WD False Advertising / at least misleading

I am very upset I recently bought a WD Live Hub and I thought

1000 mb network connectivity cool

But come to find out my network switch was only a 10/100 and file xfer to the hub was 7.75 MB/s = 62 megabits /sec

So I eagerly awayed a brand new 1000 mb hub since my computer has a 1000 me card installed as well, im goona be rocking…

But NO I only get the same 62-63 megabits a sec not even the full 100, I switched back and forth a few times but nothing changes… WHAT A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY

Now after reading through here I find out that sure it has 1000 mbit connectivity and it will light up the 1000 mbit light on the switch but internally it dosent have the horsepower to drive it anywhere close.

So anyway, I had to VENT my disatisfaction. I love the box other than that but still pissed to what I feel was false advertising. At least I’d like a refund of the 5 port netgear hub that I bought.

So what do you think do you feel it was misleading to WD to imply 1000 mbit connectivity?

George

Only if you think the same thing about every gigabit device you are likely to own…

No consumer-grade network endpoint I’ve ever tested (that includes PCs) does anything over 500 megabits… One normally sees CLOSE to gig performance only in pro- or enterprise-grade PCs and appliances.

So, where is the line?

Incidentally, you should be getting double that… I get 11 megabytes per second…

Tony,

This is just a question for my understanding, more than anything: what would be something like a best practice for obtaining the most out of a gigabit network? 

In my opinion the trouble is that the processing chip in the WD is unable the handle aGigabit connection and that makes using a Gigabit Interface rather useless.

Speed of the Network is important the moment one start copying movies to the WD.

That’s kinda a difficult question to answer precisely.

IN GENERAL, looking SOLELY at the NETWORK components:

  • Good quality cabling and connectors  (Category 5e is all that’s required; category 6 is a waste of money).   

  • Good quality network switches that do wire-rate forwarding on all ports.

The greater cautionary tale is that just because a device has a Gigabit Ethernet network interface *NEVER*  by itself should be assumed to mean that the endpoint device can actually manage a full wire-rate transfer.

Actual network performance of an endpoint device has *SO* many variables:

   - Bus speeds  and types

   - Motherboard chipsets (particulary the north & southbridge chipsets)

   - Interface performance…  PCI-E versus PCI versus LOM, etc.

   - I/O storage types (SATA vs PATA),  

        * To/From-spindle to Interface performance (again, just like network, just because an HD says 6GB SATA doesn’t mean the disk can actually READ and WRITE at anything close to 6GB/sec…)

        * Cache / Buffer to Interface performance 

   - I/O storage path & performance

   - etc, ad naseum. 

The weakest link will slow things down.

If someone buys an 8-core CPU with 32 GB of 2066 SDRAM in 4 channels, on a top-end Motherboard, installs a high-end TOE-card (TCP Offload Engine) on a PCE-e16 bus, and then puts in a single “Desktop” grade hard drive and expects to move files at 1 Gbit/sec, they’re fooling themselves…

If someone exchanges that single Desiktop grade hard-drive for an 8-device Solid-State drive RAID5 array, and puts all the other goodies (including the high performance TOE card on a PCI bus) into a Celeron based motherboard, they’re not going to get much better than about 100-200 megabits per second performance.

In short, expecting a $100 network-capable box to transfer at 1000 megabits per second is just simply naive.

The fact is, if WD had decided to put a 100 Megabit/second interface in the Hub, the interface would be the bottleneck.  

On the LIVE / Live+, no one will EVER see anything greater than about 11 megabytes per second.  EVER, because the interface is only 10/100.

WD REMOVED that bottleneck on the Hub, and people complain and threaten lawsuits.

Sheesh.

6 Likes

Tony, that was just about as good of an explanation as you can get.

@georgeberz,

I not sure why you feel that WD was misleading on this, no where that I can find does it state that transfer speeds will be anywere near 1000mb/sec, nor does it even state what the transfer speeds will be.  No company would give the transfer rate anyway, just due to the variables Tony just mentioned in his post.

The only thing that it does state is that the HUB has a Gigabite interface, which is true, but just because it has a certain piece of hardware that has a certian ratting doesn’t mean that the entire device has that capability. 

“The only thing that it does state is that the HUB has a Gigabite interface, which is true, but just because it has a certain piece of hardware that has a certian ratting doesn’t mean that the entire device has that capability. ”

Which proves that WD states 1 GB only for the commercial impact. If the rest is only 10?100 capable then why put a 1GB interface? Probably because they were cheaper.

Besides a working 1 GB certainly has its uses. It would save a tremendous amount of time when transfering from desktop to WD’s internal HD.

