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Page 1 of 3  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. My Book World Edition  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. Status and Activity LEDs  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. Rear drive connections  .
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