Western Digital WD EasyStore & My Book Horizontal Risers

Western Digital hasn't changed the form factor of their My Book/easystore hard drives for a very long time. Shaped almost like a “D” from the side, you can run these hard drives vertically or horizontally.

I generally prefer to run mine horizontally, but one thing I noticed was, some of the heat from the hard drive was warming up the surface of the desk I was using to support them. It feels like this “trapped heat” might be a concern for some.

So I designed a bracket/riser that lifts up the standard My Book/easystore by about 14mm, without covering up any of the air holes on the sides.

The first thing I did was trace the outline of the hard drive on a piece of paper, and what I saw was a “D”-shaped profile that was 143mm long and 51mm wide. The “front” of the drive is much more curved than the “back” of the drive so I realized if I wanted to make this support-free, I'd need to have two different versions: left and right.

I designed the “left” first, tested it out, and then did a full mirror to get the “right” side.

While I suspect that all of these drive enclosures are basically identical, you'll want to measure yours to make sure it's basically the same as what I was designing for. I do know that there are thicker RAID/mirror units, and there's a chance that the Mac version might be designed slightly differently.

Good news, you could likely shrink and grow this design in your slicer, X-Y-Z separately, if you needed to make it bigger or smaller for your specific drive.

I find that if I print it properly, it has just enough friction with the layer lines (0.2mm) that I don't need any tape or whatever. If you want to make these stick a little more, you could add double-sided tape or whatever.

Edit 2023/09/15: Added a thermal imaging photo so you can see the heat dissipation. When this hard drive was in-use and on the surface, although a lot of the heat does exit the side holes, it also builds up on the surface, so having that little 14mm gap helps! I also added a photo so you can see the little rubber feet I added for sound/surface vibration isolation.

I love your feedback, questions, comments and suggestions! I also really enjoy seeing my designs out in the wild, so please share your makes here!