Western Digital ShareSpace 4 TB 4-Bay Gigabit Ethernet Network Attached Storage with RAID 5 - WDA4NC40000N

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Binding: Electronics
Brand: Western Digital
EAN: 0718037733647
Format: CD
Label: Western Digital
Dimension: 9.45 x 12.99 x 11.42 inches
Manufacturer: Western Digital
Model: WDA4NC40000N
Publisher: Western Digital
Studio: Western Digital
Warranty: 3 years warranty

Features and Descriptions

• Box Contents - Network storage system with RAID, Ethernet cable, 2 hard drive mounting rails, AC adapter, Software CD, and Quick Install Guide
• Compatibility - Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.11+, and 10.5.2+
• Dimensions - Height 7.73 x Depth 6.30 x Width 7.84 (196.2x160.1x199.2mm)
• Weight - 10.78 pounds (4.9 kg)

This high-speed network-attached storage system with capacities up to 8 TB and a space-saving footprint gives you all the benefits of a big time data center without the need for a big time IT department. Perfect for centralizing and sharing data or streaming media on a small office or home network.

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Ratings & Comments(Average:)

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- NTFS Formatted USB drives
Very disappointed that the sharespace does not work with external USB drives formatted in NTFS. I've had two different sharespaces's and both exhibited the same problem. Neither sharespace was able to share out a NTFS formatted USB drive. After hours of working with WD tech support and receiving a second sharespace from WD RMA department I'm left without this so called feature! The sharespace also has very slow transfer rates.

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- Business users beaware
We got this drive because of the decent feature set and price. But only to find out that it cannot live up to business user expectations:

1. Initial set up was done through Safari browser, and it keeps redirect back to the login screen even after typing the right one (admin/admin). The issue resolved after doing the same thing in a Firefox browser and get through the initial steps.

2. Web UI is slow, slower than most of our printer/scanner embedded web config UI. Not sure why.

3. We have an HP OfficeJet Pro L7780 network scanner with digital filing feature, which scans a doc and save into a shared drive. So I thought maybe we can save docs to this device. After some simple config, and start the scan, the NAS starts acting wierd for all other users, some got logged out, others can not connect to the device anymore.

4. To solve problem 3, we tried to restart the device from web UI, but after clicking on "Shutdown" button, the browser just keeps spinning the wait icon and nothing seems to happen on the device either. Safari not able to connect to other web UI screens anymore. Waited 5 mins, every problem was still there.

5. restart Mac and login to the web UI, go to advanced/status/systemLogs and click on a different tab (for different type of log), the browser again keeps spinning and not able to connect to web UI.

We updated to the latest firmware and the above problems still persist. We also tried to reset configurations back to factory defaults (which takes ~20 hours to rebuild partitions/raid/filesystem/etc.), and again the same problems.

In short, if you are simply using it as a drive from time to time, it maybe fine. If you want something solid and always works, look somewhere. We are returning this device.

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- Quite...YES, Roomy...YES, Reliable...YES, Fast...MEH?
Ok, I bought two of these bad boys - one for a general purpose file storage server and the other one for a video server. It performs VERY VERY well as a general file server and I cannot say enough good things about it if you're going to use it in that capacity.

For video it's a diferent story. While this thing will act as an Itunes server for up to (max) 8 users simultaneously this thing is WAAAAY too slow to be used as a video server (and by video server I mean WRITING video data to the device - it appears to fast enough to READ most video data). I had hoped that having 4 drives spinning simultaneously even in a RAID 5 configuration would be enough to handle real-time video editing but those ever so quiet drives are only quiet because they're spinning at 5400 RPM and feel no need to bust a leg getting that video data written to disk anytime soon. In all fairness, it streams audio well and plays regular movies (.avi's, ripped dvds (vfo/ifo), divx/xvid) just fine just don't expect to have a high-end storage solution for real-time video recording.

By the way I leave mine on 24/7 and I've had no issues with it for several months now. Its SOOOOO nice to get all of those pesky hard drives laying around finally consolidated!

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- they never sent me a replacement install cd. original was cracked
i have tried to call many times to get a replacement install cd. original was cracked. time to call american express!

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- Not ready for Primetime with Business use
I bought this drive thinking that I can use this for our business use as part of windows Active Directory Domain as a storage server. But the support for AD is not very good. I am not able to retrieve the list of users and groups from AD for setting up permissions.

I called the support and they said that some time in the future it will be fixed. But they are not sure when would that be (!!!). So if you are planning to use it as a NAS storage server for business, then I would recommend buying it.

I am going to return it.

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