Bought a MyBook Live 3 days ago, and was so disappointed. I used the WD Smartware to perform a backup. I disabled the run when not active feature to allow WD Smartware to consume as much CPU time as it desired. It took 48 hours for an average data rate of 3MB/s. I have a 3.7GHz 8 core processor that was running at 10% during the backup. The drive monitor indicated that the hard disk in my desktop was running at 25% of available bandwidth, and the network monitor showed peak data rates of 25MB/s.
Using NovaBackup with a USB 2.0 drive takes only 12 hours with an average data rate of 12MB/s.
Using file manager to copy files to the MyBook Live resulted in a 15MB/s data rate.
The combination of desktop, network, and MyBook Live hardware is clearly capable of meeting and exceeding USB 2.0 data rates, yet WD Smartware is incredibly slow. The graphic on the box shows that the MyBook Live should be 3 times faster than backing up to a USB 2.0 drive. Instead, it’s 4 times slower.
I copied my MP3’s to the MyBook Live, set up WD2Go on my cell phone and proceeded to play a song. The progress bar showed that it was downloading well in advance of the playback, but the sound would pause for fractions of a second then continue creating a crackling sound.
While the hardware/firmware for the MyBook Live appears to be excellent, the supporting software (i.e. WD Smartware and WD2Go) are woefully inadequate.
