Network drive for windows?

June 6, 2014 6:55 AM

Our small office (Windows 7) had a Western Digital My Book World Edition drive. This drive attached itself to the network so everyone could see it, but mostly it was used for backups of our backups. Now the drive seems to be dying and we're looking at replacing it, but WorldBook edition don't seem to made anymore. Can anyone verify that? And if so, point us to similar type of drive, preferably 2 or more terabytes for a Windows 7 office. Does the MyBook line do anything like this? We already have a server that's managed by our IT department. This other drive is mostly just a secondary backup with storage of a few other video files on it.
posted by sock, the puppet to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Best answer: Is it possible they've just rebranded the line? This is a network-attached WD My Book Live that seems to be what you want; if you search for "NAS" you'll get plenty of options for Network Attached Storage (the more general name for this kind of thing); most of them are diskless devices that you put hard drives into, but some - especially ones targeted for small offices/home use - that come with drives built-in. Personally I'd actually prefer the former, to upgrade hard drives over time; built-in drives are better if you're uncomfortable with replacing hard drives, but with IT folks on hand, I'd go with their preference.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:08 AM on June 6, 2014

You might want consider something along the lines of this QNAP device. With two drives in a RAID configuration you can swap one out when it starts to fail. But this may be something bigger than you need given it's a backup of a backup. And I haven't used that particular device though I know folks who speak highly of QNAP.

Newegg also has this in stock which may be closer to what you need, though the reviews are mixed.
posted by beowulf573 at 7:10 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Synology NAS's are quite popular here. But as beowulf573 said, might be overkill for a backup of a backup.
posted by Runes at 7:27 AM on June 6, 2014

Response by poster: Yes, those drives have simply been re-branded.
posted by sock, the puppet at 8:46 AM on June 6, 2014

What is your budget? Those hard drives with network capabilities usually rate very poorly for both reliability and longevity. If you could spend a bit more per above recommendations, you could get a 2-bay NAS for ~$100-120 on sale. Hard drives usually cost ~$30/TB so a 3 TB drive would be $90. You can buy one drive now and add another later.

An example would be this QNAP.
posted by palionex at 11:43 AM on June 6, 2014