches, and the WD drives have 16 MB caches. But it turns out that there’s a problem with the Seagate drives where their caches default to 8 MB if the latest firmware upgrade isn’t applied. And there is NO way to apply a firmware update to the drives while they’re in the Drobo. Doesn’t work, I tried it. At any rate, the two WD drives are quieter than the Seagate drives, although they run hotter. At least noise-wise, things are alright now, and the Drobo’s cooling system seems to handle the extra heat just fine.

➡ Updated 2/6/08: You’d think now that I’ve got the noise issues straightened out, things have quieted down, but they haven’t. I’ve got noise issues with one of my other Drobos, and this time it’s related to the fan for sure. I’ve swapped out the drives, and I’ve swapped the Drobos, and I’ve pushed on various drive bay flaps and listened carefully, and it’s the fan. Trust me, I spent about a month ferreting out this particular noise issue. I arranged for an RMA, which arrived today, only to disappoint me thoroughly.

Guess what? I received a heavily used Drobo from Data Robotics in return for my brand new Drobo (thanks for nothing!), even after I’d asked them kindly over the phone not to send me a used one or a damaged one. To make things worse, there’s serious dust in the crevices of this Drobo. The drive bays themselves are lined with dust that sticks to my finger when I touch it. One of the blue LED capacity indicators doesn’t light up (it’s broken), and as if that’s not enough, one of the ejection springs for the drive bays doesn’t work. When I wanted to take out a drive, it wouldn’t push it out. I had to point the Drobo’s mouth downward and shake it. To top it all off, it makes the same fan noise as my own Drobo.

But wait, there’s more! The firmware versions are different! While this replacement Drobo was able to read all of my data from the drives, when I turned it off (disgusted by all its problems) and removed the drives, intending to put them back in my own Drobo, I found out I couldn’t! That’s right, because the firmware versions are different, my original Drobo now can’t read any of my precious data. I’m stuck. My Mac wanted to initialize the Drobo, which would have meant erasing all of my data. I think at this point I’m stuck transferring all of my data to external USB drives and reformatting my Drobo, only to stick all of the data back onto it afterwards.

Understandably enough, I’m upset and disappointed with Data Robotics. To send me a heavily used Drobo with existing problems, and then to also put my data in danger when they’re supposed to make my data safer, is simply not acceptable. I notified them by phone and email, and will give them a chance to make things right. I’ll keep you updated of what happens.

➡ Updated 2/7/08: Drobo’s Tier-3 Support replied to my emails. They were courteous, apologized for the experience, and promised to make it right. I believe they’ll try to ship out a new drive to me in replacement in a few days. Until then, they emailed me the latest version of the firmware (which is not yet available to the public) and showed me how to upgrade my Drobos manually. I upgraded the firmware on all of my Drobos, successfully, and now my original Drobo can read my drives without any problems. I didn’t lose any data after all. I’m very glad things have worked out!

Reviews

USPS, how slow can you go?

I’ve written about the USPS before, and how slow and unreliable it can be. I want to give you an idea of how terrible their service can be with hard, indisputable evidence (see screen shots enclosed below).

A package was mailed to us from a vendor on 11/14/2007. It came from Capitol Heights, Maryland, and shipped to my city, which is North Bethesda, Maryland. [For those unaware of this, North Bethesda is not officially a city (yet); it’s a borough between Bethesda and Rockville. The Post Office treats it as Rockville but anything addressed to North Bethesda will get there just fine.] It arrived on 11/27/2007, approximately 13 days after it left Capitol Heights.

Here’s the kicker: not only are Capitol Heights and North Bethesda in the SAME state, but they’re only 25 miles apart. According to Google Maps, and taking the long way around DC by going on the Beltway (I-495), it’s approximately 25 miles from Capitol Heights to my place.

How in the world could it have taken them 13 days to deliver it? I don’t know how, but there it is. If you want to talk about incompetent service, I think this would be a good example. If they’d have walked the package to my place, it would have been faster. But no, they have fleets of cars, and automated systems, and all sorts of things to speed things up, and somehow they not only manage to miss deadlines for Priority Mail and lose packages on top of that, but they bungle up a 25-mile delivery so badly that it takes them 13 days to get the package to me.

Here’s the proof. The package was supposedly processed on 11/20/07 at their Capitol Heights facility.

It arrived at my place on 11/27/07.

But they received the electronic shipping notice sometime on the 14th, according to the Additional Details page. That means they received the package itself either on that same date, or shortly afterwards. Whether the vendor took their time to get the package to the post office, or whether it sat at the post office between 11/14/07 and 11/20/07 is irrelevant to me. Even if I give the USPS the benefit of the doubt and say they started working on the package on 11/20/07, that’s still 7 days to transport it 25 miles. It’s still unacceptable.

