Western Digital releases My Book Live home network drive

October 8, 2010 By Kelly Montgomery

Western Digital's My Book Live home network drive features high-speed transfers, wireless backup, streaming to TV, and remote access.

Digital storage powerhouse Western Digital has announced the introduction of the My Book Live Home Network Drive, which is designed to provide users with hassle-free centralized home media storage. The network drive boasts transfer speeds up to 100 MBps, which the company claims is twice as fast as other network drives in its class.

“Network attached storage presents tremendous opportunity for families wishing to centralize all of their digital content and enjoy it on computers, TVs, and smartphones around their home and beyond,” said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD’s branded products group.

The My Book Live has a built-in media server that makes for easy and simple access to videos, music, and images on any Mac or PC connected to the home network. Users can also stream digital media to a television through a DLNA-certified multimedia device, play music and video from the drive in iTunes, and view digital photos on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad with an included WD Photos application.

The My Book Live allows wireless automatic backup for both Macs and PCs. WD Smartwave for Windows makes backing up from your PC a snap and the drive is also compatible with Apple Time Machine. Users can access and share their data over the Internet with WD’s free remote access technology.

The WD My Book Live Home Network Drive comes with a limited 3-year warranty and is available in 1TB ($169.99) and 2TB ($229.99) capacities. It is now available online and in select US retailers.

Showing 1 comment

Anthony M at 4:39pm 14th October 2010 The selling point of this will be made or broken depending if they force the user to use the WD software or allow some kind of browser based configuration like in the past. Why would anyone in the market for something like this want to have to install software on EVERY machine in order to use a network device? Having SSH access to the linux system underneath it is a big selling point as well, however how long will it really be until a nice IT guy comes and makes a SSH enabler script via the firmware updater?