Customer Reviews

Western Digital My Book World Edition II - 1 TB (2 x 500 GB) Network Attached Storage

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(36)

 

 

I have several other Western Digital MyBook directly attached drives and am very happy with them. This drive was purchased by a friend (at my suggestion) and sent to me for setup.

The installation instructions do leave a lot to be desired. I had to go to the WD Knowledge Base support website to find out how to reformat the drive into a raid 1 drive. Once I figured out that you MUST install the included software before you try and do ANYTHING everything went quite well. The drive reformatted without incident in about the five hours WD said it would take.

The next process was copying a 150GB drive from my directly connected MyBook drive to the World Edition. This takes about 2 hours on my directly connected drives. It takes about 8 - 9 hours with a gigabit ethernet connection from the computer through the router to the World Book. While this is a long time, it is not something that will be done more than once (especially with the raid 1 formatting.) After this the World Book functions like my other directly connected MyBook drives.

Because the World Book is an ethernet device attached to a router it is not necessary to have your computer running to access the drive. It is probably advantageous to not leave your computer on with no one around to deal with any problems that my arise while you are not there for an extended period.

What is special about the World Book is the Always Connected software it comes with. This allows anyone with a high speed internet connection to access files on the drive from anywhere. This particular drive will be accessed from Costa Rica for several weeks each year.

Do not discount the advantage of having all of your information in one place. No synchronization problems. No duplicates. No worry about sensitive information being moved around or more importantly, lost.

I would have rated the World Book higher if the instructions supplied by Western Digital were better. For someone without much computer experience, I can see twhis being a bit of a bear to install. If WD fixes the instructions, I would rate the World book 4 stars. AS IT IS, DO NOT BE AFRAID TO USE THE WD Knowledge Base for help. It is clearer than the supplied instructions.

As an external disk drive that you use attached to your local machine, the drive will serve your needs well. But if, say, you wanted to use this drive as a NAS for a network of any size, this drive fails miserably.

Why is that?

This drive includes mandatory DRM features that make it impossible for more than one user to access certain files. Among these files are video files. It doesn't matter if you created the files yourself; if the file fits within the pre-defined scope of what is "banned from sharing" you're not going to get the file. Back to SneakerNet... or you can "fool" the drive by naming your file from file.avi to file.avi.txt... but why is this necessary? For what am I buying a NAS for if I have to jump through hoops?

Complete waste of money. There are other NAS solutions on the market that are loads better than don't come saddled with mandatory DRM installed into the firmware of the device.

This unit does not support long path names. After each daily automated backup I saw a hyperlinked error message however nothing happened when clicked on. So after 7 days I tried a restore to a different computer and discovered that less than one-third of the files were being backed up.

I called WD tech support whose only solution was to use shorter pathnames. This was not acceptable and not even an option due to the software I use in particular AutoCAD.

I asked WD tech support why the Retrospect software did not report the error, there was no answer. I asked if there was an error log I could look at to see what the errors were, after checking with others on the support team I was told there was none.

No doubt my experience is colored by the lackluster performance of the particular person who 'helped' me ... who asked me to run chkdsk and comprehensive disk diagnostics all of which I believe had nothing to do the problem.
Putting all that aside I think the concept of a mirrored hard disk backup that can be remotely accessed via the Internet is nothing short of brilliant. I had no trouble with the Mionet remote access software, it was fairly intuitive and easy to follow. But the Retrospect software that 'came with' is very limited, for example you can only schedule one automated back up. Even Handy Backup which I've used for years allows multiple schedules. As the WD tech support person said this software 'was not very good' and was simplified from older software to make it more user friendly. He added that the older software was still available and that they had nothing else to offer.

Otherwise it installed easily and we did not find the noise objectionable on the unit we had. Certainy it is a lot quieter than any of our Dell Workstation drives.

Fortunately I had bought this unit from Dell which made returning it a breeze, I am now looking to possibly a Buffalo or Maxtor unit with Cobian Backup (freeware) or similar after reading PC Magazines articles by Bill Machrone.

While this drive does have some handy features, the WD Anywhere Access software is intentionally crippled and doesn't let you share media files. According to Western Digital, "Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the following file types cannot be shared by different users using WD Anywhere Access.": AAC, AIF, ASF, ASX, AVI, CD Audio, DVI, DVIX, MOV, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPE, MPEG, MPG, OOG, QT, WM, WMA, WMV and several others.

The drive is still quite handy if you have 1TB of text files, though.

CRAP = Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection
In order to please Hollywood and the RIAA this drive will not share media files.

Do you really want to invest in a hard drive limits what kind of files you can share. Is that really the job of your hard drive manufacturer. What next, will WD drives scan themselves for "illegal" content and email the FBI?

