WD 6TB My Book Thunderbolt Duo Dual-Drive Storage System

Peak performance for creative professionals.

WD's My Book Thunderbolt Duo dual-drive storage system delivers the optimal fusion of performance and capacity. This drive offers two Thunderbolt ports delivering the revolutionary data transfer speeds available only with Thunderbolt technology.
  • Premium performance from two Thunderbolt ports
  • Dual-drive system with user-selectable RAID 0/1
  • Compatible with Time Machine
  • User-serviceable hard drives
  • WD SmartWare automatic continuous backup software
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Questions & Answers

13 Questions + 16 Answers

3.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 13 reviews

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Purchase Information

$599.95

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Discontinued

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Features

Apple Recommends For

Store and backup data from your Mac at the unprecedented speeds of Thunderbolt technology.

The WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo dual-drive storage system gives you the ideal combination of performance and capacity. And thanks to two Thunderbolt ports you get the superior data transfer speeds that only Thunderbolt technology can offer. Daisy-chain multiple devices through My Book Thunderbolt Duo and enjoy nearly unlimited flexibility and performance in your creative life.

Highlights

  • Revolutionary Thunderbolt technology with Two Thunderbolt ports for high-speed data transfer
  • Dual-drive storage system with user-selectable RAID 0/1 that automatically duplicates your data
  • Compatible with Time Machine
  • User serviceable hard drives
  • WD SmartWare automatic continuous backup software
  • HFS+ formatted
  • Daisy-chain multiple devices like HD monitors, video and audio editors and media players for nearly unlimited productivity
  • Handle video editing, 3D rendering and other graphics-intensive projects simultaneously

Did You Notice?

If you fill up a drive and need to replace it, simply open the case and exchange the existing drive—no tools needed.

Technical Specs

General

  • Other Features: Kensington Port,RAID Support

Perfomance

  • Maximum Transfer Rate: Up to 10Gbit/s of throughput on each of two channels

Power

  • Power Source: External power supply
  • AC Voltage: 100-240V @ 47-63Hz

Dimension

  • Weight: 4.73 lb./2.15 kg
  • Height: 6.5 in./16.5 cm
  • Width: 3.9 in./9.9 cm
  • Length: 6.2 in./15.7 cm

Backup

  • Backup Software: WD Smartware

Compatibility

Mac

  • Mac OS v10.5, v10.6, or v10.7
  • Intel
  • Thunderbolt port

What's in the Box?

  • WD dual-drive storage system with Thunderbolt connectors
  • AC adapter
  • Quick install guide
  • Note: Thunderbolt cable not included; must be purchased separately.

Manufacturer Information

Warranty

  • Note: Products sold through this website that do not bear the Apple Brand name are serviced and supported exclusively by their manufacturers in accordance with terms and conditions packaged with the products. Apple's Limited Warranty does not apply to products that are not Apple-branded, even if packaged or sold with Apple products. Please contact the manufacturer directly for technical support and customer service.
  • Warranty: Three years

Part Number

  • UPC or EAN No.: 718037788876
 

Ratings & Reviews

3.5

Based on 13 reviews

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Most Useful Reviews

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Love This Drive

    • Written by from Hopkins

    Some My Book Thunderbolt reviews have focused on how the Cavier Green drives make this one of the slowest Thunderbolt storage solutions. Yet it is way faster than non Thunderbolt drives, even USB 3.0. I have the 6TB MyBook Thunderbolt set to RAID1 mirroring. I got so tired over the years of having hard drives die, this is the perfect solution for backing up precious content. I also stream audio and video media to iTunes from the drive without issue. When one of it's two 3 TB drives eventually goes bad in my RAID1 configuration, the included software will report it, while you still have a completely functional drive running off the remaining good drive. Replacing the bad drive with another Cavier Green drive is a snap, literally, right from the top. Gone are the days of of data loss worries. It's a very quiet drive as there is no fan. Cavier Green drives are very efficient, quiet and heat wafts up through the top grill. You can run it as one 6TB RAID0, or a 3TB RAID1 mirror, or 2 independent 3TB drives (JBOB). am very happy with this drive and highly recommend it. Good price for what you get. …More

    75 of 79 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Product, and even better with some additional partitioning.

