MyBook Live Duo Review. MyBookLive Duo is WD’s top-of-the-line wireless storage solution that features a ‘personal cloud’—or the ability of the user to access files remotely via an app in iPhone or Android phone.
But what’s interesting about MyBook Live Duo, apart from the personal cloud feature, is the presence of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology, a technology most often employed in storage solutions of enterprises. So we now see a first consumer storage product boasting of this feature, which is really cool.
Total capacity of MyBookLive Duo is 4TB, which actually represents two drives that are combined—a main reason why it looks rather hefty and needs power source. Because of the RAID feature, My Book Live Duo continuously maintains a second copy of all your files for real-time data backup in mirrored mode (RAID 1). Half the capacity is used to store users’ data and half is used for a second copy. In the unlikely event that one drive fails, data is protected because it’s duplicated on the other drive.
Setting up MyBook Live Duo is easy. Connect the portable hard drive onto your wireless router or on the LAN port of your DLS connection and subsequently run the CD and you’re ready to go.
It’s interesting to note that My Book Live partition doesn’t appear as a separate drive in your Computer, but you can only have access to it through the WD SmartWare application, the software bundled with the product to manage the files.
When you do backup, you can have the option to retrieve the files to their original places, or you can retrieve them to another location, which means that if you are a multiple PC user (SOHO scenario), the latter option is useful as you can access the files from any PC.
Through SmartWare, you can also have the option to enter the number of back up versions you want to retain, delay back up until your computer is idle, select a folder to retrieve your backed up files to, and set preference for automating software updates and starting the WD SmartWare software.
You can also manage the drive settings, such as naming your drive and assigning security, setting a sleep timer, run diagnostics, manage power settings and more.
By the way, the security offered by MyBook Live Duo is a combination of password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption, ensuring tough security.
WD2Go app makes possible the personal cloud feature of MyBook Live Duo
As to its cloud function, MyBook Live Duo differentiates itself by offering the user with a “personal cloud” –or having the storage at home and then remotely accessing your files stored there from an iPhone, iPad and Android devices. You need to download the app called WD 2Go from the online apps stores of these devices and run it in order to execute this function. But make sure the MyBook Live Duo with its Internet connection is turned on at home.
MyBook Live Duo also has built-in media server that streams movies, photos and music to any DLNA-certified multimedia device such as a WD TV Live streaming media player, Blu-ray Disc player, PlayStation 3, as well as Xbox 360s and smart TVs.
Users can also stream movies, photos and music to their tablet or smartphone directly from My Book Live Duo through the WD 2go mobile application.
My Book Live Duo is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion, as well as DLNA/UPnP enabled devices.
A 4 TB MyBook Live Duo, the one we reviewed, costs P19,290 while the 6 TB version costs P22,900.
