Customer Reviews

Verbatim MediaShare 1 TB Home Network Storage 97159 (Silver)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

To start out I am a System Administrator, technology is what I do while at work and when I get home I want something that's going to be easy to use and that works. I've had the Verbatim MediaShare 1tb home network storage server up and running for only a couple days but so far I am very happy with it.

I have used the media server in 3 different roles so far as I try to figure out exactly the right role for this device in my home.

I started out using it as a share point to store files I needed to get access to everywhere. On the side of being a Sys Admin I also fix computers on the side so it's great having all my files in one location so when I am at a clients house I can connect to the drive and retrieve any files I am needing to fix their computer. The Storage server worked great in this area and it felt very secure, however I seemed to have better performance using my current web storage service I subscribe to so for me this wasn't the optimal role as most my files are very large. This did work great with smaller files like word documents and spreadsheets.

Next I tried using the media network storage server as an Apple Time Machine backup drive. Previously I was using a local USB drive; the thought of a network storage device was appealing. It didn't take much to get apple to see the device and prep it to be used as a time machine backup drive, very simple setup. And the response time was pretty snappy when browsing the time machine backup. Granted, i only had a few hours of backups on the drive and I am curious as the backups go from hours to months if the drive will still be as quick, but so far I am impressed. But since I already had an exteranl drive I was using this didn't seem like the optimal fit.

The last thing I tried is what I think this box will truly be in my house. A media server to share videos. On initial tests I ripped a few DVD's and put the video files on the media server and did a few tests. First I tried streaming to an Xbox 360 on my network and it had some issues initially connecting however once the connection was established it performed better then I expected. Next I tried to stream to a PC on my network, that to worked perfectly. The third test was the real external test. I fired up my laptop, jumped on my verizon wireless aircard and attempted to stream a movie, at first I wasn't sure if it was working as designed as the video appeared to buffer for a very long time, however I also noticed I had issues connecting to websites so I disconnected from verizon and reconnected and attempted the stream again, this time it started playing very quickly, I believe this was an issue with the verizon network and not so much the media share server.

overall I am very pleased with this storage server. With my different tests I was able to see how it would work best for me and I think I'm going to use this primarily as a Video streaming server and free up a lot of room on my other computers. This drive operated very quietly and over the last few days hasn't heated up to the touch as much as I thought it would. I am happy with this and would recommend it for anyone looking for a network storage server. This is a very universal product and for me has plenty of ways to utilize it.

I will mention, performance of your network will determine the quality of the server, time it takes to move file etc. For external access you really need a high speed broadband internet connection. If your connection is slow or unreliable your performance of accessing files externally will be significantly impacted.

***********UPDATED 7/15/2010*************

FYI, I just found out that there IS a iphone app to allow you to access your media content on your iphone and ipad! Simply go to the apple app store and download HipServ. Now it's not the best app, but it is the official app for accessing your MediaShare server. Please note you will need to sign up for the premium subscription which they do give you 30 days free to use this app. But the app itself is free, the 30 days trial is free then I think it's like $20 a year which isn't bad. Because the app doesn't have good directions on how to configure it, below is a copy/paste of the review I wrote about the app in the apple app store telling you how to configure it.

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I love this app. It is NOT the easiest thing to configure... Well it is, but they don't explain anything about it.

So, in my use I have a Verbatim MediaShare server. You MUST have the premium subscription to use this app with your mediaserver, if you look at the comparison chart between free and premium you'll see mobile access is only available on premium. Good news you get 30 days free at least through [...]

To configure the app do the following:

1. Launch the app

2. Click "Add Account"

3. for Portal Name put in [...] (if you are using [...] to access it remotely from a browser)

4. HipServ name is the name of your device. I called mine "MediaBox" so that's what I entered.

5. UserName is your username you configured to log into the box

6. Password is your password for your username you configured to log into the box.

7. Click "Save"

As long as you are a premium member you can now access your media share via your iphone anywhere you are.

I am having issues watching some videos, but they do show in my catalog. So I may have some video conversion settings wrong and I will be playing with that, but I can access pictures, music, etc. Videos are listed, they just don't play yet...

