Western Digital’s twin-disk portable RAID hard drive — which doesn’t even need a power cable, since it runs off its Thunderbolt connection’s bus power — is coming to Australia, and at a surprisingly reasonable price. The cheapest version of this pro-grade drive will be only $500.
With a three-year limited warranty like the rest of Western Digital’s storage hardware, the new MyPassport Pro is looking more and more like a super-convenient way for media professionals — anyone working with high-resolution uncompressed video, or a large library of high-res images from a digital SLR or medium format camera — to edit their work on a Thunderbolt laptop.
WD claims read speeds of up to 233MB/s from the MyPassport Pro, which is a significant boost from the 160MB/s of a single high-speed Thunderbolt disk like the HGST G-Drive Mobile Thunderbolt. That drive is $300 for 1TB and slightly inferior disk speeds, so WD’s option is actually looking like good value.
The two drives inside the MyPassport Pro can be combined for fast RAID 0 or redundant RAID 1 for an in-built backup, and are shockproofed to resist the rigours of portable use. The bulky chassis is aluminium, so it should stand up to a bit of punishment; native Thunderbolt means it’ll mostly end up alongside a MacBook Pro, although there are a few Windows laptops out there with Thunderbolt connectivity.
The AU $499.99 2TB drive will also be $549.99 in New Zealand, and there’s a high-capacity 4TB version for $649.99 locally and $749.99 in NZ. [Western Digital]