WD My Book Live Network Attached Hard Disk Review
by Ganesh T S on October 11, 2011 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- NAS
- Western Digital
- My Book Live
The My Book Live unit was put through the standard single user NASPT testing that has been used in all our NAS reviews. Testbed setup and benchmarking methodology can be found here. NFS shares can be set up from the SSH shell. However, we restricted ourselves to shares (SMB) that could be configured over the web interface.
Even though WD claims up to 100 MBps read speeds in their marketing literature, we weren't able to hit it in our testing. Of course, this doesn't mean that WD's claims are erroneous (as our friends at SmallNetBuilder found out). All in all, the speeds are quite good for an entry level NAS unit, and more than respectable for a network attached hard disk.
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ganeshts - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - link
The 5400 rpm drive runs hot by itself. 7200 rpm, with passive cooling, would be a difficult proposition.No, the RAM is not user upgradeable.
For a peek inside, please follow this link:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/313...
Didn't want to repeat the excellent teardown done by SNB :)
jcbenten - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - link
What I need is a SBS setup to keep from booting up a PC and save on the cost of a full blown NAS. Did I miss that in the review?ganeshts - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - link
OK, this is the first time I have seen this request.You are in luck :) I see Squeezebox server is available for Debian (as is the perl source code). The My Book Live runs Debian Lenny and definitely has perl installed also. I would guess that it is possible to run the Squeezebox server on this. Unfortunately, I don't have any devices to test that the server actually works.
PS: Did a little Googling, and found that it indeed works :)
https://wp.peterweb.org/misc/squeezebox-server-on-...
AncientWisdom - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - link
If it is, this will be perfect as I will not have to leave my desktop running while downloading (I have an abysmal 2Mbit connection) or waiting for new RSS to come in.ganeshts - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - link
First post on this page : http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-Live/Torrent-C...Nutandbolt - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - link
I have been trying to fix the network drive to my computer running win xpThe installer is not able to "discover " the drive on the network. Has anyone
Faced similar issues ?
JMSW - Thursday, May 24, 2012 - link
"Videos were quite picky, though. I had to install RockPlayer Lite / Doubletwist in order to stream the videos. Since there is no transcoding going on at the My Book Live end, we are severely limited with respect to the nature of the video files which can be played back"I am just about to set my WD box up, second attempt as first box deemed faulty. I had problems with video playback as well as storing and retrieving some more obscure file types such as GP3, GP4. (which I put down to faulty box!)
Is there just some file types / extensions that shouldn't be stored on the WD My Book Live?
With regard to video playback are you putting RockPlayer on the WD box? Should I put something like iTunes on the WD box and stream my music through it?
I ask, because it was my intention to stream video, music and pictures within my house to laptops, desktops and ipads as well as a yet to be bought HD TV. Outside the house I want to access all the WD box content either on my laptop or phone. Sorting file types and software out in advance will hopefully make set up a bit smoother.
MumblingFumbler - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Can't find this utility using ssh, logged in as root, on my drive. Did tester import it somehow?Maybe WD took it off once heat problems were reported. Anybody know how I can get it? Got my drive last week.