Western Digital Drives Pack Backups, Hardware Encryption

Western Digital's new My Book Essential and My Book for Mac pack automatic backup software and hardware-based encryption for data security.

Storage vendor Western Digital has introduced new versions of its My Book Essential and My Book for Mac external hard drives, adding new WD SmartWare for automatic backups of both Mac and Windows systems, as well as hardware encryption for data protection if the drives are ever lost or stolen. The My Book Essential drives are available in capacities from 500 GB to 2 TB, while the My Book Mac drives range from 640 GB to 2 TB.

“Keeping an extra copy of your digital life used to be a painstaking, manual task undertaken only by the most expert and diligent of users,” said WD branded products group VP of marketing Dale Pistilli, in a statement. “WD’s new drives combine massive storage capacity, visual backup, and hardware encryption, so consumers can now actually see their digital life, safe in one place.”

The drive’s backup software launches automatically when users first connect the My Book Essential drive; and a visual interface lets users easily see the progress of their backup as its underway. After the initial complete backup, WD SmartWare backs up users’ data every time they modify or add a file.

The My Book for Mac enables users to set a password for the drive, and offers 256-bit hardware encryption so the data on the drive itself is basically an incomprehensible mishmash of scrambled bits…that can only be made whole again with the proper password. The drives are also compatible with Apple’s Time Machine backup system built into Mac OS X Leopard and newer.

The My Book Essential and My Book for Mac drives are available now with prices ranging from $99 to $249.99, depending on capacity.