You can see the impact better with our second test: copying 14.66GB of files - 2400-odd of them - in a single folder. Backing up is 14 per cent faster on the My Book than the Time Capsule - retrieving data is just under five per cent faster.
Looks nice on a desk - but better on a bookshelf
Again, USB transfers are quicker still, but you have to weigh the convenience of always-on, multi-machine storage against faster data transfers.
And transfer time's less of an issue with in-the-background back-ups in any case. WD's Anywhere Backup does a reasonable job of file-level back-up, keeping up to two generations of each item and allowing you to find and restore them from the back-up's folder structure. It's pre-set to ignore Windows files, apps and temporary files, though you can add these if you want, or limit the selection further. It's not Time Machine, but it appears to do the job. And it does it live, regularly copying across files as you work on them.
Auto-backup included
The 1TB My Book World Edition is available now for around £169. The 2TB version's more than twice the price, £370, and won't go on sale until later this month. Given that both have the same feature set, the premium for that extra 1TB of storage seems high. But then it offers an impressive capacity for a single-drive until - it's one big file bucket.
If the 2TB My Book World Edition is impressive but pricey, the 1TB model's great value - against both pre-made and DIY NAS boxes. It's half the price of Linksys' Home Media Hub, yet offers double the storage capacity. And if Linksys' box has a nicer-looking media streaming UI, the WD machine is no less functional for that. And it's smaller, quieter and runs cooler too.
Verdict
BitTorrent aside, the My Book World Edition supports all the media streaming protocols all but the most geeky of NAS geeks could want - and pretty much every tech-savvy consumer too. It offers plenty of storage capacity at a low cost - and in a snazzy box too. Perfect. ®
More Storage Reviews...
Cisco Linksys Media Hub |
Addonics NASU2 |
DroboShare |
Western Digital ShareSpace |
Western Digital My Book World Edition 1TB NAS box
COMMENTS
Looks nice on a desk - but better on a bookshelf
Yes any dvice without wires looks nice on a desktop..
Im a QNAPer and wont be converted.
WD's perf figures
Tom's hardware seem to have missed a trick in not conducting their own full wired Ethernet perf tests, but the (WD supplied) file transfer and IOzone perf charts look pretty good:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/westerndigital-mybook-worldedition,review-1200-8.html
Re: Significant Improvements Made
Scott, if you're going post this exact same sales blurb in several hardware review sites then please try and tailor your posts to address the gripes users have had with this particular piece of hardware rather than reiterate the basic sales pitch.
I'm particularly referring to the rate-limited network interface which prevents people from getting the full advertised network speed from the hardware after they've purchased it. This is something that burnt quite a few users after they purchased the previous version of the My Book World.
If this is fixed in the new version then you've got yourself a convert, otherwise this is just the same hardware with a bigger drive and updated software, which is something users can upgrade themselves using the right linux tools and an el cheapo spare drive.
Availability
@Sentry23, search for WDH1NC10000, there's not much out there and the only place I found it in said "Available in about 28 days"
@Scott Rader
Hey Scott, are you a WD guy?
I assume you've kept with ARM chip. What does it clock at?
How much RAM is there?
What kernel are you using?