No, definitely not cheaper. The sigma chipset has a 10/100 NIC on die, which is what the Live and Live Plus uses. The 10/100/1000 interface on the hub is an additional RealTek chipset.

Also, why they used a Gigabit interface is a completely different argument then saying that there was false advertisement.

I would agree that it’s more a marketing gimick than a real feature.   But the fact is that it DOES perform (if only marginally) faster than a 100 meg interface…

I agree, WD made a marketing PLOY by advertising 1000mb connectivity.

Its tantamount to a car manufacturer saying the have a brand new 1000 mpg carbuerator on thier new car, then after you buy it you find out that the engine only works at 100 mpg.

Not that I expected a 1000 mbit connector to actually xfer to my computer at 1000 mbit per second but is should be somewhat capable in its design, and only having the ability to use 10-12% in not acceptable or appropiate.

They should have stated 1000 mbit interface * reduced speed by 85% due to cheap hardware processor

WD produces a PRODUCT that they assemble all the components, they design and engineer… then they advertise 1000 mbit connectivity. 

Since they build design and engineer the entire standalone module shouldnt they advertise actual connectivity speed rather than theroetical speed.

Its kinda like the really cheap speakers being sold at swapmeets that state 2000 watts and are only 6"x9" of course that is 2000 watts at the point they melt and the csound ocming out of them is indescribable.

I really would like WD to refund the $50 I paid for me netgear 5 port switch…

Its tantamount to a car manufacturer saying the have a brand new 1000 mpg carbuerator on thier new car, then after you buy it you find out that the engine only works at 100 mpg.

Seriously? Please… You need to get real. Tell me ANY device you actually own that performs at 1000 Meg.

Tony,

That was close to my comparison.  If you go buy a car with Y series tires (rate at 186mph+) and it’s on the manufactures sticker and the car only goes 120, does that mean that it was false advertisement or a ploy.  NO.

Come on guys, even if the HUB was capable handling anywhere close to 1000mb/sec, unless you have a  super computer setting at your house, your PC would never push those types of speeds.

1 Like

As a user I’m tired of hearing that no device, or very few devices give real gigabit performance. Then let this device perform somewhere near those devices (I have a few that push 33 MB/s). Pushing 11 MB/s is 100Mbit performance, period. Does it allow you to get a better connnection than most 100 MB/s devices? Yes. Is it gigabit or close to or half of it? No. A lot of people bought this device thinking the gigabit feature was value add. That’s not the case. I’m hoping WD can at least explain why in detail and apologize and put this whole gigabit thing to rest.

There have been numerous explanations why this is the way it is.

Even if WD comment, its not going to change anything is it ?

Hey I agree with you, I also think the 1TB internal (also a selling point for me) is a waste when it takes a lifetime to copy anything to it.

But at the end of the day, it i what it is.

Gigabit Ethernet is primarily used on optical fiber networks such as the backbone of a corporate network. To obtain those speeds would require fiber connection throughout the including routers and switches that can process the fiber connections.

What anti-virus do you use? Some anti-viruses scan every in/out packet which could hinder network performance.

You can do some tweaking to get modest gains.

Just curious, have you ever seen 60Mb transfer rates from USB 2.0? The highest that I’ve seen was about 35Mb for about 3 seconds.

Mediamaster wrote:

Just curious, have you ever seen 60Mb transfer rates from USB 2.0? The highest that I’ve seen was about 35Mb for about 3 seconds.

 

Exatcly.  The 60MB/s (480 Mbit/s) USB2 speed is the burst rate, not the sustained rate.  There’s been quite a few people to post that their external hard drive “doesn’t work right” because they’re only getting about 20MB/s transfer rates.  When you patiently explain the difference between “burst” and “sustained”, and that USB speeds also depend on USB bus usage, some folks get it and say “oh, ok…” and others fly off the handle about how the 480Mbit/sec specification is some massive misleading fraud.

As a matter of consolation…I too feel mislead.  I have both a gigabit and non-gigabit router…the non-gigabit is for internal media usuage throughout the house, while the gigabit is for everything else.  I simply exchanged position of the the two routers and was able to realize 5 to 6 MB/s speeds on the non-gigabit router and 10 to 11 MB/s on the gigabit router.  So guys there is an improvement to be realized going the gigabit route…in my experience twice that of the non-gigabit route (100 Mbit/s).  So thank you WD for doubling the poor performance of the hub when connected to a gigabit router and other giga bit devices…only problem is that it is no where the speed of when we connect other gigabit devices to each other.