Quick version
Without a doubt, the 1TB Western Digital My Book World Edition is the easiest to use NAS I’ve ever tried. There’s virtually no setup, it’s remotely accessible and works flawlessly on both PCs and Macs.
Features (In my opinion)
• Easy to setup – Both Macs and PCs will recognize the drive on the network within minutes of powering it on.
• Remote access – With WD’s Mionet remote access system you can pull content off your drive from anywhere in the world.
• USB 2.0 port – Plug in any USB drive to instantly expand your network drive and share information. FireWire would have been nice, too.
• Media Server – store and stream content from a central location to your Xbox 360, PS3 or DLNA device.
• Unobtrusive – compared to the Iomega StorCenter ix2, the MBWE is much, much quieter and looks better.
Setup
Step 1. Connect MBWE to your home/office router.
Step 2. Power on the MBWE.
Step 3. Unload all your media onto the MBWE.
Step 4. Enjoy.
It really is that easy if you’re on a Vista or Leopard/Tiger machine. I don’t have anything running XP at home or the office, but WD provides software to make it easy for you folks too.
Performance
The MBWE claims to have best-in-class performance with its eco-friendly 7200RPM GreenPower drive, which claims to be environmentally friendly, but it’s always on. I moved a 350MB file from my laptop to the network drive wirelessly (802.11b/g) that took a little over two minutes. I then transferred 1.65GB worth of RAW images and that took about 13 minutes. If you’re planning on moving your entire movie collection over then it’s going to take quite bit of time, so start early in the evening and let it run wild while you sleep.
Extra
I don’t like backing up because the initial setup takes more time than I’m willing to devote, but WD’s packaged Anywhere Backup software is painless. After the initial setup, everything gets backed up instantaneously. If something accidentally gets deleted, you can easily go back and restore through the Anywhere Backup software. Easy peasy!
Oh, the white light on the front of the MBWE acts as a capacity gauge among other duties.
Questionable
Where the MBWE struggles, however, is its web-based interface. That’s not to say it’s horrible – it’s actually well laid out and easy to navigate, but enabling and disabling folder accessibility isn’t very easy to do. Unlike the Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive that Doug reviewed a couple months ago – where you just flip the toggle switch between “everyone” and “secure.”
But if this is just going to serve as a media hub at home then it’s nothing to really worry about. If it’s going into the office then you’re going to want to sit down with the manual and tinker with the web portal.
Conclusion
Western Digital’s My Book World Edition creates an instant hub of entertainment at home or a centralized depot of information for the office within seconds of powering on that also makes backing up painless and easy. If you’re looking for something that’s easy to use and relatively affordable for the size then look no further. But if you’re looking for something that’s RAID-1-able then opt for the 2TB version.
MSRP: $230 for the 1TB model, $450 for the 2TB model.
I have the original version of this product. It plugs into my router via network plug which means it is always connected to the network. Problem is, it never shuts down either. My other Western Digital Ext. HD’s are USB and they turn themselves off (sleep mode?) when not engaged in file transfer. This is my biggest problem with the World Book NAS drives. Also – MioNet sux as a software for accessing things online. I just want an FTP style connection where I can see the folder structure on my device in a window. No frills, bells or whistles.
Slick looking too…but who really needs a TB of space, unless you do video stuff or have a huge company of data to store?
I made the mistake of linking the boss to this for a quick easy office file only backup solution.. I feel I betrayed his trust. I should have researched much further.
My problems are that there is no scheduled backup possible, and that leads me into the fact that it backs-up constantly when you have a large set of folders defined. You can pause it, but it does not complete large backups over night for some reason, and it seemed to take me days for a single backup, which in the end left me partially unprotected.
There was also some seriously crazy setup with permissions to get Windows backing up happily with it.
We have nuked the included software and set it up as a standard network drive.
Those last 2 sentences should be flipped.
Does it stream remotely or just locally?
I’m very interested in getting a NAS of about 1TB, preferably for under $200, but I need it to have remote access and no monthly fee, and ideally have the ability to stream remotely. This sounds like its pretty close to 100% perfect for me.
You can stream remotely, but it’s probably not going to be a great experience unless you have high speed Internet on both ends.
Thanks. I figured as much. That’s really just a bonus anyway.
daryl: you can access the drive as you would any other computer on your network, through My Network Places, although, any files you put on it through mionet won’t be accessible unless you move them to PUBLIC or create new shares by going to http://MyWorldBook/ (or whatever you named yours) in a browser and setting it up. It will ask for a user/pass use the one you used for mionet, or, reset the pass and use user:admin pass:123456. You can also map a shared folder to a drive on your PC and use FTP server software on that PC to access it remotely, not as convenient as using a solution built in to the drive, I know, but…. The only other way would be to hack it and add an FTP server to the drive itself :)
Andy V: make sure your boss’s network is at least 100Mb (1Gb is preferable) if it’s 10Mb you will not be happy at all with the speed…. personally, I wish they had added a way for you to hook the drive up to your PC directly, I wanted it for its NAS features, but, it would have been easier to transfer all my files to it before connecting it to the network…..took ages over the LAN.
