Western Digital debuts My Book Duo with up to 20TB of external storage

Western Digital this week launched the My Book Duo, an external RAID storage system that comes with up to 20 terabytes of storage, and as well as a USB-C port simplifying connections with recent Macs.

The Duo relies on WD's Red network-attached storage drives, with reads up to 360 megabytes per second and additional support for 256-bit AES hardware encryption. Capacity options include 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, or 20 terabytes.

Though equipped with USB-C, bundled cables let the unit work with USB 2.0 and 3.0 computers as well. Two USB-A ports are actually meant for connecting accessories like card readers, USB drives, keyboards, and mice — WD notes that owners can in fact sync and charge a phone.

By default the Duo is NTFS-formatted for Windows systems, but it can be reformatted for use with Macs.

Prices for the My Book Duo start at $259.99 for 4 terabytes and range up to $849.99 for 20 terabytes. B&H is taking orders for all storage capacities with free expedited shipping and no tax collected outside NY and NJ. Amazon is also accepting backorders.

33 Comments

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

About 7 years ago

Not enough for my music collection. You just know that comment is coming sooner or later.

macxpress 5910 comments · 16 Years

Who the hell needs 20TB of space? Thats a lot of stolen music and movies.

king editor the grate 662 comments · 15 Years

I'll never forget this crazyapplerumor: "Holds up to 4 internal drives FOR ALL THE PORN IN THE WORLD! OK, not really, but a lot of porn."

teaearlegreyhot 1012 comments · 11 Years

macxpress said:

Who the hell needs 20TB of space? Thats a lot of stolen music and movies.

Well this product is great news for people like me who are involved in modern DNA sequencing projects, where individual data files are in the range of 50-100 GB each. A single 96-sample run can generate 5TB of data in a few hours, and yes this often means hard drives are express-shipped to customers. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a US Mail truck full of hard drives, traveling down the highway at 65 MPH"

Skeptical? The human genome is 3 billion base pairs of DNA. Even with only 20-fold redundancy (needed for assembly) that's 60 gigabases, which is 60 Gbyte of ascii data. Now think about the companies offering full- genome sequencing to the public, and the many people willing to pay a few thousand bucks each for the service.

Now think of all the plant, animal, and microbial research being done in the world, and understand that many of these organisms are having their DNA being sequenced by someone. And not just once, but multiple instances of each species.... Data storage is a major issue. PS: the last Mac I bought is outfitted with 128 GB of RAM....

macxpress said:

Who the hell needs 20TB of space? Thats a lot of stolen music and movies.

Real professionals who work on gigantic projects like movies, medical research, etc. This is not a ‘home’ product although some will buy it just to brag.