Digital Home Thoughts: Western Digital My Book External Hard Drive

"Western Digital Corp. today announced that it is shipping its newest line of external hard drive storage called My BookÔ. Designed to be as easy to use as common household appliances for mainstream consumers, the first models of the My Book family are available now in capacities from 160 to 500 GB at select retail stores, online retailers and in the United States directly from WD...My Book's unique, iconic book-shaped enclosure stands vertically, leaving a tiny footprint and sitting naturally on desktops and bookshelves. It features vents around the book's page ends, keeping the hard drive inside cool for long-term reliability. WD conducted in-depth consumer research as part of the My Book design process, contributing to the simple, easy-to-use features of the product family."



Finally, an external hard drive that you would't be ashamed to have on your desk! Network attached storage (NAS) drives can be ugly as that cousin you avoid at the family reunions, because they're usually put in a wiring closet somewhere (the NAS drive, not the cousin - I don't want to know what you do in the closet with your cousin). But a backup drive that is attached to your PC needs to look good, and up until now most haven't. The My Book (odd name!) certainly changes that - I dig the way it looks. The 7200 RPM drive with 16 MB cache should provide solid performance, and it comes in a USB 2.0 or USB 2.0/Firewire combo version in sizes from 160 GB up to a monster 500 GB. Sweet! Maybe this is what I need to finally make the plunge and move to lossless audio files. The 320 GB "Essential" version (USB 2.0 only) is selling for $249 USD, which seems reasonable.