Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 6TB

Although casual users and data-hungry prosumers alike will agree that anything beyond two or three terabytes is unnecessary, such large capacities are practically indispensible for businesses whose very existence is staked on data-intensive applications. The Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 6TB ($499 direct) comfortably fits in this rarefied territory. Equally worth considering is its versatility, as it supports FireWire (400 and 800), USB 2.0, and eSATA interfaces. Our current Editors' Choice for desktop-class hard drives, the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk (4TB) (Price, 4 stars), which, despite its smaller capacity, has a more versatile GoFlex adapter, but if capacity is your paramount consideration, it's worth considering.

Design and Features
Measuring 6.54 by 3.87 by 6.06 inches (HWD), the My Passport Studio Edition II is fairly sizeable?understandable, given that it's comprised of two 3TB drives beneath its matte-finish silver plastic chassis. Moreover, it's not nearly as bulky as others in its class, especially when one considers the unapologetically Herculean dimensions of the IoSafe Solo G3 (1TB) ($299 direct, 4.5 stars). The elegant plastic chassis is elegantly unadorned, save for the soft white glow emitted by an LED activity light in the front and the reflective silver WD logos embossed on the left and right sides. Air vents sporting dot- and dash-shaped cutouts run along three sides to keep things cool while providing a nice visual contrast to the subdued exterior. A quartet of I/O interfaces can be found on the rear of the drive, consisting of a micro USB 2.0 port, a pair of daisy-chainable FireWire800 ports (also compatible with FireWire 400) and an eSATA port. Unlike the comparably-sized LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series (6 TB) ($749 list, 4 stars), the My Passport Studio Edition II does not support Thunderbolt. And unlike the CRU-DataPort RTX100-3SJ's (3TB) ($399 list, 3.5 stars), the My Passport Studio Edition II does not support USB 3.0.

The My Passport Studio Edition II comes formatted to HFS+ for use on Mac OS X systems right out of the box, but can easily be reformatted to either FAT32 or NTFS. Although its compatibility with both systems is a plus that sets it apart from the Mac-only LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series, it must reformatted, whereas the FreeAgent GoFlex Desk can simply be swapped between systems without this added procedure. Like its predecessor, the My Book Studio Edition II (2TB) ($429.99 list, 4.5 stars), the My Passport Studio Edition II allows for reconfiguration of the RAID array from the pre-set RAID 0 array (striping, 6 TB) to RAID 1 (mirroring, 3 TB x 2) through the included WD Drive Manager software.

Though the $500 price tag attached to the My Passport Studio Edition II seems expensive at first blush, it ultimately breaks down to 8 cents per GB, making it considerably cheaper than similar drives in its class. Even taken as a whole, it's nonetheless significantly more affordable than the equally sized Lacie 2big Thunderbolt Series.

Performance
The My Passport Studio Edition II operated at a brisk pace using each of its three interfaces, but its nimble eSATA performance stole the show. Using this interface, the My Passport Studio Edition II transferred our standard 1.22GB test folder in a scant 12 seconds, the same amount of time as the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series using a Thunderbolt connection, and quicker than the Seagate GoFlex Desk's performance with USB 3.0 (15 seconds). And while the My Passport Studio Edition II still fell 2 seconds short of the CRU-DataPort RTX100-3SJ's impressive eSATA transfer rate of 10 seconds, its eSATA speed nonetheless edged past the CRU-DataPort's USB 3.0 transfer speed (14 seconds).

Even if you don't plan on utilizing an eSATA connection, the My Passport Studio still held its own against the competition. With a Mac, it transferred our test folder in an impressive 19 seconds (via FireWire 800) and 42 seconds (USB 2.0). It yielded somewhat slower results using Windows 7, clocking in at 24 seconds (FireWire 800) and 48 seconds (USB 2.0), putting it slightly behind both the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk and the Iomega Mac Companion (3TB) ($369.99 list, 3.5 stars), both of which transferred our test folder in 42 seconds under USB 2.0. Regardless of which operating system is used, the Iomega Mac Companion's FireWire 800 speed (30 seconds) was nonetheless handily outpaced by the My Passport Studio II, both in Windows and Mac environments.

Although the My Passport Studio II's PCMark 05 hard drive test scores were fairly high, particularly with eSATA (5,396), but also with USB 2.0 (3,051) and FireWire 800 (4,493), it was ultimately trounced by the CRU-DataPort TRX100-3SJ's scores of 9,023 (USB 3.0) and 8,269 (eSATA).

Ultimately, the Western Digital My Passport Studio II (6TB) has plenty of noteworthy attributes. In addition to 6TB of storage, its configurable RAID scheme and trifecta of connectivity options make for a rather flexible external desktop-class hard drive. Still, it's not nearly as versatile nor future-proofed as the Editors' Choice Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk (4TB), which sports a GoFlex adapter and can be easily swapped between Mac and Windows operating systems without the reformatting. If capacity is your main consideration, however, then your choice ultimately boils down to the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series (6TB) or the My Passport Studio II. If this is the case, stick with the My Passport Studio II, because, despite its minor shortcomings, its combination of capacity and performance make it a fine choice.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II (6TB) with several other hard drives side by side.

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