Western Digital's 22 TB hard disk drives hit retail in July 2022, with a trio of products catering to the prosumer and business / enterprise markets. Today, the company is announcing an update to their portfolio of HDD-using direct-attached storage products - the My Book and My Book Duo. These products now come in new SKUs utilizing 22 TB HDDs tweaked for consumer workloads.
The My Book is an external storage solution that comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A interface and utilizes a single hard disk. It requires an external power adapter. On the other hand, the My Book Duo is a dual-drive solution with hardware RAID. By default, the drives are configured in RAID-0. The product also includes hub functionality. It comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C interface and also has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A downstream ports. Both products come with 256-bit hardware encryption support (requires WD Security software installation on client system to configure and use passwords). The WD Backup software component is also available for both systems in order to enable easy configuration of backups.
Previous WD My Book Duo releases used WD Red hard drives, but the company has not publicly confirmed the nature of the 22 TB HDD used in the new SKUs. No performance numbers were provided, but it is expected to be in the same ballpark as the previous generation SKUs.
Western Digital's WD My Book (2023) External Storage Devices | |||||
Capacity | Transfer Rate | Interface | Dimensions | Model Number | Price |
4 TB | Up to 250 MB/s, depends on model | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A | Height: 170.6 mm / 6.7” Length: 139.3 mm / 5.5” Width: 49 mm / 1.9" | WDBBGB0040HBK | $95 |
6 TB | WDBBGB0060HBK | $119 | |||
8 TB | WDBBGB0080HBK | $140 | |||
12 TB | WDBBGB0120HBK | $237 | |||
14 TB | WDBBGB0140HBK | $280 | |||
16 TB | WDBBGB0160HBK | $330 | |||
18 TB | WDBBGB0180HBK | $300 | |||
22 TB | WDBBGB0220HBK | $600 |
Western Digital's WD My Book Duo (2023) External Storage Devices | |||||
Capacity | Transfer Rate | Interface | Dimensions | Model Number | Price |
16 TB | Up to 360 MB/s?, depends on model | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C | Height: 180 mm / 7.09” Length: 160 mm / 6.3” Width: 100 mm / 3.94" | WDBFBE0160JBK | $440 |
20 TB | WDBFBE0200JBK | $668 | |||
24 TB | WDBFBE0240JBK | $900 | |||
28 TB | WDBFBE0280JBK | ||||
36 TB | WDBFBE0360JBK | ||||
44 TB | WDBFBE0440JBK |
The company already has the new SKUs available for purchase in the retail market. The 22 TB My Book is priced at $600 (commensurate with the pricing of the bare 22 TB drives introduced last year), while the 44 TB My Book Duo is priced at $1500. A $300 premium for a RAID-0 / RAID-1 controller and a couple of downstream USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports appears very steep, but that is the premium the company expects early adopters to pay (and is par for the course, based on how the previous My Book Duo SKUs were priced at launch). The single HDD My Book looks to be a cost-effective solution for consumers looking for an off-the-shelf backup solution with high capacity requirements.
