Just because two drives each have an ethernet connection doesn't mean they'll operate similarly. Take the example of Iomega's $800 StorCenter Pro 150d and Western Digital's $500 My Book World Edition. Both drives provide up to 1 terabyte (TB) of capacity, as well as a central, networked repository for your data; in design and bundled software, however, each unit has a very different hook. Overall I preferred the flexibility of the StorCenter's multiple-drive approach, but I found that the My Book's petite size and midrange abilities had merit, too.
The hefty StorCenter is built like a tank--and feels like one, too. It's a large, rectangular box with a ventilated, swing-out front door; additional ventilation is at the back, where a fan pushes heat out. The door flips open to reveal four hot-swappable drives. The 1TB unit I tested had 250GB Seagate drives mounted in an easy-to-remove, black sled. LED status lights, one green and four blue, sit at the front in a vertical row.
A nice touch: The door has a lock, useful for making sure none of the drives suddenly develops legs. Conveniently, the unit has a power button at the rear plus another on the front.
Getting the StorCenter up and running was a snap with the included installation disc. Once I told the installation utility to put on the customized Iomega Discovery Tool Pro utility software and EMC Retrospect Express 7.5 (with five client licenses), the latter an optional program, the utility proceeded to install both simultaneously, showing the progress of each app's installation as well as the state of the full installation. Nifty.
I then launched Discovery Tool Pro, and discovered that the software had autoconfigured the drive's server name, IP address, and MAC address. One button simplified mapping the drive to my network; another button launched my Web browser so I could manage the device's settings. The software gives you plenty of control in setting user passwords and access, creating shared folders, viewing disk status, changing RAID settings (buried under the format option), and more. RAID choices include RAID striping (0), mirroring (1), and parity (5). Set to RAID 5 (the default configuration), our test unit showed 686GB of its 1TB of storage available for use (the remainder goes to the redundancy that RAID 5 offers).
In addition to the included Retrospect software, the unit has a built-in utility for scheduling backups of the StorCenter, either full or differential; you can send this backup to a USB drive (the unit has four USB ports) or another network drive.
Inside the chassis, the StorCenter has a 400-MHz Freescale 8347 CPU, 128MB of RAM, and a built-in print server; in addition, an operating system is embedded on each drive. As with other NAS products, the drives are hot-swappable--but in this case, because of the embedded OS, you can't replace the four drives with any others you might happen to have. Instead, you must buy drives from Iomega (a replacement 250GB drive mounted on a drive bay sled costs $190).
All Around the WorldWhereas Iomega's StorCenter calls out to business users, Western Digital's My Book World Edition is all about making things easier for consumers. And it does so in many ways--but in others it falls slightly short of its goal.
The My Book is relatively inexpensive at $500 for 1TB of storage (on two 500GB drives). You can configure the drives in RAID 0 or RAID 1; by default the unit ships striped, using RAID 0.
The drive's design is a study in simplicity. On the front are the only controls, consisting of two concentric LED circles with a power button in the center; the circles serve as a status indicator and capacity gauge. The unit itself is petite, comparable to the thickest of the Harry Potter hardcover novels. It's white, with ventilation holes along the top and back.
Software installation went smoothly, although I had to install the WD Anywhere Access software (a required installation) and the optional Retrospect Express HD 2.0 backup software separately. (Retrospect seemed to require a Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 account, a minor annoyance.)
WD Anywhere Access is based on an app by MioNet. The Western Digital-branded version of MioNet's program provides a secure network tunnel between your PC and your network storage drive. (The software, however, installs into your program directory under the MioNet name--confusing since it's branded everywhere else as WD Anywhere Access. Western Digital representatives said the company would address this issue.) Once it's installed, you create a new account with a user name and password, add a name for your computer and your My Book drive, and sign in.
Western Digital includes a basic version of the MioNet program along with a 30-day trial of the Premium version, which costs $7 per month or $65 per year. The basic version supports remote access to the My Book drive, plus the ability to share folders. If you graduate to the full version of the software, you get a slew of PC-centric functions, including remote computer control and the ability to share computer folders and screens.
I found the interface reasonably clean, with three tabs that showed me my connected PCs in 'My Resources', folders created by others that are 'Shared With Me', and folders that I've 'Shared With Others'. The software assigns the drive a letter and shows public folders; I was also able to manually assign a drive letter to the My Book via Windows Explorer.
Sharing a folder is simple: You enter the e-mail address of the person, assign folder permissions (read only or read/write), and have MioNet send an e-mail inviting the user to access your shared content.
Unfortunately, this is the point at which the My Book World Edition stumbles. The e-mail the WD Anywhere software sends out can be confusing: The message redirects the recipient to MioNet's site to sign up and install the software on his or her computer, thereby creating the secure tunnel to access the My Book drive. Once the invitee does so, they are then prompted to sign in to WD Anywhere--which is puzzling because they already have an account created via MioNet. On top of that, the invited user has to reboot their system for the MioNet installation to complete. Western Digital says it will work to streamline this process in the near future.
This approach to sharing folders and files, and providing remote access, has its advantages--namely in security. The setup could work fine if those you share content with have computer savvy and will receive frequent invites from you. For one-off invites, casual sharing, or sharing with users who are not computer sophisticates, however, the World Edition is not ideal.
In performance, the Iomega StorCenter came in near the top of our field of network-attached drives. It beat the My Book World Edition by a large margin; in our test in which we copy files and folders, the Iomega took about 300 seconds fewer than the My Book did. The My Book's poky performance--the second slowest we've seen--accounts for its low rating.
Clearly, the Iomega StorCenter Pro 150d is a strong choice for small- and home-business use--or even for personal use. The Western Digital My Book World Edition is good for anyone who needs a roomy network drive with backup software and remote-access capabilities, but its usability problems limit its appeal.
Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
