Western Digital has launched a new range of MyBook Duo storage systems to address today's growing digital content libraries. The new WD MyBook Duo, USB 3.1 attached desktop storage systems, are available in capacities of up to 20TB. They can provide performance of up to 360MB/s sequential read via a USB 3.1 Type-C port, and are also fitted with two backwards compatible USB 3.0 Type-A ports.
Sven Rathjen, VP of product marketing, Client Solutions, Western Digital, said that the MyBook Duo desktop storage systems are designed to address the fact that "people are creating and amassing huge volumes of data, and need high capacity, high speed solutions to easily and confidently move and store that data in a single location". Rathjen mentioned some notable content creation segments that are amassing massive amounts of data - photo and video professionals, especially drone enthusiasts.
Out of the box the WD MyBook Duo comes with a pair of RAID-optimized WD Red hard drives setup in RAID-0 config for maximum use of the capacity available, and the fastest transfers. If you want safer backups you can switch to RAID-1 mode for redundancy (data mirroring), or you can alternatively use it as two independent drives (JBOD, Just a Bunch of Disks mode) with the included WD Drive Utilities software.
The USB Type-C port comes with a set of cables and adapters so it supports USB 3.1 Gen 1/3.0/2.0 right out of the box. Two additional USB Type-A hub ports allow for additional accessories, including drones, action cameras, card readers, keyboards, mice, USB drives or phone syncing and charging.
It's worth noting that the WD MyBook Duo desktop storage system comes with 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption with WD Security software built-in. As well as backing up your data for safety, this is useful if you want to restrict access to the data. WD Security facilitates the setting on a personalised password to activate its hardware encryption and protect data from prying eyes.
The My Book Duo storage system is protected by a three-year limited warranty and is available now from wd.com and at select retailers and distributors worldwide. In the US storage systems come with the following MSRPs; $799.99 (20TB), $599.99 (16TB), $419.99 (12TB), $329.99 (8TB), $289.99 (6TB) and $259.99 (4TB). In the UK the 20TB drive costs £619.99 inc VAT and free shipping, while the lowest capacity (4TB) model costs £269.99.
