[Macworld]

Post your comments for WD offers ShareSpace network storage here

[flybynight]

Not bad... glad to see a device like this with a respectable price and some innovative features.

[RickCurran]

Mmm, with the my previous experience of WD "Gigabit" ethernet capable My Book World Edition II drive I am pretty sceptical about how fast this drive will work. The My Book WE II actually ran at about 10Mb speeds, nothing like Gigabit. I'd recommend waiting for some reviews of this device to see if it's any better!

[folklore]

Macworld said:

The drive includes built-in iTunes server support, so you can use it to share music across a network to Macs or PCs running iTunes.

What, exactly, does that mean?

[RickCurran]

Hi, the iTunes server support means you can put music on the drive and it will show up as if it's a computer on the network with shared Music, in the same way that you can share another computer's iTunes library.

[Peter Cohen]

It's a nice way of offloading exceptionally large iTunes libraries to the shared network server instead of having them stored locally on your hard drive. Of course, it means you can't take your music with you if you're on a laptop, but it's a tradeoff. Particularly nice for audiophiles who prefer to keep their libraries in lossless formats, and could conceivably eat up that 4TB with music...

[folklore]

Thanks for that. I'd have simply RTFM from WD, but I can't seem to find the manual for this product on their website.

Okay, so if the WD ShareSpace shows up just like any other computer that is sharing their music via iTunes, that leaves a few questions.

1. How do you create playlists? My iMac houses my iTunes library. When I share that library and connect to it from my MacBook Pro, I have access to the playlists created on the iMac. But I cannot create new playlists on the MacBook Pro using the music on my iMac. So if the WD ShareSpace acts just like any other iTunes library, is there some sort of interface to create and manage playlists? Same question applies to adding files to the library - I cannot add files to the iMac's library from the MacBook Pro (at least not from iTunes; I can do that using AFP of course).

2. Could you sync an AppleTV, iPod, or iPhone using the music shared on the WD ShareSpace? I cannot connect an iPod to my MacBook Pro and sync music that lives on the iMac.

3. How are last played dates and playcounts handled? If I play a file on the MBP, the playcount isn't updated on the iMac.

[muddybulldog]

I haven't seen the docs but it's a pretty safe bet they're using 'daapd' as the iTunes server software. See www.deleet.de/projekte/daap/daapd/

[Peter Cohen]

These are questions probably best suited to be answered as part of a review -- I don't have the answers, unfortunately, but it's something to think about if and when we take a look at it.

[folklore]

That's not good enough, Peter. I expect you to be able to answer highly detailed questions about new products simply from the manufacturer's press release. Sheesh. Get on the ball, Macworld! ;)

I look forward to a review once/if you get the gizmo in your lab. If you do, think of me when you put that iTunes thingy through its paces.

I'm interested because I've been looking for a "family media server" sort of setup for a while, but I have relatively strict requirements for it. Basically, if iTunes would let me create playlists and sync iPods from shared libraries, I'd be a happy camper. I have no idea why I can't do this, even when both computers use the same iTunes account. As it stands, I have two copies of most of my music (one for me, one for the wife) on two different computers.

[henryhbk]

Actually Peter, there are a whole slew of these new small-RAIDs designed for SOHO or home, and in the future I would love to see a review of them, as I have been thinking of getting one, but without objective reviews (and for instance are they time-machine happy when hooked to a mac as a AFP volume, can they do rebuilds to upgrade the size of the array http://i.e. swap eac...th a larger one, etc... ) they are all similar sounding with large variations in price.

[folklore]

henryhbk said:

Actually Peter, there are a whole slew of these new small-RAIDs designed for SOHO or home, and in the future I would love to see a review of them...

Indeed. Before the iTunes thing got me distracted, my first thought about this was, "Gosh, I wonder how that compares to the Drobo?"

In fact, it might be nice to see even a wider comparison of other storage options for a family or workgroup. Give us a few options, like other NAS and stand-alone RAID boxes, but also discuss how to create a software RAID set from a bunch of random disks, listing the pros and cons of each setup in terms of cost, data redundancy, and performance.

[slather]

Put me down for another vote in favour of a comparison review. I'm looking to buy one of these things very soon.

[JonasLondon]

Whilst I really like the Drobo idea, at the end of the day I reckoned we would not fill more than 4 TB (=2.7TB "secured") in 2009, qhich qould be 4x 1 TB drives in the Drobo. At GBP 95 per 1TB drive, and 367 GBP for the Drobo unit, it was more economically sound to go for the WD ShareSpace (arriving tomorrow).

I understand the ShareSpace, as well as the Drobo, can be used to store video files too, but not make these available to an AppleTV unless a computer running iTunes is "on" - reason is you have nowhere to enter the AppleTV streaming synchronisation code (5 digits) in the Drobo or ShareSpace interface. Perhaps this willbe changed with a firmware or other upgrade, sure hope so. Anyways, a four drive, RAID-5 system for under 600 GBP is not a bad deal methinks, hence we went with the ShareSpace for now.

No doubt an eSata equipped Drobo will appear later this year, and then that might be the second thing - or perhaps Apple steps up and launches the ultimate iTunes Media Storage to work flawlessly and perfectly with synching iPhones, iPods, AppleTV etc. Finger's crossed.

Jonas