Pros: Nicely packed. Easy installation. Comes with backup software. Unit comes necessary wire. Has security software. Perfect for backup with raid 1 mirrored setup. 2 x USB 3 PORT.

Cons: I used it for a month now. I read other two reviews complaining about the heat and fan. I keep on checking the heat with my hand. I do not feel it hot at all. Only low warm once a while. Have not discovered any bad point yet. Needs longer time for investigation.

Other Thoughts: I set up the unit for Raid 1 (mirrored). The actual storage is 2T. I had a expensive network storage, but inconvenience and has to have network knowledge to set up and use. This unit is very simple to use. It acts only as an external storage. I recommend this unit for all computer owners. There is no duo drive external storage drive with similar price. There are a lot of choice for network storage, but no choice for raid 1 external storage. I asked a lot of computer owners. Most of them has no backup or back up in a single drive, either internal or external. I has the same setup before. One day, the backup drive crash. I lost all the backup. This unit has the raid 1 mirrored setup. It is perfect. No more lost data.

Pros: Nice slick design, small because only 2x drive enclosure
Great USB3.0 speeds
Decent software options
Soft LED lights
Setup pretty simple and straight forward



Benchmarks CrystalDiskMark

Vantec HX4R Raid 10

Sequential Read : 93.265 MB/s
Sequential Write : 131.252 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 43.628 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 31.146 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.530 MB/s [ 129.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.812 MB/s [ 198.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.564 MB/s [ 137.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.892 MB/s [ 217.7 IOPS]

My Book Duo Raid 0

Sequential Read : 244.680 MB/s
Sequential Write : 206.392 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 45.167 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 31.514 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.472 MB/s [ 115.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.317 MB/s [ 77.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.501 MB/s [ 122.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.320 MB/s [ 78.2 IOPS]

My Book Duo Raid 1

Sequential Read : 149.349 MB/s
Sequential Write : 145.717 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 28.858 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 79.527 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.579 MB/s [ 141.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.410 MB/s [ 344.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.589 MB/s [ 143.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.364 MB/s [ 333.1 IOPS]

Cons: Setup comes with 2x 2TB drives stating 4TB storage, which is setup in Raid 0, with no redundancy
Supposedly there is a fan? The unit gets pretty warm during regular benchmarking, the fan should kick in a bit, but never saw it on. (maybe can be addressed through firmware update?)
No eSATA
Had major issues with Windows 8.0 x64 would BSOD on USB3.0 port
once upgraded to windows 8.1 USB3.0 port worked fine on my ASUS crosshair V Formula-z With this My Book Duo

Other Thoughts: First impressions was how nice the look of the device was its pretty well designed, the passive air flow is good just by looking at it, as you can see through top to bottom, while testing the device would give off heat and you can feel it flow through it, without even the fan engaging. I dislike the wall adaptors I would prefer a wired adaptor like laptops and other devices have, that gives you the freedom in tight spaces. The utility is nice and slick but is designed for the avg home user, and the lack for advanced options showing more raw data about the controller and the physical drives is a minus in my book. (unless I missed some tab or setting).

This unit compared to my Vantec NexStar HX4R is nice as far as design for the air flow, but of course we are talking about 2x vs 4x enclosure that give way more raid options and a dedicated 80mm fan with manual speed control. Price wise the Vantec has the My Book Duo beat considering what you get with the NexStar, if you do the math of the cost of the 2TB red drives. This is why I believe WD should have had a much lower price since they are using their own drives and can save more with preinstalled units in this enclosure.

The WD My Book Duo should not come with Raid 0 preinstalled, I will bet the average user will think that Raid 0 might give them redundancy which it does not, in fact gives 2x the risk. Personally I will be running this unit with Raid 1, the performance is still good in my book, and the size of the unit makes it very convenient for moving around along with weight (2x drives vs 4x).

My Vantec HX4R configured in Raid 10 with 4x old but trusty Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200 16MB cache drives, did decent in comparison, to WD My Book Duo in Raid 1, of course Raid 0, lost in the speed. Overall I think this unit gets 3.7 to 3.9 out of 5, the bottom line is it could have been better (fan control, and utility advance settings) and for a little lower in price.

Pros: Nice sized unit, not too large or small and it's very heavy so it's not going to get knocked over very easily.

The drive includes software and utilities for windows and Mac thus no need for a CD which is not included or you can download the latest from WDC's main site.

The front LED is white which is nice for a change instead of the super bright blue that are usually used.