Anyways, this is a good app, wish they would write some instructions for it!

***********UPDATED 1/8/2011*************

After many months of use the Verbatim MediaShare is still doing pretty good. Although I found that I had some issues with it.

1. Every morning around 5am I noticed a lot of network and disc activity from the box. I had cancelled my Pro membership so I wasn't backing up to the MediaShare backup servers anymore, and didn't have any external drives connected. I did some network sniffing and couldn't identify what or where that activity was coming from. It concerned me a bit as the box would be quiet all day and then at 5am just come to life. If anyone knows what it is doing let me know!

2. I don't use the mediashare as much as I originally thought I would. I still use it as a remote FTP drive that I can access from work, my ipad, anywhere I go. I constantly am putting files on it to retrieve later. Works great for that.

3. I don't use it to stream movies anymore. As I mentioned I cancelled my pro membership so I no longer can use the mobile client. So I have moved all the movies to an external drive on my mac and am using pyTivoX (free mac app) to stream movies to the TiVo and then to stream to the iPad I am using Air Video Server and bought the app for the ipad which was like $5. Now I can stream any movie any time for free with no monthly fees. If Verbatim MediaShare included streaming for free I would still use it, but I can't justify paying when I get get another option for free.

4. Backing up computers, I don't use this for that. I did for a while but Remembered the 3-2-1 rule. You should have a total of 3 backups, on two different medias and 1 of those should be off-site. Now I could use it as one of the media types but I don't, mainly because around 5am the drive goes crazy and I don't know what it's doing with my data. So I don't store anything personal on it. What I use is a Western Digital passport (1tb) and I partitioned several drives. I made one 500gb parition for backups. So this gives me 2 of the 3 backups for a file. The one on my local computer, the one on the passport drive (using time machine on the mac to manage) and then I also subscribe to BackBlaze online backup which is $5 per computer, a great deal. This means I now have 3 backups of all my files, 2 different medias (1 external drive, 1 internal) and one of those is off-site so should my house get broken into and my backup disc and computer get stolen I still can get my data back.

5. But how did the media share do with streaming? It did good. Of course it all depends on your network. I tried both wireless and wired configurations and found that if the media share was connected to the same wired network I had zero issues with buffering, when I tried a wifi mix occasionally depending on what else my family was doing on the network at the time there was some slight issues. But nothing major.

6. The media share it does work, but I've found for my personal uses I was able to get the same results using other options that I have more control over. Now I am a total tech. I like to play and tinker and a lot of people wouldn't want to mess with my current setup. If you are one of those people the mediashare is still in my eyes an excellent option for non-techs to use. It works and it works well. But for me I can't customize or control it as much as I would like. It is still powered on and used as a file dump for me like I said, but in reality I use Box.net, dropbox, or my apple iDisk when I need to keep a file. If the file is to large then I fire up the mediashare connection. Other then that it looks cool sitting on my rack at home.

This device is a Dilbert cartoon all by itself. It was clearly rushed out the door before development was completed; it is so unpolished that for most users it simply will not work. Unless you're a technology expert, don't bother.

If you are a technology expert or are brave enough to give this thing a try, here's what you need to know:

(1) The user guide doesn't include setup and install instructions, so don't bother searching through it.

(2) The seemingly promising "install tools" option on the setup CD either installs tons of stuff you don't need and that simply doesn't work (on Windows) or crashes outright (on Mac OS). Don't bother to open the container on Mac OS and unzip and run the binary by hand; you'll simply install the same tools that don't work and aren't needed anyway on Windows.

(3) The reason the tools don't work on Windows (or on Mac OS if you are knowledgable enough to bypass the icon and manually install them) is that they require an administrator login and password for the device... that you don't have yet because you haven't set it up. When you do finally have them (I'll explain how to set them in a moment), all these rather heavy (hundreds of megabytes) programs do is... redirect you to the device's web interface in your default browser. Seriously.

(4) There is a "setup" option on the Windows half of the CD (they forgot to include any kind of setup for Mac), and presumably it's meant to let you do things like choose a default username and password and name the device, but as you'll find, it simply doesn't work--it tells you that the device has already been configured by someone else and can't be setup, even when it's at factory default settings. So don't bother with the "setup" icon/application.

