Western Digital matches Seagate with 3TB external HDD

[Jos]

Western Digital today announced an update to its lineup external hard drives: the My Passport Essential, My Passport Essential SE and My Book Essential. The smallest drive in the lot, the My Passport Essential, offers 500GB of storage in a portable 2.5-inch form factor, while the My Passport Essential SE ups the ante with 750GB and 1TB flavors. Meanwhile, on the desktop front, Western Digital is matching Seagate’s latest GoFlex Desk offering with a similarly priced 3TB My Book Essential unit.

All three models are USB 3.0-equipped and come bundled with the company’s SmartWare software, which performs automatic and continuous backup tasks. They are also backwards-compatible with USB 2.0, of course, and support both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. The drives will be available at retailers and Western Digital's own online store starting at $100 for the 500GB My Passport Essential, $139 and $170 for the 750GB and 1TB My Passport Essential SE, and $250 for the 3TB My Book – though it’s available in 1 and 2TB versions as well. Internally, the latter uses a WD Caviar Green drive which will be available shortly as a standalone product according to the company.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/40528-western-digital-matches-seagate-with-3tb-external-hdd.html

 

[tonylukac]

How do they get 3 terabyte to work with windows xp? Is this a valid question?

 

[KG363]

is this 1 3.5 inch 3TB drive or is it something else?

 

[Rick]

The main problem most people talk about is Windows XP will not *boot* from a partition greater than 2TB. As long as partition is GPT (GUID), it shouldn't be a problem.

The limit for NTFS partitions is much higher for both Windows and NTFS itself. Even the NTFS "16TB" limitation is a bit of a myth... Larger capacities have been achieved and put to use.

 

[Regenweald]

tonylukac said:
How do they get 3 terabyte to work with windows xp? Is this a valid question?

They don't, I believe. Vista or Seven needed. On another note, I recently bought a western digital 1.5 terabyte on amazon for 89$, and it works with XP. I could buy one more for a whopping 3TiB for less than half the price and full XP compatibility. Food for thought.

 

[Regenweald]

Scratch that 'less than half the price comment' I've had a few beers, swore I saw $350

 

[Guest]

There are some limitations in drive sizes supported by bios. This is why we are seeing 3TB drives in external cases because there is a additional controller required. If you take the 3TB out & place it on the sata controller in you PC, it will see 2.2TB.. I think manufacturers are updating their bios'...
ie, MSI X58 Pro-E
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=bios&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1804
- Add XMP LowVoltage function.
- Fix 2.2TB HDD show wrong size in POST2 screen.

PC bios is legacy. I think the next gen will support such drives properly..

Rob