 Contrary to Popular Opinion..... |
| Review Date: August 2, 2007 |
| Reviewer: L. E. Pogue, Fort Washington, MD USA |
| The drive is great. Access speed are limited to your ethernet speed so access speed can be an issue for speed demons out there. However, contrary to popular belief, you do not need to install any software. Microsoft's built-in network manager can find the drive easily on the same network. If you want the drive for use outside your private network then you WILL need the software. Otherwise, there are a lot of sour grapes out there that do not know how to find a network drive. Word to the wise, the first time we put the drive on the network we had to turn the power off and turn it back on since it didn't get assigned an IP address on the router. So this method may be the trick you need to SEE it on the network. Enjoy a great home solution to networking. |
My World needs a second My Book World Edition ll
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| Review Date: April 2, 2008 |
| Reviewer: J. Stockman, Philadelphia PA USA |
I am actually visiting this site to source and purchase my second My Book World Edition ll. Purchased my first over a year ago when my tech guys at work said they couldn't give me more filr room on the network. I'm the graphics guy and have tons of photos, high-res stock photography and variations of InDesignand PhotoShop projects.
My 1TB unit is set-up to mirror all projects to the device's second drive which I would advise to anyone, so if you're ready to purchase get the biggest one you can afford and mirror the data space cutting your drive in half. The World Edition ll even has very simple instruction to replace one of the two internal hard drives if you need to. And if you were set to mirror your data, the new drive formats itself and copies the data back from the functional drive. Luckily I have not had to do that, but before I even hooked the uunit up I pulled one of the drives myself to see how it worked - which was very simple.
I have accessed the drive from all over the world with no problem but this. Twice the Mionet network was down which would not let me get on the drive. Imagine my frustration - the drive is sitting on my desk, right next to me, but I could not get the data because the global server technology behind the product was down. It hurt for the day I was affected, but all things concidered has been a wonderful device that was a breeze to install and get running.
It will be money well spent, but get the one bigger than you think you need. |
Excellent
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| Review Date: April 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Sandro Furlone, |
| After playing with this Hard Drive, i configured WITHOUT MIONET. If idid that YOU CAN DO IT TOO.... |
Perfect
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| Review Date: June 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Jason of New Jersey, New Jersey |
| This drive is great. It runs quietly and quickly. Just plug it in a go! Works with our PC and Mac computer both over our network. |
Great price for a RAID capable network accessible storage device
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| Review Date: September 7, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Zachary Sherry, El Cerrito, CA |
I originally purchased the single drive version of this unit, but decided after that I was not satisfied with the data protection on just one drive.
Upon receiving the unit it is initially configured to span both drives creating a 1 Terrabyte partition for data storage. It took about 3 hours for the unit to fully complete the re-configuration process to enable RAID 1 mirroring which cuts usable space from 1 TB to approx. 500 GB due to all data being stored on both drives.
Once the unit was setup it was easily accessed and transfer was easily accomplished from the existing unit.
There does seem to be a longer delay when accessing the share that is automatically setup by the client software on your local computer. If you directly map a drive access is as fast as your local network will allow.
Remote access uses the "Mionet" software and will allow remote access to files on the drive and any powered local PC's if you are accessing remotely. This is enhanced if you have the client software installed on the remote PC by allowing the drive to appear as if it's local (it's still as slow as the network connection you are on).
You will need to pay extra for the enhanced Mionet services including the remote desktop access feature, wait for them to send you a deal notification before purchasing at full price if you like this feature.
Knowing the limitations, overall, I am very satisfied with this unit. |
No free lunch, just a cheap NAS solution.
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| Review Date: February 21, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Christopher Wanko, Nutley, NJ USA |
I'll make this short.
This is a network-enabled box with two hard drives in it. You can swap out the drives any time and upgrade, replace, swap, and so forth. If you use the included software, you'll probably be disappointed with MioNet, as it only runs on XP and only after some hurdles. Also, the included EMC software has been dumbed down a little too much to be useful.
However, if you're in possession of a brain, and learned to read, you can access the drive's interface, create a new shared subdirectory, and mount it as a drive letter on any system in your home network. Then, using whatever backup solution you like, get to work backing up your files. Which it does. Perfectly.
Folks, it's this simple. It's a cheap NAS. If you bought it thinking it's a full-fledged file server that will let you access your pirated DVDs from Florida, well, maybe it will and and maybe it won't. I wasn't trying to fool myself, though. A real NAS solution costs upwards of $800 before you add one hard drive. You can't get something for nothing.
-C
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Great buy for the price!
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| Review Date: January 21, 2008 |
| Reviewer: ATuck, Detroit |
I recently had a virus scare that left me with a need for mass storage - the thought of losing all of my business files/100 GB of pictures stored of the last three years was a daunting thought. I have always backed up my major stuff - Quicken, Christmas Pictures etc. to a small portable HD, but the more mundane, everyday stuff was swept under the rug.
I have four computers that need backing up - two laptops (my daughters) my desktop, and my sons desktop. I have them all connected (local network) and I wanted something that I could hook up to the network instead of having to hook it up to each PC, or hooking it up to one PC and making shared.
