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Western Digital MyBook Pro 1TB review: as loud as a hairdryer

I wish I had found a review of the WD MyBook Pro II 1TB somewhere before I purchased it. Maybe I had reconsidered my decision… To give you an overview I posted a few thoughts and Images that give you a little taste what you can expect from this hard disk.

One thing a notebook user needs is big fat external storage. Over the years I piled so much porn important documents that my Seagate disk couldn’t keep up with it any more. And DVD-Rs aren’t a good alternative for obvious reasons. So this week I got my new Western Digital My Book Pro 1TB. This is finally the kind of Storage I need to safely put away all my stuff. After plugging it into my MBP’s Firewire 800 port I could start right away (it was already HFS+ formatted). The Drive comes in a silver colored (plastic) enclosure that matches my MacBook Pro.

I actually like the design a lot more than that of my Seagate disk. Just plain elegant even compared to the stylish casings made by LaCie.

There is also an important improvement compared to the old firewire (400) drive and that is performance. I was able to get 75 MB/sec. from that disk. For a notebook-only user like me this is simply awesome. Take a look.

74 MB/sec.!

Okay, I started moving Data from my chronically jammed-up Seagate Firewire Disk and the WD’s Front LEDs started a really nice bling-bling. Normally I hate blue LEDs in front of me but these are pretty unobtrusive and actually nice to look at. I shot a little Video with my SE K750i (3gpp).

Sadly after I copied around 50 GB of Data the WD’s Fan kicked in and my joy was instantly lost. This freakin’ fan they built in that thing is as loud as my hairdryer. There is absolutely no way one can work next to that thing even for 5 minutes. I mean external drives normally stand on the desk not in the next room. To give you an idea how loud this thing really is I recorded a little sound clip:
mybook_pro_noise.m4a (download with right click)
Curious as I was I wanted to know what was going on. I opened the case and looked up what kind of fan they built into that thing. I knew I had to replace it with something else.

To open the case just remove 4 screws and slide the grill part up. And just right there was the bad boy sitting, that tiny piece of sh*t.

The fan is mounted to the metal casing using some shock absorbing rubber case.

After surfing around the Sunon website I found out that this KDE1205FPVX is turning @ 6100 rpm and generating 35 dbA noise. I really can’t think of something to compare it with because every piece of hardware was really quiet compared to this thing. That is truly unbearable.

Regardless of the noise problem the case design is actually straight-forward. take a look.

This thing is the first SATA-to-Firewire/USB-Bridge I know of. All Firewire Drives I owned before only allowed me to connect ATA disks. Replacing the Disks as also as easy as it can get:

Remove the jack, gently press the two blue plastic connectors towards the drive and lift the whole thing up.

Voila, there we go.

Problem: Getting a new quiet Fan

I did a lot of research on the web and found out that the maximum diameter for a fan was 70×15mm. There are only two models that are in stock @ local dealers.

• The first Model is the Sharkoon S701520M-3 (70×70x15) running @ 2000 rpm / 21dbA

• The second model is the Titan Twin Fan 2x 60×60x10mm, 3600rpm, 26dB(A)

I will go with the Sharkoon Fan. It is quieter,cheaper and circulates enough air to keep the drives cool.

Next thing to do is ordering the fan and fit it into the case. I’ll keep you posted. Be sure to check back.

EDIT:
Be sure to read the article on the replacement of the fan here

7 Comments »

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1. I will do the same on mine, but saving a lot of time thanks to your guide. Thanks a lot!

   Comment by Mario M — March 26, 2007 #

2. [...] 800/400 / USB Hard Drive. It’s a pretty straight forward Drive with a downside… the fan.read more | digg [...]

   Pingback by BESComputers Blog » Blog Archive » Western Digital My Book Pro 1TB review: as loud as a hairdryer — May 23, 2007 #

3. Nice Hack! I think I’ll do the same.

   Here’s some more information for those stumbling onto this site. I’ve played with the drive quite a bit on its various ports. Speed on both firewire ports is AWESOME.

   However, the USB interface has issues. Initially I thought this was with my particular unit, but I brought it back and got a new replacement. It seems that these drives have a flaw in the USB interface. When transfering large volumes of data (must be well over several gigabytes to see the flaw), Windows XP will time out trying to write to the drive, and will eventually fault. Sometimes rather impressively, your whole system will hang.

   There are NO issues on the fire wire ports, just to be clear on this point.

   Curiously, the Western Digital pocket drives have EXACTLY the same problem. Looks like all these drives use common hardware components and thus have similar flaws. So if you’re going to use this drive with a USB 2.0 interface, start praying.

   And if that weren’t enough to disuade you, you’ll find that the current drivers don’t work under Vista with a Fire Wire connection. I tried two sperate systems to qualify this. The shipping driver is a dud under Vista (this I expect to get resolved else law suits will follow). What’s impressive about this is that the box I got my unit in has a big shiny sticker proclaiming Vista compatibility, yet when you poke around the Western Digital web site you’ll find an abscure note that states the driver doesn’t yet support Vista!

   I suspect this product will do poorly in the market place once word gets out on all of its little issues. Yet, for the adventurous inclined to tinker, this is a cool product to hack on.

   Comment by Mario — May 31, 2007 #

4. Just out of curiosity, I called Western Digital support US on the issue, followed by WD support in Europe.

   The folks in the US attempt to BS the customer regarding Vista driver support. Tech support in Europe is more forthcoming, they admit that the current driver does not work under Vista.

   Guess it’s a lot easier putting a sticker proclaiming a particular feature on a box, then actually supporting it?

   Comment by Mario — May 31, 2007 #

5. Great review. Top marks!

   Also, check out:

   Silent PC Review
   http://silentpcreview.com

   Eco PC Review
   http://www.ecopcreview.com

   Comment by MeX — August 21, 2007 #

6. Thanks for writing about this drive.

   My fan is just as noisy but further more the drives *squeal like a rusty gate* when asked to do more than transfer a few Word documents, and also times out during large transfers. So much for backing up other drives or systems. Suffice it to say I expected a whole lot more than I got from this drive

   Comment by chris — November 7, 2007 #

7. I want to change the hards to 1TB each but it not functioning ,does any one know how to upgrade it to new harddisks?

   Thanks,
   J.Ekrami

   Comment by J.Ekrami — December 2, 2007 #

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