Western Digital My Book Live. The review

The disk WD My Book Live offers an interesting solution for anyone looking for a network disk that allows you to share files with all computers in the home (which is especially useful in the case of multimedia files) or backup in net. Then we will see in more detail what this disc offers.

SPECIFICATIONS

• APM82181 processor of 1GHz
• 256 MB of RAM
• Hard Drive WD Caviar Green 1.3 TB capacity
• Interface Gigabit Ethernet

In the section of hardware I would have liked to find a USB or FW port. Moreover, even if it is a disc designed to be continuously on, neither would have made averse to a switch that allowed disconnected if desired. FUNCTIONS This disc, compatible with both Windows and MAC, offers various functions can be divided into the following four broad areas.



1. Centralized storage space Every day is more common to have a laptop as your primary computer, often with insufficient disk space to hold all our files. Moreover, we currently have more teams from our files (one or more computers, tablets, mobile phones ...) we want to use, so the option of having our files on a network drive is no longer something more like businesses but little by little we are seeing a growing number of "allowed" users are daring to host your files (as some media files, most likely to be shared throughout the home) on a networked hard drive you can use them from any computer without having to duplicate them on all computers, and what is best, forgetting laborious synchronizations. Just connect the drive to the router, our equipment will detect the WD My Book Live as a shared network drive that can be opened with a couple of clicks to copy or move files from one place to another. I have been in the tests I've done access the disk without any problem from both Windows and Mac computers and manage my files in both directions. Once connected, the disc is automatically configured with an IP address automatically assigned.

The problem with this is that if you disconnect the drive the next time we connect what is likely to receive a different IP address and we'll lose the functionality of the shortcuts that could be created, so it is advisable to use the web interface to assign a disk specific IP address. To do this we need to install the software (via CD ROM or folder software included on the disk), access the web interface through WD Quick View , and make the necessary adjustments to Settings> Network> Settings LAN by checking the "Static" option and filling in the required fields of the network configuration.

 

The web interface allows us to perform many other settings, such as creating users, defining different types of shares or updating the firmware. In the following screenshot is an example of a primary user and other users that only have access to public folders and shared photos of (in this case, with read only).

2. Backup Another typical feature of a networked hard drive is performing backups. Western Digital includes their backup software WD Smartware, but if we Mac users can also choose to make our backups with Time Machine as if it were a Time Capsule. In both cases I noticed some slowing the team while it was creating the copy (which also happened to me a while with a Time Capsule first generation), so it seems advisable to leave this process to when we're not on the computer if we use their full potential. From the web interface, we can see all the backups we have made ​​(in my tests, one of Windows with WD Smartware and Mac with Time Machine) and even delete them directly from the interface itself.



3. Media Server This disc includes the media server Twonky Media , allowing us to play our media files streamed on different computers as televisions certified DLNA , Xbox 360 or PS3 or players like the WD TV Live models, WD TV Live + or WD TV Live Hub. The teams play streaming Windows and Mac worked flawlessly in tests I've done. Nor have I had problems playing files from a WD TV Live Hub with one exception: in all cases I was unable to play smoothly with separate subtitle files except mkv file (the only one I could try.). In this case, the files are incorporated in the case of Windows and Mac, but not so with the Live Hub. To make sure there were no problems in the file I tried to copy it (along al. Corresponding srt) internal disk WD TV Live Hub and if yes that load smoothly subtitles. This disc also works as iTunes server . Both the Twonky service like iTunes server we can enable and disable the web interface (Settings> Multimedia).

4. Remote access to files The WD My Book Live also offers remote access to our files, both from computers and through applications for iOS and Android. To use these functions, you have to enable remote access through the web interface (Configuration> Remote Access) and register a user (any that have created previously and those who want to use this service). Although it may seem obvious to say, to access files remotely we will have our disc correctly connected to a working router. Once created, the user can log in to our data https://www.wd2go.com/ to access your files through a web interface. Moreover, Western Digital offers several apps for iOS (universal for iPhone and iPad) and Android: - WD Photos : available for Android and iOS. Once registered our record in the application, you can access the photo albums we have available in our network hard drive.

- WD 2Go : 

This application allows you to access files stored on your disk My Book Live. It supports office documents Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, etc.., And also allows us to play media formats such as JPEG, PNG, MP3, MOV, MP4 and M4V files. There is also a paid version (WD 2Go Pro) funcones featuring all of the free version plus the ability to download files for offline viewing. For files with AVI format, we will choose to download the file and open it from there with a file of third parties such as CineXPlayer.

GENERAL ASSESSMENT 

During this review we have seen how the WD My Book Live provides a complete set of features that make it be very close to other solutions such as NAS, with the main limitation that we can only use a disk to this device and therefore lose the possibility of backing "mirrored" on different disks as we can do on a NAS that incorporate multiple disks, at least if we want to use a single computer. Western Digital (WD) is a recognized brand quality and low noise emitting their external hard drives, which together with its many features makes this disc arises as a very interesting alternative for those seeking an intermediate option, easier and cheaper than a NAS with multiple disks.