Western Digital MyBook Pro Tyldesley
We were thoroughly impressed with Western Digital's MyBook Essential when we reviewed it. The Pro version eschews the black case for a more Mac-like silver one, adds a FireWire 400 and two FireWire 800 ports, and has one unique feature: a capacity gauge.
Digitopia
01942 879879
01942 879879
242 Elliott St
Tyldesley
Tyldesley
Media & Data Ltd
01942 888373
01942 888373
19 Oak St
Tyldesley
Tyldesley
Button Basher Games
01204 656939
01204 656939
312 Derby St
Bolton
Bolton
Laptop Repair Bolton
01204 770305
01204 770305
11 Great Moor Street
Bolton
Bolton
At Solutions Uk
01942 525445
01942 525445
84 Market Street
Hindley
Hindley
Risk Station Ltd
01942 797766
01942 797766
168 Elliott Street
Tyldesley
Tyldesley
Modus IT
07952 940259
07952 940259
42 Mancroft Avenue
Bolton
Bolton
Compurange Ltd
01204 651212
01204 651212
337 Derby St
Bolton
Bolton
PAW Solutions
01204 529184
01204 529184
13 Bardon Clo
Bolton
Bolton
Ideal Business Services Ltd
01942 209578
01942 209578
Hindley Business Centre Platt Lane
Hindley
Hindley
Provided By: 
Western Digital MyBook Pro
We were thoroughly impressed with Western Digital's MyBook Essential when we reviewed it. The Pro version eschews the black case for a more Mac-like silver one, adds a FireWire 400 and two FireWire 800 ports, and has one unique feature: a capacity gauge.
The capacity gauge is a circular LED that sits inside the status LED. It acts as a digital dial: the light works its way around the circle as the drive fills up. It would be easy to dismiss it as a gimmick, but it's a neat way to establish how much room is left on the disk. If you use the drive as a backup device, perhaps for several machines, you don't even need to plug the drive into a Mac to find out what space is available: just power it up.
The drive comes in two capacities - 250GB and 500GB - and runs at 7200rpm. As with the Essential, the MyBook Pro powers up when you start up your Mac and powers off when you shut it down, so you don't need to switch it on and off independently.
Inside the box, as well as the drive and a power adaptor, there are USB 2, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 cables, and a copy of EMC's ageing but worthy Retrospect Express backup software.
The two FireWire 800 ports mean that if you connect it to a G5 tower or MacBook Pro 17in, you can daisychain drives and have them sitting next to each other.
Where the MyBook Essential was clearly aimed at users who needed additional storage for backup and archiving, the Pro version, with its FireWire 800 ports, is geared towards creatives who need to shuttle data backwards and forwards at speed for tasks such as video editing and use as a Photoshop scratch disk. It does its job admirably here, and while those with a need for the absolute maximum performance will still be better served with a Raid 0 setup, most users will find the MyBook Pro fast enough.
The available interfaces and reasonable price together with its neat design should put this drive near the top of anyone's external-storage shopping list.
The available interfaces and reasonable price together with its neat design should put this drive near the top of anyone's external-storage shopping list
The capacity gauge is a circular LED that sits inside the status LED. It acts as a digital dial: the light works its way around the circle as the drive fills up. It would be easy to dismiss it as a gimmick, but it's a neat way to establish how much room is left on the disk. If you use the drive as a backup device, perhaps for several machines, you don't even need to plug the drive into a Mac to find out what space is available: just power it up.
The drive comes in two capacities - 250GB and 500GB - and runs at 7200rpm. As with the Essential, the MyBook Pro powers up when you start up your Mac and powers off when you shut it down, so you don't need to switch it on and off independently.
Inside the box, as well as the drive and a power adaptor, there are USB 2, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 cables, and a copy of EMC's ageing but worthy Retrospect Express backup software.
The two FireWire 800 ports mean that if you connect it to a G5 tower or MacBook Pro 17in, you can daisychain drives and have them sitting next to each other.
Where the MyBook Essential was clearly aimed at users who needed additional storage for backup and archiving, the Pro version, with its FireWire 800 ports, is geared towards creatives who need to shuttle data backwards and forwards at speed for tasks such as video editing and use as a Photoshop scratch disk. It does its job admirably here, and while those with a need for the absolute maximum performance will still be better served with a Raid 0 setup, most users will find the MyBook Pro fast enough.
The available interfaces and reasonable price together with its neat design should put this drive near the top of anyone's external-storage shopping list.
Author: Kenny Hemphill