Any way you look at it, the USPS is a mess. If it takes them this long to process and transport what’s essentially a local package, I suppose I should be happy it “only” takes them 7 days to get a letter from me to my parents down in Florida. That could be called an improvement on their local delivery service.

To top it all off, they want to keep increasing the price of first-class postage and other services. I’d like to know what we’re getting in return, other than copious amounts of junk mail.

Thoughts

It’s about expectations

Many of us have heard this before, but it bears repeating. Customer or user satisfaction depends, in large part, upon the expectations you set, as a service or product provider. Promise something you can’t or don’t deliver, and satisfaction goes right down the drain, no matter what you did right.

A great friend of mine put this another way: under-promise, and over-deliver. It’s plain, simple, and it should be the golden rule that companies use when they think about their products and services. I don’t mean you should set your sights on mediocrity, or that you should settle for the lowest common denominator. But you should ALWAYS make sure you promise only what you can absolutely deliver, and if you do anything above and beyond the call of duty, it’s icing on the cake, and it makes the customer ecstatic in a viral sort of way.

Have you heard of Micro Center? Neither did I, till a couple of weeks ago. Their website is certainly underwhelming — at least it is at this point in time, but I have a feeling that’ll change. I got a flyer in the mail from them, inviting me to the store for a free gift. I went in and was blown away. Their store has the coolest and best floor layout I’ve ever seen! It’s clean, well-lit, beautiful, stocked to the gills with cool technology, and everyone is friendly! Did they promise any of that in their flyer? No, they just promised the free gift and mentioned the new store. They delivered on the free gift just fine, and their store atmosphere was the icing on the cake that left me ecstatic.

And guess what? They have an in-store pickup option as well. I ordered a few CF cards from their site today, and went to pick them up in the evening. But do you know what they did? They didn’t promise a 20-minute turnaround. They actually put some thought into it. Their staff is new, their store is new, their systems are probably new or re-designed, and they knew they couldn’t deliver on something like that. They said the order would be ready for pickup in a couple of days. Was I disappointed? No. I got the price I wanted on the products I wanted, and as long as they were going to make good on their promise, I didn’t care. But I thought I’d test the waters anyway, and Ligia and I got in our car and drove to the store tonight.

When we got there, the same cheery atmosphere awaited us. The people were courteous and smiled, just like the last time we visited. We went to the customer service counter, where the representative looked up our order and explained that it wasn’t ready yet. No problem, I’d expected that. I asked if I could pick up the items from the store shelves and come back to the counter. She said yes. I browsed through the store, found what I needed, brought the stuff back to the customer service counter, and the representative fulfilled the order. She fiddled a bit with the computer system since it was new, but she was courteous and helpful, and I didn’t mind waiting an extra couple of minutes. In the end, I walked out with my order fulfilled, and the kicker was this: the price was the same as on their website.

It’s about setting the right expectations, plain and simple. Do what works for you, and more importantly, do what you know you can do! Under-promise, over-deliver, and you’ll have happy customers. Even if you go just a bit beyond what you promised, it makes a huge difference!

Reviews

Hardware review: WD My Book Pro Edition II

Less than a month ago, I reviewed the WD My Book World Edition II, a NAS device from Western Digital, and I promised that I’d also review the My Book Pro Edition II, which I also bought. Here are my thoughts.

❗ Updated 12/13/2007: Before I say anything else, I need to discourage you strongly from buying this drive. There are MANY flawed units of this drive on the market. There are serious problems with cooling, which result in excessive fan noise and even random drive shutdowns while in use. Scroll to the end of the review to read the updates and see what sorts of problems I’ve had with the drive.

Design

The Pro Edition II should be a better and faster external hard drive than the World Edition II when it comes to working with my photo library, since it connects directly to my computer instead of going through the network. Its exterior design is just as good as that of the World Edition II, and the photos enclosed below will show it.

I have to confess that I’m design-obsessed. If something looks good, I’m willing to overlook the fact that it may not work as expected, which is definitely the case with this device. Of course, if it were truly designed well, it wouldn’t have the serious problems that it has, but at least it looks good on my desk… I suppose I could call it a very expensive paperweight. It’s so unfortunate that Western Digital couldn’t deliver with this product. It looks so nice, and does so poorly…

The drive has three interfaces: USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. A nice touch is the inclusion of two Firewire 800 ports. This is probably because most computers have only one Firewire 800 port, and the WD engineers wanted to give us the ability to daisy-chain other devices onto the drive. In terms of the RAID settings, it has RAID 0 and RAID 1. I’m using my drive in RAID 1, to get the data redundancy I need when it comes to my photo library.

