WD Dual-option Media Center WDXF1200JB - Hard drive - 120 GB - external - FireWire / Hi-Speed USB - 7200 rpm - buffer: 8 MB

List Price: $139.97

Customer Reviews:

From a Mac User [Posted on 2005-12-18]
3.5 / 5

The drive - Works fine. The Mac recognized it right away, I formatted it, setup and tested a few simple backup routines with Retrospect. Drive is fast, quiet, sleeps when not in use so I can leave it on indefinitely. Works as advertised!

Until I realized none of my backups were being performed. This drive is wholly, 100% incompatible with sleep mode on the Mac. Once the FireWire connection is established, and your computer goes to sleep, you cannot reestablish it without rebooting. Absurd, isn't it? Especially considering the simple example of the iPod, a FW device that works exactly as it should w.r.t sleep mode.

The drive connects via USB and FireWire simuntaneously, and WD reccommends you do this so that FW is used for data xfer and USB is used for peripherals. Simple solution - don't use FireWire. Works perfectly if you only use USB. When your computer wakes back up, the drive is mounted. Voila.

In order for your backups to work, you'll want to make sure the Mac wakes up a minute or so beforehand. Retrospect itself won't wake up the Mac.

As a response to other WD external drive reviewers... a 'backup' drive is exactly that - a 'backup' of your data. Don't offload the contents of your internals and assume that because this is an external device it's infallible.

Would I buy this again? Yep! Drive is whisper quiet and the card reader functionality is nice. Plus the USB hub comes in handy, as well as the USB port on the front of the drive.

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