500 GB External Drives Tested

Western Digital MyBook Pro Edition

As already mentioned, the MyBookPro Edition has a three-year factory warranty, while the MyBook Premium ES with eSATA is only covered by a one-year warranty. The MyBook Pro is silver instead of black, but it shares the basic design, cooling and other features as the MyBook Premium, with the exception of the interface. It supports Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and USB 2.0, making it more suitable for video editing or as a general-purpose hard drive, while the Premium ES is the better performer thanks to its eSATA interface. Both drives, however, are only specified for ambient temperatures of up to 35°C (95°F).

Again, the EMC Retrospect Express 7.5 can make scheduled backs ups and can clone partitions and hard drives, as well. The drive comes with USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800 cables. While the device had the highest power requirement when in idle mode, it was on par with the other products when active or with Windows shut down. The MyBook Pro Edition will stop the spindle drive when you switch off the host computer.

This product is available in capacities of up to 750 GB. If you still want more, you may consider the MyBook Pro II, which is a double-drive device. Consequently, the maximum capacity is 1.5 TG (using both drives in JBOD mode). It looks like the MyBook Pro, but it is considerably wider - and it also comes with a small fan, which pushes the maximum ambient temperatures in which it can operate up to 40°C (104°F).