Western Digital NetCenter

Reviewed by: ggovin

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Very Reliable -- no problems in six months, Mine was one of the first out, Fairly fast data access over my wireless network, Expandable -- Just plug in a USB drive (or 2) into a netcenter USB slot.

Weaknesses: I have to reach here -- when the power goes out you have to punch the on button on the drive to get things going again. You can't defragment the netcenter drive or USB drives connected through it.

Overall Evaluation: I wanted to have a large capacity drive for my laptop, but wanted wireless portablility. Hence, I purchased the netcenter 250 GB drive. I already had an external USB interfaced Western Digital drive and so I plugged into the netcenter. Everything works great. Now I have a total of 500 GB of wireless network storage. It is a bit slower reading and writing than the original 250 GB drive plugged was when it was directly plugged into a computer USB port. For the convenience I am satisfied. If you do not move gigantic amounts of data back and forth constantly you will be very satisfied. It is pretty fast. For fun I attempted to connect a USB HP inkjet printer for use as a network printer. I had some trouble getting it to work. It worked briefly so if I really wanted to mess with it I probably could eventually have gotten it to work. Network printers are reasonably priced so I recommend getting a real network printer. Not all printers are supported via the netcenter. Check the online WD website to see about yours. Also the function that tells you when the ink is nearly running out does not work (no matter what you do) when you hook your inkjet through the netcenter. Western Digital will tell you this is the case too. All-in-all I am very happy with my netcenter drive. I don't think about it much which really means it is working great. The odd time the power goes out the drive becomes unavailable. Hit the on button on the drive and you are back in business.