This product offers a cool looking package and the cheapest storage on the market. However it has three issues that need to be solved before it will work properly.

1) Mionet software. Appalling software. DO NOT USE. Follow instructions on WD website for use without the Mionet software.

2) Fan noise. Fan makes a huge racket all the time. Open the casing as described in the instructions. The fan unit is held in place by a rubber jacket. Carefully take it out of the jacket and flip it around so it blows instead of sucks. This helps the fan noise somewhat but not that much in my experience.

3) Heat. I have taken the unit to pieces and left it running without the casing as this hugely improves the cooling. This is one step further on from user serviceable disassembly as described in the manual. If you look carefully you will find that the front piece (bit with LEDs on it) is simply clipped onto to the caddy that holds the drives. Release these clips and pull caddy somewhat away from the front plate. There is a data cable that attaches the caddy to the LED / Power button and this must be left connected. (Otherwise power on/off and LED’s wont work). I have left mine sitting on a rubber mat in the cupboard like this and it works fine and runs cool enough for the fan noise to run slow enough not to be a problem.

Even with these measures its still not quiet so aim to put it in a well ventilated cupboard somewhere out of sight and hopefully earshot. Don’t bother with WD Technical Support it is utterly useless and incompetent. You are on your own.
If you can deal with these issues this is an excellent product and offers cracking value for money but you must solve the above issues otherwise you will be pulling your hair out in frustration.

Post questions here and I will endeavour to answer them ..

Cheers
Rich

Oh yes one other thing

I notice that a lot of reviews state that file transfers are often interupted and lost as a result of the Mionet software.

While this is true in some cases it also happens when the Mionet sofware is not installed. i found that this was due to internet security programs that interfer with traffic over the network and mess up the transfer of files. The error comes as "mybook not available" or some such other gumph..

If this happens just turn off the security software when making big transfers to and from the drive. For ordinary read and write i have had no problem with leaving security software on...

FYI Symantec Norton Internet security does not cause this problem but F-secure was a nightmare. Something to check...

Cheers
Rich

Is this a hard drive with media player capability or just a networkable harddrive?

cheers.

Its compatable. I use it to stream music and DVD's over my home network to PC running, XP, XP media edition and Vista and it works fine with all of them. I use Cyberlink Powere DVD 7...

However...I use a 100mb Ethernet network NOTWIRELESS LAN...Wireless is good enough for the music but not for the DVDs. Over wireless it is jumpy and very poor unless you are sitting in the same room and in clear line of sight of the wireless access point.

You will need ethernet all the way to get a good streaming expereince.

Cheers