wireless HD alternative to wd my book live

[Ypedal]

So this past weekend, i changed my office desk and in the process of unplugging everything and putting it back, my WD MyBookLive 2 Tb wireless drive kicked the bucket, red light on front, no response, i tore it down to bare sata drive and tried to slave it to my PC but even that is a no go.... she's toast.

so i put jack back in the box and it's going back to WD, since i'm past my 90 day costco return policy period ( purchased in march )

after reading the reviews on this drive, i regret getting it, and am quite pissed off at loosing 1.4 tb of data ( 1000's of mp3's, over 600 movies, TV series, all poof.. )

so i'm looking for alternatives.

both me and me neighbor have WD TV boxes to stream to our tv's, so i'm looking for something wireless, even tho it can be a network share, but i'd like it to be standalone so i dont have to rely on my pc's resources to stream..

open to any and all suggestions.

Windows network, XP pc's and Win7 laptop, playbook and droid tablets, as well as xbox all on the network.

 

[whereswally606]

why not a raspberry pi and a wifi card with an attach storage device. you could then have a net server too? (read: access from anywhere) small power use and footprint. easily locatable somewhere you need to give good signal.

http://elinux.org/R-Pi_NAS

says not high power nas so might not fit your needs.

 

[GMUseless]

I know you say you don't want to use PC resources...but if there's one thing Windows does great, it's serving files with little resources. You won't start consuming significant resources unless you setup a video server that transcodes for devices that don't support certain formats.

I use this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002UUPWP6/ref=wms_ohs_product

It's just an exteral drive bay with a single eSata plug back to the PC. I pop 4 x 2TB drives in there, and set them up as mirrored raids. So, I've got a net of 4 TB storage, that is always backed up. Drives are so cheap now, you never have to worry about losing your data when a drive creahses....which it always will at some point.

For any device serving files, I'd recommend something with a wired backhaul to your router...not a Wireless device, as your doubling your lag and loss that way.

 

[buzzfirst]

Hey Ypedal, if you have another place to put the stuff, you can most times put the drive in the freezer for about an hour and then it will start up and run for at least a couple of hours. It only works once or twice but I have saved ata like that before. Get your stuff off as soon as possible. I think(wag) that something shrinks somehow and the thing will then spin up to speed normally. I know it sounds like an old wives tale but it has worked for me two out of two times. Good luck with it.

 

[cal3thousand]

I use a WDTV Live HD. That device is rock solid for me, but it doesn't have a built in HDD.

I then use a combination of portable HDDs and flashdrives for my content. That way, my data is not tied to this stupid little black box and I get all the streaming that I need.

 

[Ypedal]

good stuff guys.. thx. !

Testing a passport 250gb drive as a windows share tonight before going shopping tomorrow.

one factor is that both me and my neighbor have a WD-tv Live box ( no hd ) so we need network share access, no swapping drives ( dont want that hassle ) ..

I have a rogers cable internet 25 mb/s going into my own linksys N router with mac filtering and wep security going on, about to drop the mac filter layer ( too much hassle to get friends smartphones on my network ) .

keep'em comming..

 

[GMUseless]

Drop the WEP for WPA. http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3672711

 

[cal3thousand]

good stuff guys.. thx. !

Testing a passport 250gb drive as a windows share tonight before going shopping tomorrow.

one factor is that both me and my neighbor have a WD-tv Live box ( no hd ) so we need network share access, no swapping drives ( dont want that hassle ) ..

I have a rogers cable internet 25 mb/s going into my own linksys N router with mac filtering and wep security going on, about to drop the mac filter layer ( too much hassle to get friends smartphones on my network ) .

keep'em comming..

I was using MAC filtering at first, but just realized that it was a hassle. The WPA setup is enough for my standards/needs. I also turned the gain down (not recommended with your neighborly setup) to only allow use from basically within my building. You'd be hard pressed to get a signal outside my door, but it's perfect inside.

I also have 2 networks setup from my 1 DD-WRT router. A 5GHz network for the fast N devices that can handle it. and a 2.5GHz mixed network for the rest. This way my 802.11N devices get the speed benefit without getting pulled down by the other devices (802.11 A/B/G) that we have.

DD-WRT rules. Make sure to check out the QoS settings if you have issues with streaming bandwidth while others are on the network.