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We first profiled the Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo at CES in January and noted the extraordinary speed of the drives, especially when daisy chained (above find 780MB/s read, 600+MB/s write). Today, Macrumors notes that Western Digital is making the drives available for $599 (4TB) and $699 (6TB).  While those prices are steep, they fall in line with new Thunderbolt parts across the line.

We’ve reviewed the much slower Firewire/USB Western Digital Studio 6TB drives and came away impressed. Those retail for around $430 currently ($270 less than the Thunderbolt version) but use energy efficient (read: slower) internal drives and slower Firewire 800 connectivity options.

Notably B&H Photo and Video is selling the Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo already with $50 discounts (6TB – $649, 4TB- $549) and tax only in New York but without solid shipping dates.
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From 9to5toys.com:

MacMall via eBay Daily Deal offers the factory-refurbished Western Digital Elements 3TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, model no. WDBAAU0030HBK-NESN, for $99.99 with free shipping. That’s $0.03/GB, $20 below our mention of a new unit from three days ago, and the lowest total price we’ve seen for this drive. (It’s $18 below the current price low for a new unit.) This drive uses GreenPower technology to reduce power consumption by up to 30%.

A Western Digital warranty applies; however, MacMall does not mention the length of this warranty on the product page.

Related articles

• Western Digital Elements 2.5TB USB External HDD for $89 + free shipping (9to5toys.com)
• Western Digital My Book Elite 2TB USB External Drive for $110 + free shipping (9to5toys.com)
• Refurb Western Digital Caviar 1.5TB SATA Hard Drive for $45 + free shipping (9to5toys.com)
• Western Digital Elements 3TB USB External Hard Drive for $120 + free shipping (9to5toys.com)
• Refurb Western Digital Livewire AV Powerline Network Kit for $60 + $6 s&h (9to5toys.com)

There’s not much to say about the new Western Digital My Book Studio 3TB hard drive.  It looks quite nice and would go nicely with a Mac Pro or any aluminum Mac. The new MyBook Studio, unlike the previous My Book LX models, doesn’t have the LED display which showed free space and other nice specs without the need to dig it up from the connected computer.  It does, however, have a quiet, cool running green hard drive with a fan-less enclosure. But the $150/$200/$250 for 1TB/2TB/3TB models, it isn’t going to hit 9to5toys.com anytime soon.

In fact, the same 3TB Western Digital Internal Green Drive resides in a USB-only package for only $130.  Because this is a green drive, the extra speed that Firewire provides isn’t as noticeable as with a high performance drive.  See speed tests and more images below.
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