Network-attached storage minus all the fuss.

Photos, videos and music; three types of digital data people these days hoard the most. However, enabling reliable and easy access to such data to multiple computers and connected devices in a single household can be a mess if you’re juggling multiple copies at any one time.

Western Digital’s solution is the MyBook Live, an external storage box that’s network-enabled. Budget NAS solutions like the D-Link DNS-320 are arguably just as cheap, even if you include the cost of hard drives. What Western Digital has going is ease and simplicity in getting started.

All you need is to make sure the MyBook Live is connected to your router (and powered up), before you run the included CD. Installing the WD Quick View software lets users easily manage the drive, with options to confi gure backups, remote users and so on. WD also throws in a selection of WD 2go mobile apps for both iOS and Android, for access from tablets and smartphones on the same network. All-in-all, setup took the better part of 15 minutes or so, including the time taken to unbox and connect the MyBook Live to platformsthe network and the wall-socket.

Our test unit was of the 1TB variety, which meant a single-drive confi guration. The chassis itself is rather plain and simple, with the front having just a single status LED. At the rear is the Gigabit network port, power connector, Kensington lock as well as the recessed reset button. There’s no active cooling installed within, though the drive doesn’t get very warm when in use.

We tested the MyBook Live using the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, and it performed reasonably well. HD Video playback and record scored 50MB/s and 35MB/s respectively. File copies to and from the box averaged 25MB/s and 60MB/s respectively, while directory copies to and from averaged 6MB/s and 7MB/s respectively.

If you’re looking at a centralized storage solution for your home network, the MyBook Live in this particular confi guration is admittedly not ideal, given the use of a single drive. Nonetheless, Western Digital does offer dual-drive confi gurations, at least giving you the option of enabling redundancy. Of course, for this price, Western Digital is obviously not including enterprise-class storage in the box. As such, data stored is more at risk, so do make backups periodically.

On the other hand, the MyBook Live is as hassle –free as it gets, given Western Digital’s super-easy setup procedure. If all you’re looking at is a way to share a stash of, say, videos and music, across your home network, the MyBook Live is a solution we’d easily recommend.

SPECIFICATIONS
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP (SP3), Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard or Leopard, DLNA/UPnP enabled devices, Internet connection for remote access //
SUPPORTED BROWSERS
Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher, Safari 4.0 or higher, Firefox 12 or higher, Google Chrome 14.0 and later on supported Windows and Mac OS platforms