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Old 17-03-2011, 12:27 PM
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pproctor (Paul)
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 13
Hello there.

Used to have a WD 1TB 'World Book' until it fell over about 12 months after purchase. The drive itself was intact, the little onboard webserver module fell over and made the thing useless. Took ages to extract the info off the physical drive on another machine due the way it mounts all the logical drives and fudges all the file names for it's own purposes.

Now use a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with 2 x 2TB drives and it has been fantastic. Performance is about 25% quicker than the old WD unit (both GbE connected and running the same backup script).

Very easy to setup remote access through WEB or FTP, with full restrictions on which directories/logical drives are available via either and to which users.
Onboard servers for pretty much anything including photo access (IP connected Sony BluRay player found it and will do slide shows off it directly onto a TV or projector). Onboard iTunes server which means all the music now sits on it and all the machines recognise it and play directly from it (including my Yamaha amplifier).

Dual USB on the rear for adding capacity (USB2 only), one on the front that can do the same but with the addition of a dedicated 'backup' button (plug a drive in the front, push backup and it automatically runs your predefined backup jobs onto the external drive).

Super quite temperature controlled fans, email notifications for just about everything if required, and can be linked to UPS for graceful shutdown if required.

Problems I had with the unit were self induced. Namely the price of the units when they supply the drives is a bit steep, so I bought the unit without drives then added 2 x 2TB drives. Of course after you buy them and they don't work properly, you find the list of 'allowed' (read 'tested') drives and yours aren't on it. Problem manifested itself as either one drive or the other would operate, but never both together. Problem was fixed by updating the drive firmware to a new beta version, and then final version when it became available.

Apart from the initial issue, very happy. Primary reason for use was to backup Home Business data and photo's. The ability to put a portable drive in, push backup and walk away is great. Get an email when it is completed, remove it and store in fire proof safe. Other features are a bonus, especially remote access to retrieve stuff if I am working remotely.

Hope this helps.
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