(5) Instead, on a Windows computer, with the device powered on and on the network, use the "Documents and Tools" option on the CD's autorun, and then in that area the "Reset" option to start the reset-to-factory-defaults procedure. After you issue the reset command, hold down the power button on the back of the device for five seconds to reboot it. You can't do this from Mac OS because the reset tool was also inconveniently omitted from the Mac OS half of the CD. Oops.

(6) Once the device has rebooted (solid light is back) after a reset, just open your web browser and point it at the device's IP address obtained via DHCP from your router. If you don't know this, log into your router and look at the current list of DHCP leases to obtain it. Visiting the IP of the device in your browser will take you to the web administration interface (the one that that should be mentioned in the user guide along with the setup CD in a section called "configuring the device" or something--but of course isn't).

(7) When you visit the web interface immediately following a reset, you'll see a special instance of the interface that asks you to give the default administrator account a password. The default administrator account matches the default device name, both of which are randomized because the device uses this name as your account at Verbatim's online sharing service, which is a proxy interface on the Web, through Verbatim, to your device. Just use the defaults for now; once you log in as administrator, you can create the account name you'd like and change the device name as you wish (which will also change your account name at Verbatim's online service).

(8) After setting the password, re-visit the IP of the device and log into the web interface. Add a user and mark them as administrator to get the administrator username you want. Then, to change the device name, go to the "Remote Sharing" section and edit the name in the box there.

CONGRATULATIONS, YOUR DEVICE IS NOW CONFIGURED. Thank god I spent many years as an IT professional or this would have been over my head, since:

- The printed guide included just tells you to insert the CD

- The CD includes only a single Mac application which crashes immediately

- The CD's Windows setup application refuses to talk to factory-fresh devices and is thus worthless

- The tools, if you manage to install them, require an already setup up username, password, and device name to work, but of course you don't have these because the setup didn't work

- The full user manual icons on the CD just go to broken links at Verbatim.com

- The full user manual PDF that you can find by searching Google for "mediashare mini user guide" doesn't give any information about setup, much less explaining that the device is configured to use DHCP by default and has a web interface

etc. etc. etc.

I do now have the device set up (took me about two hours to work through this) and while it does seem to work (it just mounts NTFS/FAT/HFS volumes and shares them via SMB), the quality does not impress. I had planned to use this for my online backups, but now I'm not so sure I want to trust it with my data.

Apart from the foibles above, here are some other things indicative of quality.

- They didn't bother to have it calculate free space correctly. It does show used space for files/folders correctly, but free space for any volume is always 9.2 exabytes (yes, exabytes).

- The web interface is entirely done in flash (yes, flash) so it's not what you'd call the most "futureproof" of devices

- The much heralded iPhone app actually sucks; you can open exactly one file per session--if you navigate 10 folders deep, open a file, and it's not the one you were looking for, you can't go back to the folder and look again, but must rather close the connection and then start all over again with a new connection in the root folder once again

- As mentioned, but it bears a more clear mentioning, there is absolutely no reason or purpose for or use for the software tools; all they do is remember the device name, username, and password that you enter and then redirect you to the web interface in your browser--and occupy several hundred megabytes in the process

- The device gets HOT, much hotter than I'd expect or feel comfortable with and there is no internal fan

- It takes quite a while to boot/reboot the device

- It's just rebranded technology (Verbatim MediaShare = rebadged Axentra HipServ technology in the same way that LiveScribe Pulse Pen = rebadged Anoto pen products), albeit with Verbatim-specific tools/applications on the CD; I'm not sure I feel comfortable as a result with Verbatim's level of commitment to the device in the future

- Trying to call Verbatim customer service to complain about all of this and recount my experiences led to the interesting result that they don't seem to be aware of this device or know what it is; see previous point

In short, unless you very much know what you are doing and are in search of a cheap, SMB-based, small-footprint, no-drive-included NAS for immediate rather than long-term use, do not buy this product. You will not be happy with it (there are a number of other reviews here that make this clear--I just assumed, correctly, that as a technology person I'd be able to make it go despite most obstacles).

