Western Digital My Book World Edition 1TB

For example, on our virus scan test, the World Edition II required 426 seconds to complete a scan; and the new World Edition required 252 seconds. Copying files from the NAS to our host PC showed an even greater boost: The World Edition II needed 532 seconds to copy 3.07GB of folders and files from the drive to the PC, while the new World Edition NAS did so in 235 seconds. For copying large files from the PC to the NAS, the World Edition II took 674 seconds, while the new World Edition did so in 332 seconds. Copying large files to and from the NAS showed dramatic improvements from old to new, too: 455 seconds vs. 128 seconds for copying the NAS to the PC, and in the reverse 652 seconds vs. 263 seconds.

In our usage, the My Book World Edition streamed normal and high-resolution media flawlessly. It also proved easy to configure via its attractive basic- and advanced-mode, browser-based interface (the latter mode handles configuring the media-serving portion of the box). The My Book includes WD Anywhere Backup for continuous backup, and TwonkyMedia from Packet Video to serve up photos, music, and video.

While it streams all media smoothly, we did have one gripe: WD's implementation of the TwonkyMedia configuration pages seemed tacked on and didn't render properly in Firefox (some controls were partially obscured). Also, considering its mainstream consumer audience, the MyBook has numerous deep settings exposed, from MAC addresses to Shoutcast nodes for the open-source Icecast Internet radio server (though we found no way to stream Internet radio with the My Book World Edition).

--Jon L. Jacobi and Melissa J. Perenson