I considered buying/making a server, but times are tight for me at the moment, and if I can do the something for less, I usually do it.
Browsing around, it became obvious to me that the NAS family (Network-Attached-Storage) pretty well fit the bill. Cheaper than a new PC (for the most part) and reasonably small, they offered many good features. I settled on the WD My Book WE primarily because of the price. I read many reviews on this item before I purchased it - mainly on this very page. Most pick apart the World Book because of the MP3/MP4/etc. restrictions on the "anywhere". If you don't know about this, find out, because it might make a difference to you. I don't do alot of media file sharing, and the sharing that I do is strictly over the network using the Mapped Drive (more on that later).
I purchased the World Book at Sams (I think that I bought it for $299.99 ), and walked out feeling odd. I remember when 1 MB cost $1,000,000 and it filled up a room (ok SLIGHTLY less), and here I was walking away from the store with 1 TB under my arm!
Setup of the world book was a bit of a headache. You have to install the software included (Mionet) to work with this drive. Once you set it up, you can uninstall Mionet, but I wish that WD didn't add this clumsy step.
The best way that I found to use this drive (after some trail and error) was to follow the "Map as Network Drive" instructions found on WD's website. The instruction encluded with the drive were pretty useless, and just confused me.
Once formatted and partitioned to accept the network drive, this product works great! I just wish that WD made it easier for Techie wannibies like me to mess around and get the product to work.
In closing, this product fills my requirements at a very good price. I am happy with it, and no longer fell like a procrastinator whenever I look at my photos.
Now if only they came out with something for the yard... |
Let's make justice to this network drive
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| Review Date: November 5, 2007 |
| Reviewer: VSOP, Pelotas, Brazil |
Several people complained about several things about this drive. It seems to me that problems as overrated. So I decided to contribute.
First of all, let me say why I needed the drive. Basically I wanted a network drive to 1. make unatended backups independent of a given computer being on; 2. keep multimedia files - music, movies - that I could access from any computer. I don't need to access this drive out of home.
So, I got it, turned it on, and did NOT install de software. I accessed the Web based config interface, set up a few things and the drive was ready to use. I have both Win XP and Vista at home, and the drive is equally accessible.
Two issues raised in the comments were noise and speed. The drive does make a noise - it has a fan after all. But it is not different from a computer. It is installed in a guestroom and apart from the bright blue light I don't think it is necessary to turn it off to sleep in the room.
The speed I get is about 2/3 of the speed when I transfer large files (also via gigabit connection) between 2 pcs.
In summary, it works just fine for me, and I have 1TB of space available! I don't give it 5 stars because the speed is not the highest possible and because the config interface could be more flexible and offer more options. |
Good Storage for the price, terrible software
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| Review Date: December 23, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Blackzarg, California |
Performance wise, this is a pretty slow drive, but I wasn't expecting it to be blazing fast after seeing benchmarks for this thing. Comparative devices such as the Maxtor Share Storage II cost about $100 more (almost 30%), so it's understandable that this thing's a little bit slower. I'm using this on my home network of PCs and Macs, and it works great for backing up and transferring files from one computer to another. The time it takes to transfer through the Mybook is the same as it would be to plug in a usb drive, transfer data, and go to the other computer.
The included Mionet is BAD. B.A.D. Bad. After getting this thing I promptly skipped the installation setup for Mionet. Although it gives you "anywhere access", it slows down the drive even more, which is the reason why many reviewers are giving this thing such a hard time. Western Digital should choose another company to provide this service.
Aesthetically speaking, this is a pretty drive, although it does get loud, but I have it in a closet so it doesn't bother me.
Overall I'd give it 3.5 stars, because it's a good bang for the buck and the cheapest 1 TB NAS solution out there, crippled by bad software. |
World Book
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| Review Date: January 19, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Soulful93, Denver, CO USA |
As of writing I've owned the Western Digital World Book II for approximately two weeks. I read some or the reviews right after I purchased the device, after reading the reviews I was a bit concerned regarding its performance. In fact, I was so concerned that I kept a backup of most of my data on my Linux server while I "tested" the device.
I have not had any issues with the World Book. In fact it's been just as reliable as my Linux server. It's extremely quiet, contrary to some of the past reviews; it was extremely simple to setup, not to mention that it was cheap considering the alternatives.
I also just saw that someone was upset in regard to the lack of documentation, there's a complete manual on the setup disk, I had initially thought the same thing.
I have noticed that data transfer seems a bit slow, but that could be caused by a wealth of different factors.
The RAS aspect of the device is quite nice, and the customized version of MioNet makes sharing the drive out incredibly easy; no advanced networking knowledge is required, anyone can set the World Book up.
Take the past reviews with a grain of salt, as there's no way to verify how their systems were configured, and one of them in particular is simply incorrect; I'm currently sharing media files within my network, if there are any types of restrictions on remote media access than take it up with MioNet as it was their decision, if the claim is even valid, and if that's the case then use different SOFTWARE. |
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