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Western Digital wants you to have a NAS box. Yes, you, Joe Consumer. A NAS box so easy your grandmother can set it up, but powerful enough that you can use it from anywhere. WD’s solution: a one-drive, non-user-serviceable slab of white plastic called the MyBook World Edition. Similar in form to the MyBook external hard drive, but with Gigabit Ethernet replacing the USB port, the MyBook World aims to be your family’s go-to repository for backup, sharing, and streaming.
Western Digital packages its single-drive MyBook World with either 1TB or 2TB Caviar Green low-power-consumption drives, wrapped in a sleek white “book” shape, with ventilation holes through the “pages.” The spine of the MyBook World features a white LED strip that displays status and capacity indicators; on its opposite side are a power jack, Gigabit Ethernet port, power button, reset hole, and USB host port for attaching additional storage.
The MyBook World ships with a handy WD Discovery utility that will auto-detect your MyBook on the network, let users map network drives, and configure the drive via a web interface. The included 30-day trial of the WD Anywhere backup software is not particularly noteworthy except for its ease of use—better backup options exist, especially once your trial runs out.
We dig the MyBook’s easy iTunes and TwonkyMedia streaming—the former lets you share an iTunes library across your local network, and the latter streams video to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The services run automatically, so all you have to do is drag media files to their respective public folders on the MyBook and you can access them via iTunes or your game console—and, of course, via Explorer on your PC.
WD’s MioNet lets you access your MyBook from outside the home network, but more advanced users will doubtless prefer to VPN into their home network for access, as the web console is clunky and the desktop service (which includes more features) costs $7.99/month.
Despite its use of Caviar Green drives, which aren’t noted for extreme performance, the MyBook World offers decent speeds, transferring 2.79GB to the NAS in three minutes, 10 seconds, and copying the same file from NAS to PC took just a minute and a half over Gigabit Ethernet.
The one fatal flaw in the MyBook World is that it’s easily tipped over. We actually had to request a second review unit after we knocked the first one over and couldn’t access it afterwards. We wish WD had shipped it with a stand. Our recommendation: Keep yours on its side. Aside from that (and the fact that it’s not user-serviceable), the MyBook World is an easy-to-use family NAS that’s hard to beat.
Easy to configure; easy media streaming; stylish.
Easy to knock over if stored vertically; not user-serviceable.
| WD MyBook 1TB | Qnap TS-109 Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | N/A | N/A |
| PC to NAS, small (min:sec) | 0:47 | 0:55 |
| PC to NAS, large (min:sec) | 3:10 | 3:45 |
| NAS to PC, small (min:sec) | 0:25 | 0:39 |
| NAS to PC, large (min:sec) | 1:31 | 2:34 |
jrocknyc
August 24, 2009 at 4:22pm
i bought one of these for backups... and it was SO EFFING SLOW>
ended up taking it apart and putting the drive in another PC. still have the shell (case?) if anyone watns it :)
gm77
September 10, 2009 at 4:17am
jrocknyc, if you don't really need the shell I'd like to purchase it -- please contact me at galaxy4public+mpc@gmail.com .
Lodis4
August 24, 2009 at 11:23am
For those this is aimed at WD has done a great job in making remote storage almost foolproof. I like the iTunes and Twonky features especially. This would be something I could ship to mom, call her on the phone, and talk her through setting up without wanting to do great bodily harm to myself and others.
That said, the "non-user serviceable" part really brings this down. If I buy a 1TB unit and want to upgrade the drive to a faster unit or one with a little more storage I should be able to do so. I have a couple other MyBook drives and always lay them down, they look cooler standing but I could see the people in the office knocking it over 4 times a day.
Denis63
August 24, 2009 at 10:55am
I have been using MyBook external drives for almost 2 years now at work, and not one of them has ever fallen over. at one point, i have five 1tb drives on my desk, so i made a pyramid out of them, and even still not one of them ever fell down. i just wish that they had better airflow, 'cause mine get mighty toasty after hours of hard use.
-Denis
jrocknyc
August 24, 2009 at 4:23pm
stacking them in a pyramid wouldn't really help your airflow problem... :P
