WD 20TB My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive AES Encryption – USB 3.1 (WDBFBE0200JBK-NESN)

Pros: Very high capacity (18.1TB of actual space), RAID-0 or RAID-1 options, USB 3.1. This is the kind of feature set you want in an external drive for this sort of price. And it is, indeed, a good price for what it is. Of course, it’s up to you to determine if it’s what you need. For the price, make sure you’re getting the right hardware.

But if this is what you want, go for it. This is certainly going to do the job if this is the type of hardware you need.

In terms of speed, I’m clocking this at 375 MB/s (moving large files from an SSD straight through USB 3) and 180 MB/s doing CRC checks on the files once they’re on the disk. That’s fantastic. In real time, I can copy about 10GB per minute, including the CRC check to verify file integrity. No errors at any point. Speed does not degrade over long file copies (2+ hours). Keep in mind, my source there is an SSD. If you have a slower drive or some USB 2.0 external as your source, you WILL NOT replicate those speeds.

Moving smaller files, speeds were harder to clock (more fluctuation). For file transfers, I normally use TeraCopy, which does a better job with large batches of files. Moving about 8GB in 32 thousand files (that’s 250KB per file, on average) took 17 minutes. That’s an effective, real-time speed just under 8 MB/s (but equivalently, that’s 40+ small files per second) . And that includes CRC checks, which it plowed through at about 42 MB/s. Without the check, it took about 12.5, which is 10.7 MB/s. The actual write speed was much higher, I was seeing some momentary peaks of 25 MB/s, if not much more. Lots of overhead when transferring 32 thousand files.

Crystal Disk Mark 5.0 (with the drive in RAID-0) gives me (all in MB/s, 5 runs each):

Read:
Seq (Q32T1): 302.6
4k (Q32T1): 0.669
Seq: 298.5
4k: 0.612

Write:
Seq (Q32T1): 253.4
4k (Q32T1): 1.659
Seq: 237.8
4k: 1.614

Another great feature — the fan. This should probably improve reliability and performance. Intake seems to be good — I’m not measuring it rigorously, but it’s moving air pretty well for a relatively small fan (80mm) in a small device.

“Bonus” features that are nice, but probably less important to your shopping choices:

The USB hub capability is great. Two USB 3.0 ports to attach other items is nice.

Drives are easily removable for hot-swap, although if one of these drives breaks, I’m not sure WD will replace it — they’ll want to replace the whole unit, so your RAID-1 failure/rebuild might not go down the way you wanted if the warranty people aren’t very forgiving. YMMV.

Kensington lock. At this price point, it might be important if you leave your drive on your desk at work or something. (EDIT: I retract this. This is not a “pro.” If this is important for you at this price point, in your situation, BEWARE! See below)

Hardware encryption — configured through their software, which I guess is unavoidable, but it seems like a good thing. This isn’t just two drives and a meaningless SATA pass-through, this is a real drive, so it can do things like this. It’s not something I need, so I didn’t sit through the encryption process, but if you need it, it’s there.

Cons: Big brick for power. This should be expected, and I’m not taking off eggs for this, but I want to make sure you get it. It’s basically a laptop power adapter (12V, 4A). That’s not wrong, that is correct, that’s FOUR amperes. This thing will suck power. Of course it will, it’s 2 x 10TB drives. Just keep that in mind. I wouldn’t pack it up too tight either, in case it gets hot. Mine doesn’t seem to run too hot, but it may under heavy load or prolonged usage. I have my doubts — it’s not even WD branded. “Asian Power Devices Inc.” is not a brand I’m going to get behind. Putting out that much current from a medium-sized brick. I hope this is a wise choice of subcontract / supplier on WD’s part. That remains to be seen. The length on this is good, though. Maybe too long, frankly, considering how thin the wire actually is.

The 3-year warranty is good, but not great. I’ve also had my issues with WD, in particular with an older model of exactly this type — a 2-drive “My Book Duo.” This, and only this, is the reason I can’t give this a full-throated five-egg review. I’ve only used this for 30 days (see below), and indeed this is a very new product, so I can’t speak to the longevity of this particular product. Looking at the warranty, the reputation, and my personal experience of WD leads me to believe that the product should be generally good and probably reliable, but there are no guarantees and, like I said, I can’t tell you with any certainty that WD will make it right — because I know that sometimes they don’t. A good number of people are reporting failures — and a good number of them are reporting little help from WD. As always, buyer beware. And in the end, like I said, minus one egg. (Sorry WD, nothing you can do about this. You should have settled the issue back then, because from now on, I’ll harbor that doubt that you’ll fail to deliver on failure — within the warranty period! — like you did last time.)

Less important issues:

USB 3 cable could really stand to be longer. Not impressed by the 3-footer that came included. I guess for $800, the $10 replacement longer cable isn’t much. On the other hand, for $800, can’t you include one in the box?

