Western Digital’s 22 TB hard drives will begin retailing in July 2022, with three products serving the prosumer and business/enterprise markets. The company today announced updates to its portfolio of direct-attached storage products using HDDs, the My Book and My Book Duo. These products are now available in a new he SKU that utilizes a 22 TB HDD that is tuned for consumer workloads.
My Book is an external storage solution with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A interface and using a single hard disk. Requires an external power adapter. My Book Duo, on the other hand, is a dual drive solution with hardware RAID. By default the drives are configured in RAID-0. This product also includes hub functionality. It comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C interface and also has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A downstream ports. Both products support 256-bit hardware encryption (you need to install his WD Security software on the client system to set and use passwords). A WD Backup software component is also available on both systems for easy configuration of backups.
Previous WD My Book Duo releases used WD Red hard drives, but the company has not officially confirmed the nature of the 22 TB HDD used in the new SKUs. No performance numbers were provided, but we expect it to be on par with his SKUs from the previous generation.
| WD My Book (2023) external storage device from Western Digital | ||||||||
| capacity | transfer speed | interface | size | model number | price | |||
| 4TB | to 250MB/s, Depends on model |
USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A | Height: 170.6mm / 6.7 inch Length: 139.3mm / 5.5inch Width: 49mm / 1.9″ |
WDBBGB0040HBK | $95 | |||
| 6TB | WDBBGB0060HBK | $119 | ||||||
| 8TB | WDBBGB0080HBK | $140 | ||||||
| 12TB | WDBBGB0120HBK | $237 | ||||||
| 14TB | WDBBGB0140HBK | $280 | ||||||
| 16TB | WDBBGB0160HBK | $330 | ||||||
| 18TB | WDBBGB0180HBK | $300 | ||||||
| 22TB | WDBBGB0220HBK | $600 | ||||||
| WD My Book Duo (2023) external storage device from Western Digital | ||||||||
| capacity | transfer speed | interface | size | model number | price | |||
| 16TB | to 360MB/s? Depends on model |
USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type C | Height: 180mm / 7.09inch Length: 160mm / 6.3inch Width: 100mm / 3.94″ |
WDBFBE0160JBK | $440 | |||
| 20TB | WDBFBE0200JBK | $668 | ||||||
| 24TB | WDBFBE0240JBK | $900 | ||||||
| 28TB | WDBFBE0280JBK | $1200 | ||||||
| 36TB | WDBFBE0360JBK | $1500 | ||||||
| 44TB | WDBFBE0440JBK | $1500 | ||||||
The company already has new SKUs available on the retail market. The 22 TB My Book costs $600 (the same price as the bare 22 TB drives introduced last year) and the 44 TB My Book Duo costs $1500. The $300 premium for a RAID-0/RAID-1 controller and two downstream USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports seems steep, but it’s the premium the company expects to pay early adopters. (and course equivalents, based on previous My Book Duo SKU pricing at launch). The single HDD My Book looks like a cost-effective solution for consumers looking for an off-the-shelf backup solution that needs a lot of capacity.