On the whole, very, very poor--which is a shame, because the physical object is nice in appearance and the price is right, and it ultimately does seem to work. But this was clearly rushed out the door long before ready, hence my reference to Dilbert cartoons: the two or three engineering people developing this thing came into the meeting munching on sandwiches and said "Here's our prototype of the HipServe device," and the boss made four or five clicks, said "Wow, this is great, ship it now!" over the engineers' objections, and marketing had it listed on Amazon a day later. At least that's how it looks to this former industry insider.

I purchased this unit primarily as a Time Machine backup appliance/NAS. Here are some points that will save you alot of fustration:

1. If you are using either Norton Antivirus for Mac or Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh (enterprise version 10.3.2), you MUST disable "Scan on Mount" in Norton/Symantec or the Verbatim software supplied with the unit will start creating new backup volumes on it's own and eventually cause a Time Machine failure. Turning off "Scan on Mount" in Norton/Symantec solves this issue (that only took 10 hours and 10 reformats to figure that out!)

2. DO NOT do your initial Time Machine backup over a wireless network! Get the Cat.5/6 cable out and connect your Mac to your router to access the Mediashare. I estimated that a 100 GB initial backup over a wireless G network would take 20 hrs. and I don't think wireless N would be a whole lot better.

3. The Mediashare Agent application is written in Adobe Flash so if you have an older smartphone with Windows 6.1, you will need a browser that supports Flash to access your Mediashare over the internet. I downloaded Skyfire for Windows Mobile and that works pretty well. I guess Verbatim has an iPhone/iPad app. you can download for those devices.

4. The Mediashare Agent application was written by Hipserv; don't know much about them but the interface is alittle tricky to get the hang of but it seems to be reliable.

5. I have a 320 GB Maxtor USB drive connected to the Mediashare. I can't figure out how to access it other them using it as a backup drive for Verbatim's proprietry backup software. There is absolutely no documentation on USB drives that are connected from Verbatim.

6. I am waiting for an eSATA cable to come in to try the RAID feature on this unit with a FD Green drive. I will report on that later.

Updated on 6/21/2010

One of the fustrations I experienced with the Verbatim Mediashare is when you shut down your MAC, you of course, lose connection with the Mediashare. Re-establishing connection to the Time Machine sharepoint is alittle tricky. To re-connect:

Finder>GO>Connect to Server>smb://mediashare2/ComputersBackup$

Connect as a Registered User: user=ComputersBackup (without the $ sign!!!!!) password= the password is the one you created when you setup your Computer Backup password in Admin Preferences. If you didn't do that step or forgot to, go back and do that first.

As for the eSata cable, it came in and the MediaShare works great in a RAID1 configuration, just plug in the cable and off it goes!

Another point, don't bother calling Verbatim Support in India. They know nothing about this product and the promise of escalating your issue to a higher level will NOT get you a return phone call.

We weren't totally sold about adding something else to our home office desk top and were considering sticking this upstairs with an older computer until we took this out of the box. It's a small, sleek and nice design to which we gave the "thumbs up" for appearance...but how it worked was the main goal and we've put it to the test for a few months now since we are a family of 3 camcorders and 4 cameras.

It's made well, far heavier that we expected with an outerplate of aluminum which also helps keep it cool and quite possibly making its lifespan longer than others we've seen. (Just a guess, but aluminum does dissipate heat so it's a nice touch.)

The Verbatim has 3 USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, an eSATA port, and a backup botton.

We HIGHLY recommend watching the setup DVD first unless you've done this before. We had not and trying to figure it out on our own (as I usually can with any tech gadget), proved to not pan out so well. Once we sucked it up and realized we didn't know what we were doing and we really should watch the DVD, we got it. Just know going in, it wasn't exactly "plug in and go".

For us, the main usage was to share what we take with family members who can now access our memories more easily. It's done that very well. I can see this also being great for someone who is a photographer because you can also set the viewing of some items to expire after a certain amount of time if you wish.

We have many albums and media libraries now with photos, music, and video libraries. There is a family library which everyone can access and we also have our own personal libraries. This was a nice way of getting everything organized.

