I think that WD and its customers would benefit from a Unified automatic diagnostics tool running in the background and constantly checking and reporting back to the user the status of the drives in real time. Take an anti-virus as an example as it keeps scanning the computer and pops-up an alert if a threat is found.

 

Why? Because not everyone has the time, basic knowledge and software required to test a drive for errors, faults and overall health. Since you (WD) deal with a considerable amount of Customers that are not computer literate and don't know how to backup their files, it's best to note that such a tool would Decrease the volume of people who lose data because of not knowing or having an idea of overall drive health. If they are warned in time, then they could take the data out if they don't have a backup.

 

Additionally, having separate tools that are drive-specific does not help us customers. DLG does not work with most Smartware drives and when Smartware doesn't want to work then the customer is forced to look for other software since there are no more options from WD. Also, most casual consumers (You know it's a high number, just look here on the forums) would  not know how to run the test on their own, that's why it has be automatic and unified for internal and external drives. Make it a default tool, it could be useful for your Tech Support agents as well if it's accurate.

 

And lastly, the tool needs be user friendly while being able to provide support on its own. It needs to be able to identify and Differentiate between hardware problems and logical (firmware) problems to give the user an idea of what's wrong with the drive. For example, some times the drive's partition does not mount in Windows, not even on disk management and can't be used at all, yet, the drive tends to be listed on -device manager- on Windows when this happens. Letting the user know why this is happening (Or if could have been prevented) will prevent a lot of headaches in the future.

 

And lastly, the tool needs to translate the testing attributes in a way that even no-brainer would understand. Showing what are the test parameters and giving an "Estimated usable life expectancy" based on the tests that it's always checking and telling the user.

 

It doesn't have to be a new software, you could just improve DLG to add these features and of course, avoid the same software bloat problem that Smartware has. I understand that a software that runs in the background takes resources out, by my anti-virus NEVER peaks above 10% of CPU usage, so there's no excuse for bloating here... Specially since this software won't be copying files.

 

A big lot of consumers take your slogan "Put your life on it" quite literally, why not helping them keep their lives safe? What do you think?

I have just recently purchased and installed the WD MBL 3 TB device onto my network. And have come pretty familiar with the WD2go app on my iPhone. Well I am quie pleased thus far, although I feel there is a key option missing from this app. I was at a meeting the other day with my accountant only to realize I didnt bring last years tax papers and I thought well let me just bring it up on my iPhone. But what good does this do? lol not to much other than him have to scroll around on my phone. Well just a thought I had but i think it would be greatly useful to have one of if not both of these options.

 

1. The ability to E-mail a file from your mybooklive via your mobile device.

2. The ability to print a file from your mybooklive via your mobile device.

WD2Go give us access to our files but in a similar way that WD Photos gives you extra functionality and usability for our photos I would love to see a WD Music app. The ability to be able to random/shuffle music from the entire music folder, create play lists or play specific artists/bands. It would be superb to able to turn my phone into a music jukebox using the MyBookLiveDuo!!

I and my father use wd2go pro all the time on our IPads. I would love to be able to sort items by date as well as description. Could this be added to the next update please.

I think the WD Photo app should have the capability to allow each mobile user what folder they want to upload their photos/videos to. Since the Activation Code asks for which user it will authenticate through (Which it doesn't ask for a password anyway) it should be able to grant the rights to that user in which folders the user is allowed access to.

 

For instance, I upload my photos and videos to my My Book Live Duo for storage, not sharing. There may be some photos I want to share but my main purpose is to back them up. So before uploading I could chose the destination. Whether I want to go to my Public folder or my Private folder. This would be great to see and I've seen many people ask for this feature. Where there's a need, fill it

A few improvements I think many would enjoy: 1. More details of the picture. 2. Ability to show notes of the picture 3. Ability to show Slideshow of all pics 4. Ability to add/select pictures in many folders to view in a Slideshow. 5. Be able to build Slideshow playlists? For example I might show a folder with a set of vacation pics to family, but at work I want to have a mixture of my favorite pics playing in a slide show and don't want to have to duplicate photos in a specialized folder just to do so. Also, when I go home I want to have pics of just the family playing. 6. A timeline type feature. All my photos I want to be able to have play in order or be able to scroll through in order. Most of these I could be usefull for all media type files! More ideas to come as I use this more...

It will be nice, if the Firmware will be integrated apps for the ZDF Mediathek (in germany), a Trailer App for europe users and youtube HD function.

 

That is what i am missing in the firmware.

 

Another cool App will be an Amazon LoveFilm App or for example a VideoBuster App to stream live from my video shop.

Is this so difficult?

 

Dropbox is a great cloud storage service, and having at least the same feature set that they have would be a good start for wd2go.  It should be trivial to implement a share link feature like this https://www.dropbox.com/help/16

 

Other automatic syncing features and software that runs in the background to keep connected so logging into wd2go website would not be requried would make it a more seamless personal cloud service.

I think it would be a good idea for your external HDD's to include software that works with Linux. You did it for Mac, and there are a lot of people that are changing over to Linux. By it not being available I have to regreatfully decline the purchase of a My Book Essential.