    • Written by from Parkville

    I am an audio engineer who uses Pro Tools for my DAW, and I demand speed and rigor with all of my computer products. The drive performs fantastically. My data is accessed fast and seamlessly. With the WD Utilities included you are limited to RAID 0 with 6TB, RAID 1 with 3TB, or two individual drives with no RAID present. Using disk utility, I partitioned each drive into two 1.5TB sections. I then formed two RAID 0 disk images. By doing this, you can have much greater performance in two disk images. Overall great product. With the partitioning method above, this drive is extremely useful for people interested is having external storage and Time Machine capabilities in one drive. Thank you Western Digital! …More

    40 of 42 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Good but not great

    • Written by from Temple Terrace

    Bought this as a time machine back up drive - it's "green" drives were a plus.
    To like - reasonable price, three options to configure, good reviews
    To not like - not very "green" - runs fairly warm and doesn't spin down, no on/off switch. Have to power down by pulling the plug
    In the middle of the pack- quiet but not silent     …More

    39 of 43 people found this useful

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Most Recent Reviews

  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    WD Thunderbolt Duo RAID 1 Configuration Fail

    • Written by from Torrquay

    A previous reviewer identified that the problem was due to open files on the drive which causes a change of configuration to fail. The User Manual and the Utilites program are on the drive, so it is common for users to open these before making changs to the configuration.

    Not the neatest of solutions but his worked for me by presumably killing any open images on the external hard drive.

    1. Make sure that WD Drive Utilities has been installed.
    2. Close all open programs.
    3. Right Click Thunderbolt Duo Icon on Desktop - "Eject" drive.
    4. Disconnect power to drive, wait 30 secs, then reconnect power.
    5. Open WD Drive Utilities, selct drive and configure to RAID 1.

    WD Support were going to send a refurbished replacement as they could not identify what seems to be a common problem.     …More

    1 of 1 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Works well so far

    • Written by from COCHRANE

    I got the same unable to config error message the first times I tried, but as a previous review noted, you need to eject the WD Drive Utilities disk image after installing the software before you try configuring the drive. Working well for me so far. …More

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Configuration Failed - run as Admin

    • Written by from Calgary

    To those that had this error trying to change to RAID 1. I had the same, but it worked fine when I ran it from my administrator account.

    Even though it asked for administrator password when run from my normal account, this did not work and I had to switch to an account with admin rights.

    Hope this helps!!     …More

    1 of 2 people found this useful

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Questions & Answers

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See all 13 Questions

Most Interesting

Recently Answered

  • Can one partition the main drive under RAID 1?
    • Asked by Erika S from Arlington
    • Dec 19, 2012

    2 Answers

    Answer

    Hi Erika,

    After some trial and error I finally did it. Open Disk Utility. You need to first erase the WD Thunderbolt Raid that is preconfigured. Then you go to the first 3TB WDC and create your partitions and name them. You then go to the second 3TB WDC and create the same size partitions and name them. After that, select the first partition and its RAID tab. I then dragged the two like partitions from each of the drives and named it - creating a RAID 1 drive. Then I did the same for the second partition and so forth. The end result is two (or multiple) drives of same size that are RAID1s.

    Hope that helps:)
    Gil     …More

    • Answered by Gilbert M from Boca Raton
    • Jan 5, 2013
  • Can 2 daisychained drives, each configured in RAID 0 be combined in a RAID 1 array using Disk Utility?
    • Asked by Steven H
    • Sep 29, 2012

    1 Answer

    Answer

    You can combine two RAID0 Duo's into a RAID 10 array for redundancy. According to WD, because of the two channel Thunderbolt (not to be confused with two Thunderbolt ports), if you daisy chain two of these in one RAID0 set, you'll see a significant increase in performance. In a single RAID0 Duo, it is writing to both of the internal drives simultaneously, doubling the speed. So if you have two channels, and two Duo's, it makes since that the speed would double again. It is writing to four drives at once, hence 4x the speed -- in theory. …More

    • Answered by Jack P from Fair Oaks Ranch
    • Nov 28, 2012
  • if we get the 6tb drive assume with dual drives , it really only has 3tb total storage may be a dumb question
    • Asked by Richard R from Norwalk
    • May 24, 2012

    2 Answers

    Answer

    It can be either, you have the option of RAID 0 which gives 6TB or RAID 1 which gives 3TB and the drives are mirrored so protecting against drive failure. Your choice, safety or speed and capacity. I have gone for capacity as I also have a FW800 6TB drive for backup which is set for RAID 1 to allow for any failure of the Thunderbolt drive (I only have the 4TB thunderbolt) Hope this helps. …More

    • Answered by Michael K
    • Nov 14, 2012
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