Serious problems

I’ve read complaints about the drive being loud, and I agree. I’ll say this: when it works fine, it’s quiet. When it has problems, it’s VERY loud. There are persistent cooling issues with the drive, that have been partially solved through firmware updates, but they keep showing up even on later builds. I think the WD engineers still have a LOT of work ahead of them when it comes to this model. See below for more on this.

My workflow involves working mainly with Adobe Lightroom, and doing the following:

Importing and viewing RAW files
Winnowing
Adding meta data
Editing images and
Exporting them to JPG files for the web or for clients

The drive is usually fine with this, but if I spend more than an hour (and sometimes, even less than an hour in Lightroom), it’ll start to overheat. Then the fan speed will auto-switch to what I call “medium speed”, and the drive will get a little louder. If after a few minutes or so, I’m still not done working, the drive fan will kick into high gear, something that I and others call “hairdryer mode”. After a couple of minutes at that speed, the drive will either return to “medium speed” or shut off completely, leaving me and Lightroom wondering where the photo library went.

I’ve learned to save my work and exit Lightroom when the drive fan goes into “hairdryer mode”, because I can almost certainly expect the drive to shut off. I called WD Support on this, and I applied a firmware fix a few weeks ago, but the cooling problem is still there. By the way, the drive has to stand vertically at all times, or you’ll have even more serious cooling problems.

Getting support

I need to say that WD Support are responsive, but they live in serious denial. They will agree to an RMA, but they insist that these drives are just fine, which is definitely NOT the case. Speaking from personal experience, WD Support is better than the support I’ve gotten from other tech companies like Microsoft and HP. At least they try to be helpful and polite. This was one of the main reasons I stuck with the drive through serious, repeated problems.

As I stated at the start of this post, I continue to have problems with my drive, even after two replacements. I like the design, and I like the fact that it has three interfaces. But I cannot use it long-term, because, let’s face it, it’s an unreliable piece of crap, and it’s very frustrating to use it when it overheats and crashes my computer. I’ve already bought a Drobo (which I love) for my photo library, and I’m going to re-purpose this drive to store some other files.

Working with the drive

In my review of the My Book World Edition II, I mentioned how I’m in a mixed OS environment at home. I have both an iMac and a Windows laptop. It’s necessary for me to be able to read and write to my external devices from both computers. This is in case I do large file transfers, which are obviously a lot faster to do over a USB or Firewire connection than a wireless network. So what I did to solve this problem was to format the My Book Pro Edition II in the Mac file system (HFS+ Journaled). Now I can read and write just fine to it from both machines because I purchased MacDrive, a piece of software that lets you access Mac drives on Windows as if they were NTFS or FAT32 volumes.

Let’s review

I like the drive, and the design, but it has SERIOUS quality control problems and manufacturing defects. Make sure to read through the Updates section below for the latest news on the drive, and remember to spare yourself the agony I’m going through by NOT buying it.

Updates

❗ Updated 10/30/07: It turns out the cooling problems with my drive weren’t normal. After calling WD Support a second time, I was offered an RMA. They sent out a replacement drive to me via 2-day Fedex, free of charge, and let me keep my old drive for a month while I transferred my photos over to the new drive. During that month, I worked exclusively on the new drive, to make sure that it wouldn’t overheat and shut off anymore. While it goes into “hairdryer mode” once in a blue moon, the fan speed always returns to “low speed”, which is barely audible, and the drive never shuts off. Whatever problems existed in the earlier builds of this drive, WD fixed them, and the new drives work just fine. If you’re having cooling problems with your My Book Pro, I encourage you to contact WD Support and see if you can exchange it.

❗ Updated 12/03/07: I’ve just arranged to receive my 2nd replacement drive from WD via RMA. While I like the consistently high level of customer support they provide, I have to point out that there are manufacturing defects that still haven’t been ironed out. While my first drive, the one I purchased from a store, only overheated, and worked okay otherwise, the replacement drive had three problems. It also overheated, although less often than the original drive. Its Firewire 400 connector didn’t work. I tried different cables, to no avail. The computer just didn’t see it while it could see other Firewire drives just fine. Most importantly, it kept crashing my iMac every time I connected it. Not right away, but within minutes or less than an hour, it would crash the system so badly that I’d have to reset it. I’d get the standard Apple screen of death with a message that asked me to reset the computer. When I’d look at the logs, they’d always point to the USB as the problem for the crash, and the only drive I had connected via USB was the My Book Pro. Let’s hope this third drive that WD will send me will finally work properly.

❗ Updated 12/13/07: As stated at the top of this post, DO NOT buy this drive, for the reasons already detailed. I am NOT alone in having problems with this drive. Many Mac users are having the same problems with it, and you can see this by doing a search on the Apple forums for “My Book Western Digital“.

