Western Digital

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Western Digital:

Don’t miss these bargains on SSDs and memory cards on World Backup Day

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Rugged new Samsung T7 Shield SSD survives rain, drops and dust
The Samsung T7 Shield is one of several SSD on sale for World Backup Day.
Photo: Samsung

Several companies, including Samsung and Western Digital, have cut prices on SSDs and memory cards for World Backup Day. Save up to $80 on the rugged Samsung T7 Shield, while the SSD that’s WD’s closest rival is also on sale.

A 1TB SanDisk microSD card is surprisingly affordable. And the JetDriveLite specially made for MacBooks card readers is available at a discount, too.

Some of the deals are only available on March 31, so don’t procrastinate.

A Mac mini, a PC and a G4 walk into a podcasting primer … [Setups]

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See the G4 peeking out from under the desk? Ah, nostalgia.
See the G4 peeking out from under the desk? Ah, nostalgia.
Photo: omgaporksword@Reddit

It sounds like the setup to a punchline: A strapping young Mac mini, a yoked gaming PC and an elderly Power Mac G4 walk into a podcasting primer. Then what happens?

Well, if we’re talking about Redditor omgaporksword’s recent setup post, you learn a few OS-switching tricks, share some old-school Mac nostalgia and see how to position your USB microphone using a boom arm.

There is no punchline and there are no laughs. But please, people. Not everything is about humor. Except maybe omgaporksword’s Reddit handle.

SanDisk Luxe flash drive uses Lightning and USB-C to support all Apple devices

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The SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe debuted on Wednesday
Securely share a collection of files between your iPhone, Mac and iPad with a new 2-in-1 flash drive from SanDisk.

The SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe lets you access its files on all your Apple computers, no adapters needed. It supports Lightning and USB Type-C, so it can plug into an iPhone, Mac or iPad. The same goes for many Windows and Android devices.

Sleek new WD My Passport SSD offers 2 TB of storage, blazing-fast speeds [Review]

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WD My Passport SSD review
Western Digital’s redesigned mobile SSD is an ideal companion for MacBook or iPad.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Even in a world where everything can be stored in the cloud, there’s still a role for an external drive. Especially if it’s high-performance, and can go anywhere. Western Digital’s new solid state drive is slim and light, but also rugged. And the WD My Passport SSD holds up to 2 TB of data, and is far faster than a traditional hard drive.

Here’s how this newly-released peripheral stands up to real-world use with a range of computers.

Add 4TB of portable storage to your Mac with $40 off this WD drive

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WD portable storage drive for Mac
Bag yours before this discount ends.
Photo: WD

Constantly running out of storage on your Mac? Add a whopping 4TB with the brilliant WD Elements drive, which is now $40 less on Amazon.

The portable HDD uses super-speedy USB 3.0 connectivity for fast data transfers, and it’s backed by a two-year WD warranty. Bag yours today before this discount disappears.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

Speedy new My Passport SSD plants 2TB of storage in your palm

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WD My Passport SSD is compatible with a range of Apple computers.
WD My Passport SSD is tiny but adds up to 2TB of storage to Mac or iPad.
Photo: Western Digital

Western Digital introduced on Thursday an updated version of the My Passport SSD. It offers dramatically faster data transfers, plus a new sleeker design.

The external storage device is available in capacities up to 2TB, and offers prosumers an easy way to carry around fairly large collections of images, movies or other files.

What 35 million days of real-world use tell us about which hard drive to buy

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Backblaze shares data it’s collected on failure rates of over 104,954 hard drives running continuously.
Backblaze shares data it’s collected on failure rates of over 104,954 hard drives running continuously.
Photo: Backblaze

Statistics on hard drive reliability just released by data-storage company Backblaze would seem to indicate it’s not a good idea to buy a Seagate hard drive. Of the 104,954 drives it uses, Seagate’s are the least reliable by a wide margin.

On the other side of the coin, this company has found drives made by Western Digital’s HGST to be much more reliable.

Best Mac accessories for gift-giving [2017 Gift Guide]

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These best Mac accessories are perfect for any Mac owner on your gift list.
These accessories are perfect for any Mac owner on your gift list.
Image: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

2017 Gift Guide bug Christmas creeps up on you quickly, so if you haven’t already started your shopping, it’s time to do something about it. Cult of Mac can help! In this guide, you’ll find a selection of stellar gifts that are perfect for the Mac lover in your life.

We have killer keyboards, stunning stands, super speakers and more!

Apple joins last-ditch bid for Toshiba’s chip division

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Toshiba
Toshiba is ready to go public.
Photo: Toshiba

Acquiring Toshiba’s chip-making business could still be in play for Apple after all, even though the company’s previous attempts to secure the coveted division with Foxconn fell through.

According to a new report, Apple is part of a “last-ditch” bid to acquire Toshiba’s chip-making ability along with Bain Capital and a few other players. If successful, the acquisition could give Apple a serious weapon in its battle with Samsung for smartphone supremacy.

Apple may help rescue Toshiba’s chipmaking business

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Foxconn Wisconsin
Foxconn wants Toshiba's chip business.
Photo: Foxconn

iPhone-assembler Foxconn may be about to get some help from none other than Apple in its quest to buy Toshiba’s chipmaking business.

Apple is reportedly considering whether to make a huge multi-billion dollar investment in the world’s second-largest memory chip maker. If the deal goes through, it would give Foxconn and Apple a major advantage over other smartphone manufacturers.

Western Digital’s new USB-C hard drive can also charge MacBooks

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The G-Drive packs 45 watts of charging power.
The G-Drive packs 45 watts of charging power.
Photo: Western Digital

Owners of the new MacBook Pro with USB-C can now connect an external hard drive and get their charge on at the same time.

