It also has a Media section that allows you to turn on iTunes-friendly music and video sharing. Drop media files into the pre-defined /Public/Shared Music folder and any iTunes apps on client machines can, if they have sharing turned on, access the files immediately for playback.
Even Apple's own TimeCapsule shared drive doesn't do that.
RAID guidance in the set-up system
TimeCapsule does, however, provide easy access to its contents over the internet. Not so the ShareSpace. It comes pre-equipped with support for the MioNet remote access service, which allows you to access and control any computer from any other, provided it's running MioNet's Windows-only software.
MioNet usually wants $8 a month, but WD's bundling access to the ShareSpace to you for free. The snag is, you can only access it through a browser - if you want to use MioNet's desktop app, you'll have to cough up. MioNet promises Mac and Linux clients at some point "in the future", but even when they do arrive, you'll still have to pay.
Our first attempt to access the ShareSpace remotely this way failed - MioNet doesn't like Linux. So we tried it on a Mac, with some success. Yes, we logged in and accessed the ShareSpace's public content, but in a fairly rubbish way. The Java applet displays public folders on the NAS box, and you can open these and folders stored within. But there's no way to, say, drag a folder onto your desktop - or even right-click to download it. Select a file, and the only thing you can do is delete, rename or open it. Opening a file transfers it to some hidden part of the your hard drive from where it's automatically opened by an appropriate app.
Auto-downloads? No problem
None of this is particularly quick, and is no way near as handy as simply mounting a folder on the desktop and manipulating files in the usual way through the host OS. MioNet's Windows software may make this possible, but since it's an optional extra, we can't really consider it for this review.
WD's approach does at least mean you can connect remotely without having to worry about IP addresses and firewall set-up. But in most cases, the ShareSpace will be hooked up to a router that's on all the time so you can be sure of the IP address and can easily be set to port-forward requests to the NAS box. So why bother with this MioNet lameness at all?
COMMENTS
Sell out
To quote performance speeds in Mb/s (Megabits/second) instead of the industry standard MiB/s in order to mislead is so underhanded. You do not expect TheRegister to sell out like that!
Which protocol?
"Copying a 10.59GB folder containing 180-odd sub-folders and more than 3300 files from the notebook to a shared folder on the ShareSpace yielded an average throughput of 70.73Mb/s."
Which protocol?
The reason I ask is because: a couple of years back the people I worked for bought (on my recommendation) a NAS box based on the universal "this product is great" reviews seen on the interweb. It was fast, quiet and supported CIFS, NFS, FTP, RAID5 all the usual stuff. Turns out all the copy speed reviews used CIFS because the reviewers only tested it with Windows and the box was crap at FTP and NFS. It would freeze for an indeterminate time on the middle of a transfer which meant it was useless for automated copies as you could never be sure when it would finish.
So, CIFS, NFS or FTP?
MioNet
is the death of this product... perhaps if they did a 'normal' version as well they might sell...
Qnap all the way! does all this and more for less... (and its quiet too)
Too slow
A supper SLOW box, isn't it?
70Mb/s. that's < 9MB/s.
@Tony Smith re: speed
Tony, is that 70 MBytes/second or 70 Mbits/second ?