Shiny super glossy finish. This is a con for me. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t care, but mine is already an abstract art piece I’m calling “Etude in grease, on black, 20TB.”

This is a bulky item. I don’t like the small USB connectors (in this case, the USB 3 C connector) when it could be a larger, more heavy-duty connection. I worry about trouble with wear-and-tear on that component.

Also, no instructions. A wordless diagram showing you how to open the case, a multilingual fine-print booklet, and a postcard with the support website on it. This would be fine, the item is plug-and-play, but where is the information about how to convert RAID-0 to RAID-1? You can only do this using WD Utilities. Why not have an internal jumper for this? Warn us that it will destroy all our data, but don’t make us jump through hoops and install software to make our hardware work.

Drive caddies are clearly labeled 1 & 2. The slots where the caddies go — not labeled. Maybe plan that out better, WD. The label is enough to convince me I don’t need to worry about which drive is which because they are labeled. I’m not going to notice until I go to put them back and realize there is no label on the slots. This is especially bad because the label on the PCB saying “HDD1” and “HDD2” are REVERSED from the stickers on the drives out of the box. (And this may be different for you, depending on how your drive was assembled? Who knows?)

UPDATE: Speaking of removing the drives, unfortunately, two good features render one of them useless sometimes. Drives you can remove with no tools in about 10 seconds is great, but it completely defeats the idea of a Kensington lock. Someone can just pop your drives out and walk away, leaving you with a $50 empty enclosure and a serious problem. This is a MAJOR design failure. If I could give 3.5 eggs, I would. I don’t see this bottoming out at 3 eggs, but if security is important, be VERY aware of this. You will have to find an aftermarket hack to secure the drives.

Overall Review: Drives are WD Red WD100EFAX-68LHPN0. 256MB cache, “NASWare” v3.0. It’s a NAS drive. Consider your drive usage accordingly. This is not a WD Black. This is for “NAS” usage. Plug it into your router or your PC, it’s still meant to be “Network Attached Storage.” Don’t use for video editing, don’t use for major throughput. It’s not slow, but it’s not a heavy-duty drive meant for extreme working environments.

Weird plastic pry-bar included in the box for removing the cover and accessing the drive. Convenient, but a bit odd.

Power button is a bit odd — it’s a weird long button on the back of the device. Not good or bad, just weird. (Check photos, right above the two USB ports on the back.) They get a small little nod, despite the weird design, for requiring you to HOLD the power button, so you can’t bump it and accidentally power down your drive.

Supports SMART 48bit LBA, APM, NCQ. No AAM or TRIM. Shows up as one drive, despite being two physical disks.

I had a bit of trouble with the drive showing up the first time I plugged it in. I am fairly sure I have a bad USB connector on my case. Switching to a different port, zero problems. Note that the driver for Win 8 (and probably Win 10) may take some time. It is loading custom WD drivers for the hub, controller, etc., not just generic USB storage.

Some people complain that it is loud, and it might be sitting next to a fanless ultrabook of some sort. But my PC is an airplane hangar, so I don’t care. It’s pretty quiet. The drives are bulky and heavy, they do make some noise when active too. If you have a wobbly desk and put it right next to where you have your keyboard, you might notice it there too. Nothing more than what would be normal. I’m not calling it quiet, but I wouldn’t call it a pro or a con. It’s what you’d expect.

This is a Newegg EggXpert review. These reviews are posted after 30 days. I tried to use the device for all 30 days, as much as I could — randomly throwing files at it, doing some stress testing to make sure nothing went wrong, etc. But in the end, any review from an EggXpert can only speak to the first 30 days of using a product. It is very hard to speak to the reliability or longevity of a product after only 30 days. Please always keep that in mind.

Pros: -Lots of storage room. 18.1tb actual space
-look great at first. Has a nice 2 tone finish, the bottom is satin, which is great. The top half is very high gloss, which attracts fingerprints and dust like a magnet.
-2 usb 3.0 ports.
-very quiet
-your choice of raid setups
-fast
-software pre-loaded on drive

For the most part this is everything most people will need in a network storage drive. Huge storage capacity, with raid options, raid 0 out of the box for the most space, or use the included software to change it to raid 1 to help keep your data safer from corruption. The drives and fan are very quiet. It also includes 2 usb cables, one usb3.0 to typce c and one type c to type c. As for speed I was getting average transfer rates of 100-150mbs depending on size and quantity of files.

