Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II (6 TB)

Western Digital has pushed its My Book Studio Edition II external hard drive to a whopping 6 TB of storage - and it has FireWire 800 and eSATA interfaces.

It’s common knowledge that video editors chew through storage space like chainsaws through styrofoam, and storage developer Western Digital is looking to feed that need with a new 6 TB version of its My Book Studio Edition II external hard drive. Aimed primarily at Macintosh users—because, let’s face it, a lot of high-end video editing gets done on Macs—the drive features eSATA and FireWire 800 interfaces, with the capability to drop down to FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 if needed. And while the drives can be easily reformatted to work with Windows systems, that won’t magically make a USB 3.0 interface appear.

“Thanks to advancements in HD video devices including digital SLR cameras and HD video cameras, the quality and quantity of video content being produced by professionals and enthusiasts alike has grown at an astounding pace,” said WD’s VP of marketing Dale Pistilli, in a statement. “The My Book Studio Edition II drive now available with 6 TB of storage provides creative individuals with the expanded storage and bandwidth they need to effectively shoot, edit, and safely store their video productions without the need to compress their videos or reduce the overall quality of them for the sake of available space.”

The drives are available in 2, 4, and npw 6 TB capacities: the latter two only work with Mac OS X 10.5.2 or newer, or Windows Vista or better. The drives are dual-drive units—yes, that means the 6 TB drive is really two 3 TB drives—and sport a comparatively massive case: about six inches deep and tall, and 3.9 inches across. Customers should also remember to leave room for a separate AC adapter. WD touts the drives as consuming a third less power than a standard dual-drive storage system, thanks to (quiet) fanless convection cooling.

The 6 TB version of the My Book Studio Edition II is available now for $549.99.

Showing 9 comments

  1. Marco Bicca at 2:04pm 22nd March 2011 I was just saying :) I already have a freenas box which I like it a lot and it was pretty cheap ;)
  2. Digital Trends at 3:03am 22nd March 2011 +1 Logan!
  3. Logan Lindquist at 12:21am 22nd March 2011 that way you get RAID and NAS if you want it.
  4. Logan Lindquist at 12:19am 22nd March 2011 buy a drobo instead.
  5. Marco Bicca at 10:46pm 21st March 2011 I am wondering why they did not include a thunderbolt port (new macs since this is aimed to Mac users) and also a network port, these drives would be great as nas devices ..
  6. Digital Trends at 8:05pm 21st March 2011 @Marc, this external drive probably has (2) 3TB drives housed inside. That is what WD typically does. So you are right, people are paying a premium for the external case.
  7. Marc Morrell at 7:58pm 21st March 2011 Nice to see they are pushing the storage drives to higher capacities, but I still have to laugh. I can buy two 3 TB drives for $300. That makes a $579 pricetag a little incredulous. Who would ever buy this now?
  8. Erinn Moore at 7:46pm 21st March 2011 that'll hold alot of "good videos"
  9. Greg Eck at 7:45pm 21st March 2011 God damn. I have 2TB and have yet to use even half of it.
Close Suggestion IBM pays $10 million to settle bribery charges
View Article