I apologise beforehand as this subject was posted multiple times, but the last posts were in 2012… and many conflicting entries exist on the subject. I also do not know what problems have been adressed in newer firmware?
I have a WD Live in the living room and want to add a second unit to the bedroom. My network is completely hardwired to both areas with routers that allows better WIFI coverage. (Thus I just hardwired the current unit **bleep** well)
I rarely stream movies from my PC, and have local storage at my WD TV LIVE that I just copy media to over the network. I would however not want to limit options by leaving a unit off the network?
If I do not have conflicting IP’s or device names I am aware both units can run on the same network with some risk of corruption?
I’m not enough of a PC buff to anticipate all problems related to such a setup?
What precuations can I take… or any advice on the setup to rather start things right?
Ps. I’m obviously happy with the unit… that is why I got the second one! But It was quite a mission to set everything up so that the first unit could connect to the network!
Are you aware of any problems with multiple units causing corruption/problems when streaming/ building a library? Lots of chatter on this previously… but no consensus?
I have two that use the same shares. Never had any issues. The only thing I do is avoid having both trying to rebuild the library DB at the same time. On the few occasions I have deleted the .wd_tv directories on the shares, I have had both units powered off and then powered one up first and let it rebuild the DB.
Mine do have static IP addresses and different names.
Not all same boxes, but running an SMP, a LiveHub and a LivePlus all at the same time same network, all reading media from the same file server. No issues whatsoever with network traffic. I do not run the media library though on any machines.
Instead of static IPs, I just have reserved IPs on my router for each of their mac adresses so when their leases expire once a week, they renew and get the same one,
It is important that each unit have a unique name,and since all units of a like model have the same default name out of the box, I just added a 2 at the end of the default name of my second unit. An easy unique name for each.
Instead of static IPs, I just have reserved IPs on my router for each of their mac adresses so when their leases expire once a week, they renew and get the same one,
How do you do this?
My router creates a somewhat “static” IP, because it creates (and reserves) an IP address from the mac address of each unit via an algorithm. They have always stayed the same – until starting a few months ago – a few are slightly different now, which is another indication my router is getting flaky.
It’s going to be different on every router, I use a few from Netgear. For me, underneath the area where you set the range of IP addresses you want to use for DHCP, you can set “adress reservations” for individual machines / devices. You enter the mac address, and then the IP address you want it to always recieve (must be within the DHCP range), and a Netbios name if you want. When the devices is rebooted or it’s lease is up and it sends a request to renew, the Router always gives it that same reserved one.
I guess it’s pretty much the same as setting up static adresses. I like it because I can centrally controll all of the machines on my network from one interface, and am never mucking around on a device with it’s IP setup.
mike27oct wrote:
My router creates a somewhat “static” IP, because it creates (and reserves) an IP address from the mac address of each unit via an algorithm. They have always stayed the same – until starting a few months ago – a few are slightly different now, which is another indication my router is getting flaky.>
Most clients will request their last known address when sending a discovery request, and depending on the DHCP server, they should get that if still available, although that may or may not be configurable on your router. If the server/router does not carry that ability (I think it is called “authoritive” if I remember correctly), then the request times out, and the client sends another asking for any available adress.
I found what you describe about DHCP, and my router calls it manually asigning an IP. I think in my router’s case, and your case of “reserving”, both are essentially the same: asigning a static IP address.
I have three WDTV Live SNP units and a desktop and often 1 or 2 laptops some running wirelessly and some wired and sometimes swapped around. Everything works flawlessly. Just be sure to make sure they have different names (I just added a 1, 2 and 3 to the end of the default ‘WDTV Live’). Its way less painful that the sign-up process just to post this reply O.o
and yes, the first one I set up was a mission but once you know how its easy. My biggest headache was the default workgroup names…windows uses ‘MSHOME’ and WD use ‘WORKGROUP’. Simple thing but there is not so much as a clue to alert you to this critical issue.
Really? Well thats wonderful but when people buy a consumer product such as this from a major electrical retailer to make their life simpler they don’t usually go trawling forums to get the thing to perform one of its basic functions. But thanks for your helpful comment