Cons: -power button
-usb ports
-short usb cables
-generic laptop style power supply
-high gloss finish on top half
-somewhat false sense of security

The power button is hidden above the usb ports and oddly shaped with no indication on the unit it’s self that it actually exists and therefore can easily be missed. The usb ports are also on the back, meaning any time you want to plug in a usb drive to it you’re going to have to turn it around. Would have been nice for both the power button and the usb ports to bee on the front. The included usb cables are only 3 feet long, while the power adapter will give you nearly 10 feet. The power adapter itself is an off brand generic brand from Asian Power Devices INC. The power supplies on all my other devices at least have the brand name of the product they are for somewhere on them, this one does not. As mentioned before the high gloss finish on the top half will attract fingerprints and dust like a magnet. This is exasperated if you need to plug anything like a flash drive into the drives usb hub. Finally on security. The drive body has a Kensington lock for security. While this sounds nice, the drives can be removed with out any real tools. Pop the top off with a penny and the 2 hard drives are removed tool free with no way to secure them. This could have been fixed with something as simple as a tab you could screw down. If the security of your data is a real concern however The included software will help you encrypt your data.

Overall Review: Over all this is a great drive for the average user. More space than most people will need, in a sleek compact package that’s easy to setup. Windows 10 detected and had it setup in seconds after plugging it in. Most of the cons are minor, and barely worth mentioning. The only change I would really like to see are the usb ports moved to the front.

Pros: Very easy to setup under MacOS Mojave. I am using it as my primary storage and Time Machine volumes as upgrading the internal Mac Mini storage is expensive and only available at order time. As my Mac Mini is on all the time, I set the drives not to sleep. I have had no issues yet. My Mac Mini is a development, music making, and general use machine. I like the setup options in the WD application. Currently have them set as individual volumes. As I have an online backup solution, using one of the drives as a Time Machine drive locally is ideal. I use the other one as my main storage drive and have moved photos and iTunes library to that drive.

The two USB ports are a really great addition to the drive enclosure. The 2018 Mac Mini only has two USB A type ports and being able to have my Logitech mouse receiver an a my USB DAC (Presonus Scarlet 2i2) plugged into the Duo is fantastic. This frees up the ports on the Mac Mini.

The unit is very quiet and does not cause any hum in my powered studio monitors that it sits next to.

Cons: The status light is very bright. This is not really a negative as you can turn if off if you wish.

Overall Review: I will get another WD My Book Duo eventually. Then I will run both of them in Raid 1 (Mirror) mode for even more piece of mind.

Pros: looks super cool on my desk
WD support is amazing

Cons: WD software did not work properly on my 2017 macbook pro 2017.

Overall Review: This never worked for me, but WD was with me all the way. They even sent out a second device to make certain that it wasn’t a hardware issue. Both devices were a no-go for me and they took them back. I’m going to pick up a couple of WD red drives for a third-party enclosure. Thanks WD!

Pros: I have used several My Book Duo models over the years and I have generally had a good experience with them. This one works well with my iMac running macOS Bug Sur, as a Time Machine disk. I like that it uses a USB-C connection and I really appreciate that it acts as a hub, giving you two USB-A ports to connect other devices to.

Cons: It is a minor issue, but I am not a fan of the new case design. The previous, silver design with a small, subtle activity indicator was much nicer. This one has a very imposing look, and collects finger prints too easily. There is also a long light strip in the middle that lights up when the drive is running, but fortunately this can be turned off using the WD Drive Utilities software. The new design also has a lid that requires a special tool, a small piece of plastic that comes with it, to pry the lid open. This is another small step back from the previous design.

Note: my original review focused on the “unbearable noise” this drive made due to vibrations. I have since determined that the vibration is actually coming from a different drive I bought at the same time. These noises this drive makes are fairly typical for a hard drive.

Overall Review: I would recommend this drive for someone looking for a large amount of storage space, especially if having a couple of extra USB-A ports is useful to you.

Pros: Fast
Quiet
Huge storage
Affordable

Cons: Large (not that there is any option)
Quality of the housing could be better – just doesn’t feel solid to me

Overall Review: After using it for a couple weeks now, I’ve downloaded a huge amount of my photos from Prime Photos, and have since copied many of those files to local HD’s for syncing with Prime Photos on-line.

Performance is well above what I expected from what is essentially WD RED 5400 RPM drives in a RAID configuration.

Assuming this lasts years, it will be really nice to have local copies of everything I normally backup in the cloud.

Pros: Yeah so far I have not been able to get it to work. Tried to submit a case to WD and their site said “An error was encountered during knowledge base search.”

Cons: Not working so far

Cons: Bulky, heavy, not easy to store my photos and then work remotely.

Overall Review: The reason I gave this My Book Duo one egg is because I trusted my 155K Lightroom photos to this drive, storing them on this drive since my hard drive could not accommodate the 585GB. I had the two drives set up as mirrored…should be safe, right? But what if the case goes bad, which happened to me. The fan kept going on, and on, and I could not access my photos. I unplugged, and re-plugged, and still the fan kept going. I called WD support, the tech accessed my Mac and he also saw that I could not access the drive. So the resolution is to return it (still under warranty, thankfully), but I have to pay to ship it back! I finally got my photos off by plugging and unplugging, waiting hours between, until the fan did not go on. So you can imagine how long it took!
I mailed it back today and supposedly I’m getting a new one, but will I trust it? The jury is still out.