I was looking for an external drive for my PC, but while looking over what the local Best Buy had, I found WD Live Network and the Seagate GoFlex. Anybody have any experience or feedback with either of these drives?
1. I trust both brands, currently the WD is a bit cheaper
2. Is home network storage buggy or does it work really well?
3. I'm assuming it's only as secure as the router.
4. Would I be better off getting an non-networked drive for each computer instead?
5. Advantage of the network drive is the netbook & my wife's iPod should be able to access it
Anything else? I like the idea of using it in the network if it works well.
Thanks for the input!
JM
I was hoping you would tell me.
I went out and Bought another computer on CR and I store stuff on that. Not as slick as a network storage drive....
I have a Synolgy network drive. They are great. We just download movies , music, etc and can stream it to a ps3 on one TV, I stream it through a hacked apply TV running boxee on another. They support iTunes, have built in FTP, camera server, blog software, etc. I would highly recommend the Synology network drives. I have even had some of my customers get them. I have a single bay one and that backs up a few times a week to an esata drive. I wish I would have bought the dual bay to run raid one. My wife keeps all of her work files on it and can access it anywhere through Tue built in FTP server.
I recommend network drives. I've been using them for a while. I've got 2. One for backups and one just for network storage. There are many ways to go about network storage. Some are as easy as having their own wifi you just join to your network. If you already have a large external drive, you can add it to your network with an Airport Express or similar.
Whichever way you go, you should be able to add an additional layer of protection to the hard drive by adding a password and/or encryption. This is in addition to your already secured WiFi network (you should already have your WiFi locked down with WPA2 and turned off your SSID broadcast).
Personally, I went with the external hard drive (2TB, RAID 0+1) and an airport express. I chose this route as I picked up a used airport express for cheap and already had the hard drive. I prefer this setup as I can swap out the hard drive with something bigger when the time comes without limiting myself to brand or available WiFi hard drive size.
I know there are apps for the iPad and such that allow direct access to specific brands of WiFi storage drives. But, I have no experience with those.
The WiFi storage will be slower than using an ethernet cable and directly connecting the Network storage device to your router or connecting to the PC specifically. But, for backups and simple file access, it shouldn't be too noticeable and I think the benefits pros outweigh the cons.
Regarding the 2 you specifically mentioned, I've had good luck with hard drives from both brands. You can find "horror stories" on either of them. But, both seem to have pretty good reliability and the horror stories are fewer than some other brands. At that point, $$$ was the deciding factor. And, I wouldn't go Best Buy unless you need it now and it's a fire sale. NewEgg, Amazon, & OWC are the places I usually go.