My WD Netcenter has just died hence the purchase of the My Book W. It set up instantly but reading the above comments I wondered why the Windows backup sofware couldn’t just as easily be used? It all seems to have appeared on my LAN just by switching the units over. any thoughts?
i have the 1tb world edition and for some reason it i cant load more than 1 gig of data and it says the drive is full . i have to turn it off, wait, turn it back on, wait, and start again . over and over and over . maybe i set some thing up wrong . but other than that it would be perfect for home use .
mionet is trash
and i wish they (WD) had better online support
swapable drives would be good too
I have the same problem as BC in that I have the 500 Gig version but it stops after about a gig of transfer which is no use for a backup especially if the files are over 100 Gig does anyone know of a solution whats the point of selling a backup device if it does not work
DO NOT GET THIS!!! I bouhgt mine and after 2 months it crashed!!! I lost 7 years of info I had! I sent it to Data Recovery and they couldnt recover anything! It was a mechanical defect! I feel like suing the company!
Sorry to hear this Aiva.
But please always do a backup of your data in future. This means always having the important data twice, or better thrice. And of course on different systems/disks!
Anyone know how I can rename the two folders called “Public” & “Download” to something of my own choosing ??
I spent the past year digitizing my CD collection and when I outgrew my 200 gig internal hard drive I decided to go the external route. The My Book was a good choice. The drive is extremely quiet, takes up very little space, and does not get hot in normal use. I really like that the drive is smart enough to automatically go into stand-by when you turn off your P.C.
The first thing you will want to do if you buy one is to delete the junk software that comes preinstalled on the disc. The second thing is to reformat the drive to use the NTFS file system, which is more reilable than FAT 32.
The drive is not a speed demon but is more than adequate for streaming music. I recently bought a second one to backup the first. Unless you need the Firewire port, the Essential Edition should be adequate.Any Gadget Review
I bought my first external years ago, and LaCie seemed to have the form/function ratio nailed. I remember seeing a clunky Western Digital for $10 less and about twice the size.
Things have changed, and I think I just found my next external. And the media server aspect is brilliant.
I bought a W.D. 1000 gig My Book two days ago for video editing useage. My first beef is it is not 1,000 gigs. It is 938.28 gigs, according to my “Get Info” on my MacBookPro. Seems like that is fraudulent labeling and advertising, isn’t it?
Next beef is there is no printed instruction manual. When I clicked the”User Guide”, it came up in some foreign language. Because it is the Labor Day weekend, when I called them for help, they were off for the holiday. And so far, I can’t find an instruction manual on the Internet. My problem is it shows up on my i-Movie 09, but is not allowing me to transfer my movie clips directly from other hard disks to organize it. Hopefully, I’ll get some help tomorrow. I recently bought their 500 gig WD USB external hard drive, and it was much simpler and didn’t even need to be plugged into a 110 wall socket to operate. I will pass on that Costco is selling these for $120.00. The 500 gig drive has worked flawlessly and, once I get this issue straightened out, imagine the new “1,000 gig” will, too.
Does this unit HAVE to be connected to the network via a network cable or can it be used via a wireless router?
Thanks.
You can wire it to a wireless router … :)
I Just bought this and it appears to be NOT Windows 7 compatible – does anyone have a definitive status on this subject. I do plan to upgrade my computers to W7 so the answer is important.. Thanks
I have Windows 7 Professional installed for a week. I was using W7 RC1 when I got this product. There wasn’t any issues.
Today, I need to reboot the drive. After that, W7 tried to install a driver for it, couldn’t find any. Now, I have weird “freeze” problems in drive. I changed W7 encryption for file transfering via network to 40- and 52-bit option, hoped something would change; but no.
Also, I found some resources about freezes, all connected with Windows 7. I’m not sure if it’s the problem. I will try downgrading the firmware to previous version, or restoring to factory settings
What firmware version do guys have? The latest version for now is v1.00.28. This firmware version is very stable.
If you would like to use Mionet, check first what Mionet version is in the NAS. The latest is 2.4.0.62, below this version is crap. To get the updated version just leave your NAS turned on on a network for about 24 hours that has internet connection basically means the NAS should be able to connect the internet to update Mionet. When the Mionet on your NAS finally got updated then your ready, you can use Mionet with no problem. Download the latest Mionet PC client version and install it on your computer just incase or you can use the Internet explorer to login. A high speed internet connection at both ends would necessary to get a great upload and download speed.