Western Digital My Book 3.0

Among the new crop of USB 3.0 external hard drives, top experts like the Western Digital My Book 3.0 the best. Unlike some cheaper drives, it takes full advantage of USB 3.0's faster speed, reading and writing as quickly as an internal hard drive in tests. Even when hooked up to a USB 2.0 port, it's still very fast. If you' re comfortable installing a do-it-yourself upgrade, Western Digital also offers a version with a PCIe USB 3.0 add-in card for desktop PCs in the box (*Est. $150 for 1 TB). Testers say the My Book 3.0 is quiet, too, and it runs cool (hot operating temperatures can kill a hard drive). This new model has built up no reliability history, though, and its two-year warranty is shorter than some.

The Western Digital My Book 3.0 offers 1 TB or 2 TB of storage, but no included backup software. The My Book 3.0 is formatted for Windows, as Mac computers do not have USB 3.0. If you need a high-capacity desktop drive for a Mac, experts recommend the Western Digital My Book Studio, which is designed specifically for Macs and has USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports. A less expensive, USB 2.0-only option is the Clickfree (Discontinued), a unique portable hard drive that automatically backs up your files every time you plug it into your computer; the Clickfree works with both PCs and Macs and has a three-year warranty.

CNET publishes the most comprehensive review of the Western Digital My Book 3.0, including a chart comparing its performance with seven other drives'. RegHardware.com and TomsHardware.com also publish very objective, insightful tests of the My Book 3.0. This new drive has quickly accumulated a useful number of user reviews at Amazon.com.