Western Digital My Book 3.0 1 TB

After the My Book 2.0, Western Digital is back with a My Book 3.0 which adopts the new USB 3.0 interface.
We previously evaluated this drive earlier in the year but are returning to it now to run it through an additional battery of tests. This will make it easier to compare it to other USB 3.0 drives, such as the LaCie Rugged USB 3.0 and Transcend StoreJet 25D3 that we have just received.

Specifications

The drive inside the casing is a WD Caviar Black (WD1001FAES), one of the best 3.5 inch drives on the market. Performances should therefore be pretty good. You have to say that it has a mouthwatering spec: 7200 rpm and 64 MB of cache memory. We test the 1 TB version here but there is also a 2 TB version on the market. Enough to stock plenty of very large files!
The USB 3.0 interface is connected to the computer by means of a cable that comes with it and which is 114 cm in length. We would have liked to see this a little longer, so as to be able to reach any computer casings far from the desk.
The transformer is not built into the My Book 3.0 and you musn't forget it when you move it around.

Performance

The sequential read and write speeds are simply excellent. Transfer of large files is a formality for the My Book 3.0. Moreover, allround performance is very good as even random reads and writes of 512 KB files reach 70 MB/s and 74 MB/s respectively:
 

Measured with CrystalDiskMark on 4 GB.

Access times are not exceptional but are average for external drives:
 

Measured with AS-SSD.

The PCMark Vantage index gives a more general idea of performance as it includes applied tests such as start-up of software, copying, editing or other profiles. The My Book 3.0 obtains an excellent score on the external hard drive index:
 

PCMark Vantage index.

Portability

Traditionally, 3.5 inch format drives can't compete with 2.5 inch drives when it comes to portability. This one can't therefore hope for more than a 1 star rating. Occasional transport only.