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Western Digital WDG2NC20000N My Book World Edition II 2 TB Ethernet External Hard Drive | List Price: $509.99
Discount Price: $375.00
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Brand: Western Digital
Binding: Electronics
Warranty: 3 years warranty
Features: - WD Anywhere Access storage system and all the files on it are always accessible when you need them, even if your local computer is turned off.
- Easy to set up, easy to use. Wizard software steps you through RAID configuration.
- Data OnHand? - From any PC, use Windows Explorer to securely browse, edit and save files on My Book World Edition.
- Extra data protection with RAID 1
- Up to 2 TBs of storage in an elegant, small footprint design, enough to store an entire digital photo library, your HD movie collection and hours and hours of DV video.
So far so good... [Posted on 2008-07-16]
Purchased this device - connected it to my network without any problems.
Haven't bothered to load the software on it as yet - works just fine.
If I feel the need to make it more secure then I'll install the software.
I am able to stream media from the device via a Media Centre machine with no issues linking to it across my small network.
All in all very happy with the purchase :)
Not bad [Posted on 2008-07-20]
I purchased this item because I prefer Western Digital drives to other manufacturers. After reading the other reviews, I decided not to install the software that comes with it as I won't be using the "world access" functionality.
After figuring out what IP address it pulled, setup was easy via the web interface.
As others have written, the web interface _is_ unusually slow, but it does get the job done. It's not like you'll be using the web interface regularly.
I have confirmed what some others have written about write access being a bit slow. However, I did so some testing on my own and have found that writing to this drive over my gigabit network (wired), I can get up to 5 MB/s writing. If I write to a true windows server on my same network, I can get up to 12 MB/s on that.. so there is some speed difference. Possibly because the true Windows server is doing (more) write-caching.
Since I am using this to primarily store videos to stream to my DirecTV HR20 (mpegs), I have done several tests and find that the bandwidth on this device is more than sufficient to stream to my receiver. The videos play without delay, and no jitters or playback problems.
One downside to this is that it doesn't have a built in UPNP server, but my current TVersity server handles it fine.
All in all, I am happy with this NAS, especially for the price, compared to other devices.
Pros:
-Easy to setup, don't install the software
-Not as loud as people have mentioned. I barely hear it.
-Looks nice, small form factor
-Gigabit Ethernet helps video performance (less lag)
Cons:
-The blue-ring of death (the power and activity lights) is just as annoying as the one on my DirecTV HR20. Unfortunately, unlike the HR20, the lights can't be turned off. Don't put this near your TV, or you'll be staring at the lights.
-Slower than writing to a regular windows server (by 50%), but it still performs well
Wishlist:
-Ability to turn off the lights
-USB connector to plug it into my computer directly (so I could use it as a regular external hard drive)
-Rubberized feet. I live in earthquare country so things need to be able to stay put. This is easy to overcome at my local hardware store.
-Faster write performance. Perhaps more write-caching?
Buy something else. [Posted on 2008-08-09]
Consistently fails to mount on my Mac (takes a few re-starts of both the computer and the drive to finally see it on the desktop). Sometimes fails to start altogether. Sometimes I can't shut it down. The WD online and phone customer service is worthless - for any practical solution they want payment. Don't buy this!
Big but SLOW - too slow to be useful in real world [Posted on 2008-10-20]
My primary problem with this device, and ultimately the reason that I returned it for a refund, is that it is unacceptably slow. And when I say slow, I mean 10 times slower than a USB drive. I measured the throughput by copying a 1GB file over gigabit ethernet, and it clocked at 2.5MB/s, whereas copying the same file over USB measured 25MB/s. Copying across a wireless network to another computer was also faster. I got these results *after* updating to the latest firmware -- performance was even worse with the shipped firmware.
Other complaints: no explicit support for Mac or Linux, although both can be made to work given enough Google searches. Pathetic documentation even for supported Windows platforms.
Strongly NOT recommended. Still searching for an alternative.
Decent NAS Drive [Posted on 2008-11-11]
I found this NAS drive to be adequate performance and overall a decent investment. The web inteface to configure the device is slow to access despite on a 1GB switch. The folders are renamed to CAPS. For example: Documents become DOCUMENTS afer completing the wizard.
After configuring the drive, you can access it via UNC \\IPaddress\shareName. You DO NOT need to install Western Digital's MioNET to access the shares.
The drive runs quite and has a small footprint.
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