My Book Live Strategy

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
1

Hello,

I’m considering getting a NAS device to act as media server/hub for movies, pictures, etc.  I’m also looking to backup files from multiple computers (2 laptops and 1 desktop) that are on my home LAN.   The question I have is does it make sense to use a single NAS device for both purposes?  To me, that seems a little risky, if the NAS goes down for whatever reason then I lose my backups.  Is it better to dedicate the NAS as media server only and have a separate NAS for backup?

Thanks,

c.

2

Well it should be VERY difficult to lose a backup, since you should still have the original data.

The only downside to the My Book Live is its small size (2TB max currently vs 8TB for the Sharespace). If your media library is smaller than this, and you still have enough room to keep a backup on the Live, it is a good reliable location to keep this data.

Remeber, always keep at least 2 backups + the original data for any vital information… the MBL would definatly work as one of these locations. If it’s your ONLY backup however, I would get a secondary backup option just to have some extra peace of mind that all your eggs were not in one basket.

3

My library is fairly small right now so 2 TB should be plently.  I’ve only just started to sway into streaming media, etc., and I can see my library getting much bigger.  I’m not crazy about the idea of having movies on my deskop as disk space is becoming limited and I don’t have any immediate plans to upgrade it.  My plan would be to only have cinema movies (not home movies) on the MBL only and also backup key files from the other computers on the LAN.  I know there is risk in that, but I can accept that. Pictures/music would be on both the desktop and backed up to the MBL. 

I’m also interested in the iTunes server capability of the MBL, but I need to understand how that works a bit first.

thanks,

C.

4

Actually, after researching this a little more I think the World Edition II in a RAID 1 configuration is a better choice than the MBL.

5

The My Book World II is a good drive (I have 2 of them myself) but it is older and slower than the MBL. There are pros and cons to both.

6

flyguy15,

That sounds like what I am doing.

I back up our pc’s to the 2 TB My Book Live and also use it to store my Video’s and Pictures.

I also have some usb flash drives (for critical documents) and a couple of 1TB My Passport  Essential SE’s (for the videos and pictures) that I shuttle off site.

Seems to work well.

7

I have thought about that option as well.  I have passport Elite drive that I could attach to my router and act as another storage device.  I’m hestitant to have that just because of the potentail confusion that it might cause to my wife.  I’m leaning towards having a one stop shop with the World Book II.  I guess there are pros/cons to both.  Is the World Book II much slower than the MBL?  I would have it connected to a my gigabit network.

A guestion I have about the World Book II is using the iTunes server.  Can I stream files using this to my ATV2?  Looking at the install guide it mentions it will only support certain file types and mp4 and mov is not one of them.

thanks,

C.

8

I have one last question about the MBL and World Edition II.   What file system do these drives come in, (NTFS or FAT32)?

Thanks,

C.