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

DISCLAIMER:
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I got this drive for local LAN use only. I have no interest in remote access, so none of my comments, nor my ratings apply to the ability to access this drive over the web.
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Setting up this drive can be a confusing mess, and is one of the reasons it has been criticized so strongly in various reviews. The included software is completely unnecessary for LAN use (no remote access while away from home), and only causes confusion and later difficulties.

I included "easy to follow", by the numbers, instructions below to get you up and running ...it took me a few hours to locate all the info, digest it and verify that it works. Not much of it is in the provided install docs, other than how to power on the drive.

That said, the drive works very well for me in MY application, which is as nothing more than a large file server that is available on my LAN. It is easily found from all of the 7 computers on my LAN, two of which are wireless.

All LAN cards are 100 megabit/sec. Both wireless setups are "G" and show a max throughput on their own of 27 megabit/sec. All computers are running WinXP home

I have seen complaints of slowness. Without getting into comparisons, I have made a few measurements doing backups only to give a rough idea of the throughput on my network using this drive.

Wireless G to MyBookWorld Network Drive: 10 gigs/hour

(While this is not impressive throughput, it is important to note that it is the speed that my Wireless G runs at, so at least the drive can keep up with my wireless throughput maximum.)

When doing some large copy jobs, the drive was certainly slow, (compared to a locally attached USB 2.0 drive),but not useless. Would I like a faster drive: Yes. Am I pleased with the Price/Performance Ratio, Storage Capacity, and Accessibility of the drive: YES!

I would buy another one for the purposes I have identified.


In order to get decent use of the drive in this application it is critically important to understand that you DO NOT under ANY circumstances install the Miomet (included) software. Don't even take the CD out of its sleeve, it is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY and may only cause you problems later.

The distilled procedure outlined below is provided in detail at the WD support website. The URL is too long to list here. Article number 1531 (search by keyword for 1531 once in the support area). (although you might find all the WD info confusing, and some of their recommended steps are not needed)

My shortcut for the full article that is easier to follow:

==========================================================
Steps to get the drive up and running on your LAN:

1. Make sure your router has DHCP turned on so at least initially the drive will appear on your network. Use your web browser to configure this setting in your router.

2. Before applying power to the drive, connect a network cable to your router.

3. Plug the power supply into the wall, then plug the power connector into the drive. DO NOT TOUCH THE POWER BUTTON!

4. Wait 30 seconds and the drive will power up. When you first plug in the power it will look like the drive is dead, receiving no power. It is not dead...wait for it to detect power and start itself up. Wait another period of three minutes and the drive will initialize. DO NOTHING DURING THIS PERIOD.

5. The drive will now have gotten (automagically)an IP address, name of your workgroup, and your gateway settings.
=========================================================

At this point you can open Explorer or your favorite file manager (I like Total Commander) and open My Network Places, double click on Entire Network, double click on Microsoft Windows Network, double click on your WorkGroup name (whatever name you used)and you should see "Mybookworld" listed. This is your new network drive, fully accessible to your file manager. Double click on the drive and you will see "Public"...the main directory. Build/create your subdirectories (folders) off/below this main directory and put files in as you choose.

I found the public directory and all those I created below it fully accessible without having to set any permissions. I verified read and write (files).

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Accessing the Drive Configuration via Browser: (this is only needed if you want to change things about accessing the drive or want to change the drive to a Static IP)

1. [...]

When you try to navigate the configuration you will be asked for a username and password. Here are the defaults:

2. Username: admin
Password: 123456

At this point, you can move away from DHCP assigned IP, etc., and set up a static IP if you wish (that is how I do it).

3. Make sure after making all the changes from "automatic" assignment to static, that you reboot your computer, or you will lose access to the drive until you do.
==========================================================

I hope someone finds this info useful, I know I would have, had it been in one place, but it took me several hours and visits to many web sites and various reviews to get enough information to be able to simply set up this drive in a local area network (LAN).

If you are still considering the My Book World, you should stop right now.

The drive has many limitations that prohibit you from using it the way you would expect a network drive to work. For instance, you are limited in the number of files in a directory; long file names aren't possible; and the included software isn't fully functional unless you pay for an upgrade, etc.

Additionally the drive firmware has many flaws. For instance, you will likely get many "delayed write failed" error messages; you will also notice that even if you delete a folder from the drive, its web interface will still report that the folder still exists.

The product specification lists a gigabit ethernet connection. It may actually be gigabit, but the firmware running on the drive is going so slow that you'll swear you are connected through a 300 baud modem. It takes a loooooong time to get data to and from this drive. Its painfully slow.

Alas, as you might expect, support is poor and overworked. I'm sure the representatives are frustrated because its just not possible to help users fix their problems over the phone if the device just doesn't work as it was intended. And furthermore, you only have 30 days of support. After that you'll have to pay $14.95 per incident -- of course you'll be throwing that money out the window too since the drive is simply a failure.

In summary, save yourself the $500 dollars and the many hours of troubleshooting.

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...

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.