Streaming ahead
Like most Nas boxes, the Live comes equipped with a host of media streaming functions, individual user areas and an array of backup options (including Apple’s Time Machine) all controlled through a slick web interface.
In these areas I cannot fault the My Book Live. Media streaming to any UPnP/DLNA or iTunes DAAP device is flawless and configuration is simple and straightforward, using the rather well polished web interface.
Also, as any good Nas box should be, the My Book Live includes remote access functionality. However, unlike most other Nas boxes, Western Digital does not let you choose which dynamic DNS service you wish to use.
Easy to configure... and knock over
In order to access your files, you must sign up for an account with MioNet, although the subscription is included in the price of the drive. However, users who run other services on their network through an existing dynamic DNS service are likely to be disappointed by this lack of basic functionality.
Verdict
Western Digital’s My Book Live isn’t as fast as it should be, is likely to fall over and will frustrate you if you want remote access with your existing services. However, it is a perfectly functional media-streamer and is fairly compact too. This makes it ideal if you just want something basic to shove in a corner to manage your music and backups without too much thought. ®
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Western Digital My Book Live Nas box
COMMENTS
Re: These boxes still scare me
What does RAID give you? it might save you from a single drive failure, that's all.
An accidential delete, theft, water, power surge and both mirrors are gone, but use an (additional) USB drive to backup the data, lock it away (pref in a fireproof box), or a second box on the network (in the garage/loft) that rsyncs overnight and (for less than the price of building your own dedicated NAS box) you have something far more robust.
Seriously, a single drive is (like you say) scary if your data is important, but having known a company that went under (pretty much because) they naively relied on RAID only to have the entire server and backup USB drives stolen, when 1Tb USB drives can be had for £50 and a fire resitant box for £30, just thinking RAID is all you'll ever need will disappoint when you could have had a cheaper and better solution, if you're going to do something to prevent loosing [:-)] your data don't do something half arsed.
Have to laugh
The reviews on this site are usually not much more than a jumped up press release regurgitation. Why is anyone expecting any useful information?
Every single review usually has requests in the comments for Simple things that have been quite obviously missed off the review.
The Reviews are usually questionable and verdicts often a joke.
I wonder sometimes if they actually have the product they are supposed to be reviewing.
Amazed at the transfer rate
As I have a WD sharespace and it can barely manage half that. They must have finally put a decent processor in the thing, because the sharespace hits the CPU limit when chucking out 24MBps, and that's using ftp. Samba and scp are even worse.
RE: Power usage?
I suggested this to The Reg a couple of years ago and they do it sometimes...., but not always as I believe they should.
Green power
Guarantee it'll be using one of those shitty green power drives to keep consumption low. The first hard drive failure I've had in 14 years in IT came via a My Book drive fitted with one of these. Split the case open and connected another drive -> case worked fine. Put the green drive in 2 other enclosures -> drive fired up then cycled down, repeat ad-nauseum. Piece of shit.
