Western Digital MyBook Sucks

I am not normally a negative person, so when I say that the Western Digital MyBook network storage system is a revolting piece of vile, slimy bat poo with no redeeming features, you should take it to mean this is a product you wish to avoid.

The cause of my strong emotion is that I bought one of these things a year ago to use for network backup storage and, while it is certainly true that they lied when they said the box has gigabit network connectivitity -- you could inscribe cuneiform on a clay tablet faster than this thing writes -- it did actually manage to accept backups.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when it stopped working, which I didn't notice until yesterday because I don't check backups every day.

I have just spent the last 24 hours struggling to work out what's wrong. With mere days before I go on hols, and then disappear for three weeks leaving my wife to look after the girls, there are better things I could have spent my time doing, but coming from my background I am most unwilling to leave any computer without a working backup system.

As near as I can tell, either the processor or the network circuitry, which has always been marginal, has degraded to the point it's physically incapable of keeping up with the data flow, at which point the controlling software spuriously reports the disk is full, which causes the backup software to bomb out.

So the odds are pretty good that some time tomorrow I'll be buying a new network storage system, and it won't be Western Digital.

3 comments:

Mimzy said...

Ouch. By 'network storage system' do you mean an external hard drive? I was pretty fond of my Seagate external hard drive before it met it's untimely demise. A death that was entirely the cat's fault as she tripped me when I was going down the stairs. To be completely honest, I'm more surprised that my laptop escaped unscathed then the hard drive died. Ah my evil cat, now I'm mad at you again.

While you'll probably want to buy your new electronics someplace closer to home, a good website for reviews is newegg.com. This is usually where I buy all the bits and pieces to extend my desktop's life so I don't have to cave and buy a new one. Because while I love my indestructible laptop it can't run any good games or DVDs. I mean... It can't run... Something educational.

Matthew Delman said...

I second Mimzy's comment about newegg.com ... I love that website.

One of the perils of being the son of an engineer (Dad worked for IBM) is I know a buttload about technology and mechanical matters. If I know I can fix something, or know someone who can fix said item, I tend to not let it go until it's all done.

So I get where you're coming from, Gary.

Gary Corby said...

Thanks for the recommendation on newegg! I'm having a look now. (sigh)