ShareSpace = Uncared For? READ ME

Hi all,

I’ve had a sharespare for quite a while and it’s fine, honestly it’s fine. it works. I’ve been a WD advocate for a long time, i started using computers and programming at 12-13. as of late, i’ve begun feeling like the ShareSpace product is nothing but a piece of hardware that’s not cared for. let me explain why i think so (i could be wrong)

  1. No firmware release has gone without problems from what i see. I’m afraid to update my firmware on ShareSpace because of that

  2. Release notes aren’t cared for - typographical errors. does anyone proofread commercially released materials anymore?

  3. Slow - slow - slow despite all the reports - is this something WD can’t fix / can’t rip out of the codebase or care about?

  4. i like the cTorrent upgrade and i use it alot. I have even asked for an API to access that with the windows app i wrote for it. no response on that.

Tools like these are meant to improve productivity and every time a sharespace goes down whilst performing simple maintenance tasks - it causes alot of grief, simply because we rely on it - people are relying on it, people are paying money for a good product but after being a WD advocate for so long, i’m starting to doubt this company’s emphasis/focus for this product and my passion for WD products.

Maybe what WD Community needs is a lightbulb moment on what creates a platform for users to innovate upon and not just fire-and-forget tools that get updated every now and then by WD. You need to engage us, the users/owners/believers.

anyway, that’s my 2c.

And with the Sentinel out now I think it’s going to be even worse for the SS since I think the Sentinel is the SS’s successor…

A month or so ago I would have agreed with you that it’s fine - at this point I do not think it’s fine at all. You see, for about two years, i’ve only had about 300GB on the drive to deal with, just a little more than 10% of the drive’s capacity, and those mainly just in stored files.  Recently, however,  I took on a project that involved working with, shuffling around and backing up more than 1TB of audio and video files. The Sharespace has failed miserably at even coming close in serving its STATED PURPOSE - a network attached file storage. No, I never expected it to be a lightning fast hi-powered file server, but the transfer speeds at which this unit operates are pathetic and unacceptable, except perhaps for the most light usage, at which point one wonders why even use a NAS.

Right now, it’s three a.m. in the morning and I’m waiting for the last remaining filesets to finish copying off of the SS so that I can finally trash the raid and reformat the drives. It’s going to take a while. I’ll be glad when I’ve seen the last of this sub-par piece of technology. Thanks for nothing, Western Digital! You probably won’t have a problem staying in the market, but you have definitely lost this customer’s loyalty.

what product are you going on to and what do you plan to do with the drives in the WD? 

I hear good things about the Drobo box,  which is sold without drives anyway. I’ll use the ones from the Sharespace to start with…

no torrenting/downloading facilities?

I’d go for something built from decent hardware and running a more or less fully featured linux OS. Then I can install and run whatevever client or server software I need. There are great choices our there, but they usually don’t sport the WD motif. Or build your own.

I’d personally stay with the WD brand. While the ShareSpace was not their best product by far, it’s still head and shoulders above the competition it had when it came out. I’m saving up to buy a Sentinel right now. From what I can tell it’s an entirely different animal and is getting rave reviews.

1 Like

Ardvark wrote:

I’d personally stay with the WD brand. While the ShareSpace was not their best product by far, it’s still head and shoulders above the competition it had when it came out. I’m saving up to buy a Sentinel right now. From what I can tell it’s an entirely different animal and is getting rave reviews.

Same boat.