WD’s My Book Duo Comes in 4~8TB Flavors, Bundles Security and Data Protection Software

WD’s My Book external hard drive has a couple of simple goals: Give users convenient, quick access to out-of-PC storage, and give them the required tools to keep their data safe. Well, while My Book is a great product, one thing that has no doubt kept some away is the fact that it’s only come in a single-drive flavor. That changes today, with the company’s new My Book Duo.

Like the original, the My Book Duo aims to give you a definitive desktop storage solution. With 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB models available, you’ll be able to configure the two drives as JBOD (each will be independent), RAID 1 (mirrored), or RAID 0 (no redundancy but great performance). WD notes that at peak, and in RAID 0, the My Book Duo can reach speeds of 290MB/s.

Not surprisingly, the drives featured inside of the My Book Duo are WD’s own Red NAS drives, which I believe now include 1TB platters across-the-board. That’s great for performance, and makes that 290MB/s a little more believable (though that’s still going to be a best-case, and not typical).

For the sake of keeping user data safe, WD bundles in its SmartWare Pro software with the drive, as well as Acronis‘ fantastic True Image “WD Edition”, allowing you to back up your entire PC at regular intervals.

My Book Duo is set to launch at any moment, and will carry a 2-year warranty. SRP is $280 for the 4TB, $350 for the 6TB, and $450 for the 8TB.