For us, we felt the device was quick and quiet, in spite of the learning curve of getting it set up.

The software drivers would not install during the setup. I confirmed this with Verbatim technical support. They said they would be sending out a fix in about a month.

I purchased the Mediashare Mini for one basic purpose - to serve as a central network storage server for my entire home network (mostly for media player access to movies, without needing a PC running). Since I already had several external USB drives, I was hoping this would be a decent NAS solution. The Facebook, and remote internet access features were not used/important so I have no opinion regarding them.

I had read the device cannot be setup without the included disc and that is correct. The installation is 2 steps; the first step is mandatory for operation, requiring username/password setup and the creation of a device ID for internet access. Step 2 is the install of the pathetic "agent" software that will run when Windows starts. Luckily, if you plan on simply mapping your drives/folders in Windows it is not necessary for network access and can be uninstalled (or not installed at all). You can access the box's OS and all settings via IP address (no agent needed).

I believe it uses Samba and Windows control over the mapped drives will not be absolute. Basic file editing, moving, copy/cut, delete, is allowed, but many attributes cannot be changed. Also, when accessing a Mediashare drive the user/pass is required, as-in mandatory. To prevent this access dialog box from appearing after every reboot, I had to setup an XP user password (control panel>>user account) that was identical to my Mediashare password. I've since found out network logins do not get saved in the XP Home Edition even if "save password" is checked, which was the root of the problem. So after some initial setup frustration, all my PCs now auto-login to Mediashare drives when started (ie, no more password dialog).

As for the performance, it has been mostly perfect for my needs allowing flawless playback of 1080p video and music across my entire network. Simple file transfers are also relatively fast for a USB/ethernet 10/100 device. Problems did occur during video playback while torrents were being downloaded to the same drive simultaneously. It also choked while downloading 5+ or more (1300+ kB/s) torrents at a time. These were more/less just tests to find its limitations as downloading multiple torrents directly to network drives is generally discouraged. By keeping your client settings throttled these scenarios can be easily avoided. My testing of UPnP and the iTunes server was not thorough, but it did work as expected and playback was stable.

In the end, the product is working well and as intended for my needs. The design and construction quality is impressive, as is the 3 year warranty. I'm docking a star for the laughable agent software and the rather limited configuration options. Since an email address is required during initial setup, any future Verbatim spam will lower my rating further.

First of all, the Verbatim MediaShare is a great looking machine. It's a brushed aluminum box with rounded corners. Venting is accomplished with a continuous slit that separates the top panel from the rest of the case. The result is a floating top panel bearing a large etched Verbatim logo. Buttons and lights are minimized. There are no stickers or tacky labels advertising features. The whole design is neat and clean. The unit feels solid like a single block of metal when you handle it. Someone cared about the design of this unit and it shows. I think it's better looking than Apple's Time Capsule, which I have it plugged into. Very nice, Verbatim. Having this box next to your router will make you feel classy rather than geeky.

Installing this beautiful box, however, was a white hot ball of frustration. There are three major steps to muddle through. First, you must setup the unit itself. That includes registering the unit with Verbatim, choosing a name for the box itself, a user name for you and a password. The second step is to install desktop applications. The third step is optional. That step is to configure the box to be available as a Windows backup drive or as a OSX Time Machine (backup) drive.

I set this up using a net book running Windows 7. I'll refrain from reporting all the roadblocks that Windows threw at me. Needless to say, between Windows and Verbatim, I got beat up pretty soundly. After over two hours of hangs, reboots, "unexplained errors," uninstalls and reinstalls, I got two photos to view on another computer via MediaShare. I then got a short video through. It was working.

Success was only partial. The unit got registered, named and recognized on my network. The desktop applications installed successfully, creating a shortcut on the desktop called "Navigate to my MediaShare." Running this displays the message, "Please wait while QuickConnect determines the status of your connection" then it closes. As the geeks say: FAIL.

The biggest disappointment, however, was that I could not set up MediaShare as a backup drive. After several attempts to get the installer to run, I finally got to the point where the installer passes control to Windows Backup Utility. Windows would not acknowledge the MediaShare as a potential backup drive. And that was, as they say, that. Again, the geeks say: FAIL.