The drive also DOES NOT work as advertised. The specs say it works with USB, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, but it DOES NOT work with Firewire 400. I have not had the chance to test it with Firewire 800, so I can’t speak about that, but I know for sure that Apple computers cannot see it when connected through Firewire 400. It does work with USB, but it tends to crash Apple computers when connected to them through that protocol. Trust me on that last bit, I’ve checked the error logs every time and confirmed it reliably — it’ll crash my iMac, which runs Leopard (the latest Mac OS X), when connected through USB, while other USB or Firewire drives can connect just fine and have no problems. Have a look at this article of mine for a video of the crashes it causes, and for photos of the damaged drives that WD sends out as replacements.

Western Digital is also NOT doing a good job testing these drives before they send them out. I’m now on my third replacement drive from Western Digital (My Book Pro), and it exhibits the same problems: overheating and NOT working with Firewire 400. Western Digital Support refuses to believe it and continues to stubbornly cling to the idea that the drive works just fine since it can connect through USB. They offered to send me out another replacement drive, and I refused. I’m not going to spend my entire life swapping drives and data until Western Digital decides to get their manufacturing and quality control processes in order.

I also want to mention that the re-certified drives they send out can be scratched, scuffed and smudged. They are NOT cleaned, and Western Digital simply DOES NOT care if they send you a drive in bad aesthetic condition. My re-certified drives arrived in progressively worse condition, to the point where this last replacement drive looks absolutely horrible. It looks like it’s been banged up and dragged on the floor. It’s got oily smudge marks on its sides… basically, it’s a mess.

DO NOT BUY this drive unless you want to run into the problems I’m having right now, and believe me, it’s not fun at all. Western Digital needs to get its act in order on this model, because they’re churning out some real duds.

➡ Updated 7/3/08: I updated my other post about the My Book Pro as well with the following information.

On 4/16/08, I received a replacement drive from Western Digital. It’s a 2TB Studio Edition II drive, which works in USB, Firewire 400/800 and eSATA modes. I’ve been using it since in RAID 0, and it’s been working great. To see how I use it, read this recent post of mine, where I talk about the hardware I use on a daily basis. I also plan to write a detailed review of the drive shortly.

I guess the lesson is that the My Book Pro line had serious faults, and WD got things right with the My Book Studio line. So, if you’re in the market for a drive, DO NOT get a My Book Pro. But DO get a My Book Studio drive. They seem to work alright.

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L.L.Bean gets it right

My first shopping experience at L.L.Bean was sometime in 1996, when I purchased a winter jacket from their catalog. There were two choices in the fasteners for the hood, and I picked the one that didn’t work out. I called them a few weeks later to ask if I could get the other fasteners, and to ask how much they’d be. Their answer floored me: they’d be free, and they’d also be shipped to me for free. Wow.

Furthermore, the customer service rep said that if I ever didn’t like the jacket or it started to come apart on me, I could send it back for a refund or an exchange. I still have that jacket, and can’t bear to part with it. It’s just as sturdy as the first day I got it, although the colors have faded a little with time.

Over the 4th of July weekend, we dropped by the L.L.Bean store at Tyson’s Corner to get some winter boots. As I was about to try mine on, the clerk offered me a brand new pair of heavyweight socks to try with the boots, so I’d get a better idea of the fit. He literally pulled them off the shelf, broke apart the packaging, and handed them to me. Wow.

It just so happened that I found the medium width a little tight, and was worried it might bother me later. No problem, the clerk said. I could order the wider size along with the regular and try them both out, then bring back the one that didn’t fit right. I said I wasn’t comfortable bringing back merchandise that I’d already worn, but he said it would be no problem, that the right fit mattered more. Wow.

I ended up getting the heavyweight socks I’d tried with the boots as well. They fit so nicely, and the quality exceeded my expectations. Ligia ended up getting the same model boot in her size, and heavyweight socks to go along with them as well. Not only that, but we bought two more pairs of shoes.

While we were there, we saw a beautiful high-back sofa, but weren’t sure what finish we’d want on it. (We’d been looking for just such a sofa for the longest time.) The store had only one finish in stock. No problem, said L.L.Bean customer service when we called. We’ll send you out some swatches for free, and you can call and order the sofa when you’ve decided. Wow.

Calling L.L.Bean is an epiphany onto itself. You don’t get robots or prompts. You just get a live, friendly, helpful human being, usually after just a few rings. What’s more, they already know who you are when you call. If you’re calling from the same phone number you’ve listed in your L.L.Bean account, their CallerID system pulls up your account for the customer service rep. Wow.

When you put together fantastic customer service and beautiful, well-made products that last, you’ve got one company that deserves our business. If they keep on like this, L.L.Bean can count me as a lifetime customer.

Raoul Pop

One man's life

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