I have Synology D216Play which had 2 x 3GB WD red hard drives (in a Raid 1 array -so 3GB storage nominally).
This was getting full. I looked at upgrading these to 2 x 6GB (or larger) but the prices of WD red drives seem to ramp up a lot for anything over 5GB - and what would I do with the existing drives???
The WD Mybook Duo seemed to present a possible solution. If I got one of these then I could use this to backup my desktop (the largest consumer of space on the NAS) and use it for desktop backups.
Amazon wanted £369 for a new 12 TB or £414 for a new 20TB - these contain 2 x 6TB or 2 x 10TB WD Red drives. This, you will note, is less than the cost of the corresponding two drives!!!!!
Having just bought a pricey new Gigabyte laptop, my budget was very tight and an Amazon Prime Warehouse Deal of £290 for a 12TB reconditioned Duo proved irresistable.
It arrived and was indistinguishable from new except that the WD product info stated that the software and manual were on disk. They were not but downloading them from WD proved no big deal. Oh yes, there was no "disk Replacement tool" - a piece of plastic from what I can make out - but a credit card proved adequate to levering the top off to get at the disks.
After some initial experimentation, I decided to abandon my original plan. It seemed that taking the Duo disks and installing them in the NAS whilst taking the NAS disks and installing them in the Duo made more sense. It was a little more involved than this suggests - and very time consuming - but fairly straightforward. After a couple of days of Raid array rebuilding and ensuring all disks were thoroughly checked for bad secors etc, I had a NAS with 6TB (well, 5.86 TB usable) of Raid 1 storage and a Duo with 6TB (5.45TB usable) of Raid 0 storage.
Ok, so I'm now using the NAS to backup all our household's systems (I use Macrium Reflect V7 for this as its the best backup software IMHO) and copy the Macrium images to the Duo (I've got it as a Network share). I also use cloud storage too but this is a review of the Duo so I won't decribe my paranoid backup system any further except to note that if the house burnt down I can recover from such a disaster.
The Duo is quite compact and comes with a couple of alternative USB leads (USB-C to USB-C and
USB-C to USB-A), PSU (UK plug adaptor included). If you were intending to just plug it in to a PC and use it as an external drive then it's all pretty straightforward stuff. I can't now recall how the disks were configured but I did have to format them. It is a very compact unit and its construction is quite nice-looking - better than the "plastic case" description might suggest. The unit makes very little noise - its much quieter than the PC fan for sure - and in Raid 0, I find disk access is quite fast. In use, on a Windows system, once its formatted, your system just treats it like any other disk and you can copy, drag and drop files etc as is usual. If you configure it as a JBOD then you end up with two disks of equal capacity. I prefer the Raid 0 configuration -it seems faster and I find it more convenient for Windows to "see" it as one disk. Whtehr Raid 1 is useful or not would depend on whther you are relying on the Duo to perform backups - in which case Raid 1 may be a sensible proposition (though bear in mind your effective storage capacity will be that of one disk).
My only real criticism of the unit is that removing (and inserting) disks to and from the Duo's HD carriers is not quite as trivial a job as the manual's diagrams indicate. The screws have rubber grommets which are a real p.i.t.a to deal with. My NAS's disk carriers are a joy in comparison..........no screws. I can't believe WD are saving much with this rather silly, fiddly, arrrangement. It's not a deal breaker mind, and if you are not wanting to get at the physical disks it won't bother you at all.
Overall, this is a very worthwhile purchase and reresents an absolute bargain if compared to the cost of just buying the two WD Red disks themselves.
| Brand | Western Digital |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 13.93 x 4.9 x 17.06 cm; 960 Grams |
| Item model number | WDBBGB0080HBK-EESN |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Series | My Book |
| Colour | Black |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Processor Type | None |
| RAM Size | 8 TB |
| Hard Drive Size | 8000 GB |
| Hard Disk Description | Mechanical Hard Disk |
| Hard Drive Interface | USB 3.0 |
| Voltage | 12 Volts |
| Wattage | 3600 |
| Power Source | Hand-operated |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Supported Software | Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Lithium Battery Energy Content | 2 Kilowatt Hours |
| Lithium Battery Packaging | Batteries packed with equipment |
| Lithium Battery Weight | 960 Grams |
| Number Of Lithium Ion Cells | 5 |
| Number of Lithium Metal Cells | 5 |
| Item Weight | 960 g |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