Then, I got my Mac involved. I installed the desktop applications. Insert the disc, run setup, choose the drive, authenticate with a password... done. Literally about :20 seconds.

When you run one of the applications on a Mac, you get the same message as the Windows version, then it launches Safari and navigates you to the MediaShare.

But you don't need any special desktop applications to use MediaShare in most cases. Files are accessible from almost any internet connected computer running almost any browser. That's the benefit of MediaServer. If you just want to stream music and video to different computers on your local network, iTunes shared libraries feature is a better choice and free. If you just want to send grandma a couple of pictures of the baby, then email is probably simpler than sending her a link to MediaShare.

There are lots of other disappointments. If you try to log on from a mobile device, you'll find yourself blocked unless you spring for "premium service." The same is true for some other features. Part of the installation process is clicking through a nagware screen. The MediaShare is supposed to sleep when not being used, but mine stays busy all the time. I wonder what it's chewing on.

Using the MediaShare has plenty of frustrations too. Use your back button while navigating MediaShare and you're likely to get bounced back to the login screen. You're supposed to be able to send an email link to a friend that they can click and see media that you've put in an album for them. You must create a new album to do this. Then you must create an entry in your friend list with a user name and email. Then you add that friend to the new album's "share with friends" box and click "create." A dialog box pops up saying an email was successfully sent to your friend. Except it wasn't.

Time for some help. The help menu in MediaShare only contains links to Verbatim's websites support pages. Click on a box titled "Need MediaShare Support?" and you'll find an article titled "How to Share an Album via Email." Click on that and you'll be taken to a page with a title and nothing else. No help for you! FAIL.

MediaShare just isn't ready for prime time. Right now, it's just beautiful box full of bugs. I have no doubt that one or two software revisions down the road, this will be an impressive piece of kit. Just be aware that if you buy now, it'll be awhile before things smooth out.

I was excited about this product. I just back from a trip to Greece and wanted something to help me organize my photos and have a way to share them without multiple emails. This looked like a great way to do it.

Set up was fairly easy. Plug the server into my internet router and then the electricty and turn it on. Once stablized then I could set up my laptop. Insert the set up disk and were off. This took about an hour (not bad for all it had to do.)

The issue comes with the uploading of the photos. The photos are stored by date downloaded. So I uploaded each folder. (This was again fast and easy.) But when I created an album for sharing, the album would only accept one file.

Then I tried to import each photo. But windows photo puts them into folders and reuses photo names (primary tag name and a number). Thus when I uploaded the 149 photos, only 46 actually uploaded because of duplicate names.

So now I am renaming all the photos and going to try again!

The following are some other issues that I have found:

1. When setting up an Album for sharing, they ask of at least one email address.

2. It appears that there is no way to upload an address book, so you need to input each email seperately.

3. When it uploads pictures, it does not upload existing tags or captions. So you need to do this a second time.

4. It appears that if a picture moves in the order, the album does not adjust and shows a different picture.

Now that I have unloaded on this, I do think that this has potential and much of the problems can be fixed at Verbatim's website.

Some of the good things that I see in the product:

1. You have control of the pictures and they are not on a website.

2. You can connect albums to Facebook, which gives you greater control on what is seen.

3. You can password protect your albums and also give expiration dates to the invitations.

4. The slideshow feature puts the captions on the photos.

I like the control features very much and once they fix the album and photo issues, I feel that this will be worth the price and become a 5* product!

This thing is small, small enough to hide almost anywhere.

The problem I have with it is heat and usage. I tried to stream a movie for conversion to AVI so I could use it on my portable media player. It got stuck at 2 minutes remaining for an hour. Then it suddenly shot to almost complete then back to 3 minutes remaining.

I tried to stream music over it, that was less trouble then the conversion, but it did hiccup a few times during each of the 10 songs I tried it with. No other device on my network was turned on, not even my printer.

I wouldn't recommend this product to anyone looking for quick easy hookup of USB drives to share over the network.

If you have a new mac (Lion) this is not for you. Will not work with Time Machine. Support says an update is coming, but that was weeks ago.