Notable hard disk maker Western Digital is now branching out into external disks and, with the Mybook World Edition, network storage.

That is, it's designed to be accessed over a network, or over the internet, rather than being plugged into a PC using its USB port.

Installation was a simple matter of plugging the device into the mains and into a router using the supplied network cable. We then ran the supplied CD on one of our home PCs, which installed the WD Anywhere Access program. This configured the disk as a network drive, accessible from the PC. The user also has to set up an online account to access the disk over the internet.

At the office, we were able to log in easily and view the contents of the drive – cleverly, it also shares the contents of the home PC, if it's switched on (although this behaviour can be switched off if you don't like it).

The main problem is speed – even over the close-by home network, it was several times slower to copy files than just using a USB cable on a standard removable disk. From the office over the internet and a distance of a few miles, it was practically unusable for large files (over 1MB) and even smaller files took a while.

That said, that's largely a problem of the internet rather than the Mybook. The bigger issue is the UPNP standard which enables network media players to stream music and videos directly off disks like this, among other things. The Mybook World doesn't support it, which is a real disappointment, and the only thing holding it back from a five star rating.

That said, anyone who wants to be able to access small documents from home to anywhere in the world would be hard pressed to find an easier way to do it than this. We reviewed the 500GB version, but other sizes are available.

See also:
Iomega Storcenter
Freecom