Each drive has it's own LED which will be black unless there is an issue in which case they will turn red alerting you to a problem that needs corrected.

Installation was as easy as plugging in the USB cord, power and allowing windows to install some drivers and it's up and running.

The unit is packed very well in the box which is always good to see. It's not DOA, always another plus.

The drives in this unit are of course WD RED drives which are decent, not the fastest but decent.

Two included USB3.0 ports on the back to daisy chain another My book or another external enclosure.

The Price is fairly decent if you take into account a RED 2TB drive is roughly $100 each thus the unit with raid controller is only $79 currently.

I doubt you will find any external hardware raid unit for that price point from anybody currently.

Made in Thailand, not China!

Cons: WD is a bit misleading on their stats. The unit comes pre-configured for raid0 which is why you have 4TB but you do not have two 4TB drives.

The idea behind backup is redundancy, you do not get that with raid0.

This unit has a built in 50mm? fan but it does not turn on until the RED drives hit 60C! thus the fan will never turn on making it pointless.
[WD confirmed this for me]

WD states the RED drives can "safely" reach up to 60c max which is extremely hot and will really kill the lifespan plus induce errors and bad sectors as the media breaks down.
Not sure I'd trust my critical media to that environment.

That said doing benchmarks and transferring some files I easily had it up to 48C [120F] which I find a bit warm. I could feel the heat rising from the top of the unit and the unit had a slight burning plastic smell.

My Lian-Li case has a top fan and once I put the WD My book Duo on top so it gets some decent airflow through the bottom grills [and out the top] the drive temps dropped to 84F which is so much better for long life. I never planned to have this on top of my case as it is rather heavy to leave on top of a aluminum case long term.

Another issue is the fact there is no ON/OFF switch. You can setup with WD software to have the unit sleep but if you want to physically turn it off and put it aside then your only option once you eject it is to pull the power plug.

The unit has a 2 year warranty which I found odd as the RED drives have a 3 year warranty. The unit should at the least match the same warranty as the drives.

The metal plate that covers the drives I had a slight issue with. In order to remove the drives WD supplies plastic pull taps attached to one of the pins on the back. Not sure how long those might last but they should unless you are constantly pulling the drives out.

The metal plate has a metal tab, it was bent on mine not allowing me to put it back on and screw it down flat so the plastic top would sit flush once snapped down. I had to bust out some needle nosed pliers to fix this.

Other Thoughts: The power supply is not WD made or branded but Ktec which seems to come with all types of external enclosures. If it fails out of warranty it could be purchased.

Read speeds are decent but writes speeds in both raid0 and 1 are quite erratic. It might just be the way RED drives work but it's certainly not a smooth graph as I am used to.

It would be great to see a My Book with raid10 but this would of course double the cost and double the width but you would get the speed with redundancy.

I want to note this unit uses hardware raid which is generally robust with one caveat. You cannot pull one of the drives out and install it into another PC and read the files.

Also with hardware raid if you decide you want to try another version or JBOD the drives will be erased to backup beforehand.

WD just announce RED Pro drives with a 5 year warranty which appear to be faster and even more robust.

I would not be shocked if WD creates a My Book Raid Pro in the future offering those drives with a longer unit warranty.

Overall not a bad external backup solution which a few things that could be improved.

Crystal benches:

Read speeds are decent but writes speeds in both raid0 and 1 are quite erratic. It might just be the way RED drives work but it's certainly not a smooth graph as I am used to.

It would be great to see a My Book with raid10 but this would of course double the cost and double the width but you would get the speed with redundancy.

I want to note this unit uses hardware raid which is generally robust with one caveat. You cannot pull one of the drives out and install it into another PC and read the files.

WD just announce RED Pro drives with a 5 year warranty which appear to be faster and even more robust.

I would not be shocked if WD creates a My Book Raid Pro in the future offering those drives with a longer unit warranty.

Overall not a bad external backup solution which a few things that could be improved.

crystal benches empty

raid0

Sequential Read : 280.368 MB/s
Sequential Write : 227.841 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 310.199 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 213.924 MB/s


raid1

Sequential Read : 213.472 MB/s
Sequential Write : 137.789 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 107.493 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 205.398 MB/s

HDtune read

raid0
minimum 115
maxium 242
average 197

raid1
minimum 62
maxium 151
average 113

HDtune write

raid0
minimum 30
maximum 186
average 145

raid1
minium 38
maximum 139
average 88