| Article Index |
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| Western Digital 500GB My Book World Edition Review |
| Page 2 - In Operation |
| Page 3 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
This latest in the long line of ‘My Book’ external hard drives from
Western Digital takes a different approach, giving you a full NAS solution by means of a Gigabit Ethernet connection and the ability to access it from anywhere in the world.
Western Digital’s range of ‘My Book’ external hard drives all share almost the exact same basic design which resembles, well, a book (der!). As they all share the same design, the different models of My Books are distinguished by their colour scheme. In the past we have looked at the My Book Premium ES which was black, and the My Book Pro Edition II which was silver, the ‘World Edition’ we have today has a high-gloss piano white finish, which looks very slick and surprisingly doesn’t show blemishes like fingerprints which can really ruin the aesthetics of a device like this. The same rubber strip that is included on the other My Book drives is present on the World Edition as well, which runs around the top, back and base of the drive, meaning it can be stood up or laid down without risk of scratching the fine gloss finish.
We’re going to be looking at the 500GB version today (Model# WDG1NC5000), which is the base model of the series. A 750GB version is also available, and the ‘My Book World Edition II’ range (which is the same setup except with 2 drives in a raid array) are available in 1TB or 1.5TB sizes, just the right size for storing your holiday photos, all 430,000 of them. The 500GB version we’re looking at today sells online for just under AU$400, or about $180 more than the 500GB SATA drive on its own. So it’s an extra $180 for the NAS casing and software, is it worth it?
As we’ve said earlier on, the design of this My Book World Edition is the same as the rest of the My Book range, with a single power button on the front surrounded by two rings of blue LEDs, the outer rims denotes power status and disk activity, while the inner rim indicates how full the internal drive is and lights up in a clockwise direction as the drive fills up.
On the rear of the drive we have the power connecter, a 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port and a type-A USB2.0 port. This USB port is not to connect the drive directly to your computer (though that would have been useful) but instead you can connect another external USB hard drive or flash drive to the My Book to increase its storage capacity, no need to buy another ‘World Edition’ drive if you need more storage space, just buy a hard drive and a $20 USB2.0 external case and you’ve instantly got the space you need.
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In Operation:
The My Book World Edition is a true NAS (Network Attached Storage) device and as such it will appear in your network neighbourhood/network places without needing to install any software. As such and by default, you or anyone else on your home or office network will be able to access the specially designated “public” folder and map it as a network drive in ‘My Computer’ or your MAC desktop for instant access. The My Book’s network settings are set to DHCP by default, so it should grab an IP address from your router or server and be up and running in no time. So if you’re only going to be using the drive within an office environment the setup process couldn’t be simpler.
A web interface is included where you can create new share folders, manage user’s rights and passwords, update network settings and other various tasks like firmware updates and drive management, all very simple and the only function that I think is lacking is user quotas to stop that one guy in the office from filling the whole drive with his useless junk (every office has one, you know who you are).
So it works great in a LAN environment, just as simple as any other NAS device, but that’s not the point of the World Edition, the point is to be able to access it from anywhere in the world. This is accomplished through the included MioNet remote access software.
The MioNet software can be installed on your PC to control and access the drive over your local LAN and can also be installed on a remote PC to access the drive over the internet. You create a MioNet account with which up to 5 remote PCs can login into, and not only will they be able to see the My Book, they will also be able to see the drives on the other PCs logged into the same MioNet account, and even take over their desktops (remote desktop). You can have multiple MioNet accounts access the same My Book drive if you don’t want these other users to be able to access the other computers logged in to the original account.
I had some issues getting the software to work on a remote PC I set up, however it worked fine on my laptop here connected to the My Book via the LAN. It should be noted that even if you are connected to the My Book over the LAN and using the MioNet software (i.e. not windows networking), and you don’t have an internet connection on that LAN then you can’t access the drive, as the MioNet software has to login to its central server to validate you upon start up. So if you can’t login, then you have to mess around mapping the drive manually, a bit of a pain for something that should be really straight forward.
As with all Western Digital My Book drives, EMC Retrospect Backup software is included to help manage your backups and even automate them for you, I’m quite a fan of the Retrospect software, as it’s very user friendly while still being quite a powerful bit of software.
The performance of the My Book is as good as you’d expect over a LAN connection, and over an internet connection the performance is really a non-issue, it will be as good as your connection will allow. The drive operates in relative silence with only a few normal hard drive noises emanating when it’s being used. A thermostatically controlled fan helps keep the drive cool, and as the case design is very open around the top, base and rear, air is free to circulate by convection even without the aid of the fan so I don’t think heat will ever be a problem with this drive.
Conclusion:
Western Digital have come up with a drive that has a sleek minimalist design and coupled it together with quite reasonable performance, an easy to use web interface and acceptable levels of security. However I think the MioNet software that is included and the system it uses to give you access to the drive has definite room for improvement, especially in regards to being more user friendly. Using the drive through standard Windows/MAC networking is a piece of cake and you can still keep your data nice and secure, if I bought one, I wouldn’t be using the included software if I could avoid it.
The drive can be directly connected to your PC (without going through a switch) if the need arises, but it takes a bit of mucking around with network settings, a standard USB or Firewire connection would have been a handy inclusion, and considering the price of this drive, I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
OzHardware Rating – 7/10 – Good, but could be a lot better.
This product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
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|122.49.173.xxx |2008-02-03 21:45:47 Mark - Don't Buy 500GB My Book World Edition!Not a good piece of gear! The device has a definite propensity to overheat in temperatures less that 27C. This happened several times in slightly warm environments. You could not have confidence in leaving it switched on over summer and expect reliable remote access. Also had incredible difficulty in deleting some back up files. Kept on getting the message that the files didn't exist. Appeared to be an intermittent problem. Also lost communication between the drive and mionet software on several occasions. A review of web help files shows there are many know problems. I am taking it back!
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|128.61.97.xxx |2008-05-24 01:24:05 Rob - Absolutely Do Not BuyI purchased the 500GB model online for 80 dollars, I thought it was a great deal. 7 months later, my book was dead and I was never able to direct connect. Using a crossover cable, a static IP and the mionet software, the drive was unable to be used. It's a complete POS with even worse software that you have to use with it
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|202.12.233.xxx |2008-06-04 14:20:07 Chris - MrAbsolutely brilliant drive, has the ability to load own firmware and with ssh & cron daemons just to name a few available services.
Very handy as a NAS drive accepting secure connections (scp, ssh, sftp) over the web.
I am very happy with this drive.
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|155.35.248.xxx |2008-06-25 12:51:35 Justin McDonald - Principal Software EngineerThis product did not work for me out of the box. After copying large files to it over the network the disk would become read only which required a reboot of the box.
The only way to address this issue is to do a 4 year computer science degree and void the box's warranty.
You see..the issue stems from the disk partition shipped by default with the box which is used to store your files on. For some reason the disk chucks a fit and remounts itself as read-only.
I am now happy with the device but had to
hack firmware (voids waranty) to run ssh, reformat the partition.
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|85.228.250.xxx |2008-08-08 07:55:26 Christian - Home userI seem to have the same problem... Bought it yesterday, and it works for a while, then becomes read-only. Talk about disappointment!