The folks at Western Digital introduced the new G-Drive USB-C external hard drive today, which combines up to 10TB of hard disk storage with 45 watts of charging power so MacBook owners have fewer dongles and cables to worry about.

Best Mac accessories of 2016

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Best Mac accessories 2016
From dongles to docks, these are the year's best Mac accessories.
Image: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

2016 Year in Review Cult of Mac We value our Mac computers. Whether on a desk or in a lap, they help us complete many life tasks. But you and your machine wouldn’t make it without reliable accessories — especially now that we live in the USB-C era.

Storage drives, hubs with extra ports, a good pair of headphones, maybe a bag to carry your tech — all these Mac accessories play important roles. They often remain unsung, but sometimes come through to help us avoid a devastating loss of hardware or important work.

So if you are looking to bolster your Mac support team, look no further than this list of some of Cult of Mac’s favorites accessories from 2016 for iMacs, MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

New WD drive puts terabytes in the palm of your hand

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Western Digital My Passport for Macs
Back it up! The new Western Digital My Passport for Macs holds 4 terabytes.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

The best work I ever did as a photographer resides in a collection of Western Digital external hard drives that are stored in an old, large camera bag in my closet. The images span more than a decade and with any one of the WD My Passport drives, I can confidently plug one in and quickly find some black-and-white relic of my past.

You can see the progress of time in the pictures (clothes and hair styles) as well as in the design and sizes of the WD drives. Each year, the drives offered more storage space in the same basic compact housing.

So I was astonished a couple of weeks back when the UPS driver dropped off a WD My Passport sized just a little bigger than a deck of cards — with a whopping 4 terabytes of storage.

Which massive hard drives are too big to fail?

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Looking for a new hard drive? Stay away from 3TB units. Photo: Backblaze Media

One year ago we were given some insight into which hard drives last the longest thanks to Backblaze media’s analysis of the tens of thousands of hard drives in their data center. The company uses regular consumer-grade hard drives due to the cheaper costs to power their unlimited storage offerings for customers, and this year they’re back with a new study revealing which 4TB hard drives are too big to fail.

After spinning 41,213 disk drives in its data center, Backblaze crunched the numbers at the end of 2014 to find that if want a hard drive with the lowest failure rate possible, go with an HGST drive.

How to build a gaming Hackintosh on the cheap: hardware

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More power, less money, runs OS X. Winning! Photo: Killian Bell
Want more power for your money? Build a Hackintosh. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

I recently decided it was time to get a proper desktop computer. I needed it predominantly for work, but I wanted it to be powerful enough to play the latest games in 1080p without worrying about stuttering or terrible frame rates.

The new Mac lineup didn’t offer a perfect fit — the Retina 5K iMac was too expensive, and the new Mac mini simply wasn’t powerful enough — so I set myself a goal: To build a gaming machine with a dedicated video card, capable of running OS X, for around the price of a Mac mini.

I set a budget of $650 for my build. That’s $150 more than the base model Mac mini, but $50 less than the midrange model. In this piece, I’ll take you through the components I purchased and why I chose them, and how I put them all together. Next week, I’ll show you how I installed OS X to turn my DIY gaming rig into a Hackintosh.

Gadget Watch: Staying home with robots

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Who needs to go out outside this week? Not us: We have headphones, a home-monitoring video camera, a robot to clean the floors and a keyboard that sleeps on your desk, all ready to play with your iDevices. Determined to leave the house? Take the GoPro PowerPole with you and then offload the footage to a new wireless, battery-powered hard drive from Western Digital.

Who needs to go out outside this week? Not us: We have headphones, a home-monitoring video camera, a robot to clean the floors and a keyboard that sleeps on your desk, all ready to play with your iDevices. Determined to leave the house? Take the GoPro PowerPole with you and then offload the footage to a new wireless, battery-powered hard drive from Western Digital.


Western Digital External Hard Drives Experiencing Data Loss On OS X Mavericks

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Western Digital has been emailing customers and warning them about hard drives “experiencing data loss when updating to Apple’s OS X Mavericks.” The problem seems to effect multiple kinds of drives, including the company’s popular MyBook lineup.

According to Western Digital, the incompatibility with Mavericks isn’t a hardware-level issue, but something to do with the software that is shipped with the drives it sells.

Western Digital Packs 2TB Into A Pocket-Sized Hard Drive

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WD My Passport Drives, now with 2TB inside
WD My Passport Drives, now with 2TB inside

Your MacBook Air might be the fastest, lightest, portable-est Mac you ever owned, but it is likely also one of the most storage-deficient Macs you have ever owned, in modern times at least. That will all be solved when bus-powered Thunderbolt drives start to show up, but in the meantime, take a look at Western Digital’s new 2TB My Passport USB drives.

Expect To See A Truck Load of SSDs At CES Thanks To Apple [CES 2012]

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ssd

 

For years we’ve heard a lot of hype about SSDs and how they’re going to change computing, but their progress has been slow, and the masses have been getting impatient. Well CES 2012 will be the start of SSDs officially entering into mainstream use thanks to Apple Inc. The best purchase I made in 2011 was when I replaced my MacBook Pro with the new 11″ MacBook Air. Not only is the MacBook Air lighter than any laptop I’ve owned, it’s also powerful enough to do some really awesome things I’d never thought possible on a miniature computer (like playing graphic intensive games like Star Wars the Old Republic). Most of these technological marvels are all thanks to Apple’s inclusion on SSDs in the MacBook Air lineup. Of course, Apple didn’t invent the SSD, nor were they the first company to use them, but they’re responsible for bringing SSDs to the masses at an affordable price.