scottg wrote:
“Well, for one thing, that’s not how these things are intended to be used.”
It’s a drive (or two drives). There’s nothing in the manual that says “Only to be used through a router”.
On page 7, under “SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS,” it does indicate a “Router/Switch (Gigabit recommended to maximize performance.)” is required.
On page 9, it says the network port “Connects the device to a local network.”
On page 11, it says “Connect the other end of the Ethernet cable directly into a router…”
On page 13, it says “connect your My Book Live Duo device to your home or small office network.”
and on and on.
But that’s ultimately beside the point.
In your first post, you said that connecting to your PC directly did NOT work, now you’re saying it does work. What did you change to allow it to work?
Plugging into your PC via ethernet will very likely work, because most WIndows PC support Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA), as do all of WD’s NASes.
Whether or not MACs support APIPA and whether it’s enabled by default is unknown to me. Perhaps a Mac user will chime in with more info.
If your MAC supports APIPA, it will dynamically assign itself an address in the 169.254 network (and so will the Duo.)
Assuming your Mac supports it, it will then show up via Quickview, etc.
The WD NASes as well as Apple support mDNS, in which case you should be able to browse to the address
via a web browser and you’ll have access to the dashboard.
But after all that, I have to ask the question: Why did you buy a network-based storage when, given your requirement that it *not* be on a fully functioning network, a Thunderbolt, USB, or Firewire drive would have been a superior (and less expensive) choice?
