Drive recommendations & info, please?

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for Windows
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Hello! I need to buy an additional external drive (or two), and I’m not sure which one would be best for my uses. This would be used solely as media storage, and hooked up to an (older gen.1) WDTV. Currently, I have 2 older WD Mybooks, - a 500gb and a 1.5tb - both of which still work perfectly after many years of continual use. (At least 12+ years on the 500!! Not sure on the 1.5, but definitely more than 7 years…)

But - I’ve run out of room & I need more drives. My WDTV will not read drives larger than 2tb - I did partition a 4tb MyBook I bought not long ago, as I read that might work - but no - my WDTV still refused to recognize it. So I need to stick with a 2tb drive or smaller.

The newer MyBooks, and the EasyStore drives at Best Buy - it seems that 4tb is the smallest desktop drive available now, so I can’t get what I would have immediately chosen. I’ve never used one of the Passports before, so I don’t know if they last nearly as well as the larger drives?

So - I don’t know which would be the best drive to get. Apparently, my only options are an older MyBook from Ebay, or a 2tb Passport, or a 2tb EasyStore - the smaller EasyStore that appears to be a Passport clone. (I just noticed that there is a WD “Elements” drive also - seems passport-sized)

Do the fullsize MyBooks generally have better drives than the Passports? I don’t know what precise drives were used in the older MyBooks - whatever it was, it certainly has proved to be quite a reliable long-lasting drive!! Anyway - I would like to get the most reliable drive possible now - and hopefully, it will serve me as well and as long as these two old MYBooks have –

So - would you recommend finding an “old” MyBook on Ebay (I’ve seen some ‘new unopened’ ones come up sometimes) — or should I get a new Passport or EasyStore/Passport? Portability, encryption, etc is of little importance - the drives mostly stay hooked up to the TV, except when I bring them in here to load some new items on them. Frustrating - I would have bought several of the desktop version of the EasyStore drive if a 2tb model had been available! (or, if my WDTV would have worked with the larger drive) Do the Passport & the (passport-sized) EasyStore use the same drive internally & how is it compared to the drives in the “old” MyBooks?

Sorry to be so lengthy - and thank you very much for any advice you can give me!

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Hello there,

Which is the exact model of your media player?

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Hi ArMak,

Thanks for the reply! It’s a WD00AVN-00 – and the “HDMI” symbol is on the front panel, not the top… - from what I see, both of those indicate that it is a Gen 1 player. We bought it in 2009 I think? Firmware version 1.01.02.

I know there are later media player models out there, but I don’t want to replace the WDTV. It does what I need it to do & it still works perfectly fine , and — call me overly sentimental — but my husband originally put together this set-up not too long before he got ill & passed away in 2010. He was SO tickled with moving all our movies on HD & enjoyed the system so much So, this is “his” WDTV - I don’t plan on replacing it until it quits working. So, I just need to work around the HD size limitations it has.