I think I’ve pinpointed the problems with my network going down, as well as media files not playing.
I enabled SSH, then disabled Twonky, and Itunes. Enabled FTP, set the drive to use a static address although I did not set my router to assign that address…( I know but it worked)
Rebooted all my PC’s and so far network performance has not slowed down, and also media files are now playing without the lagging/stuttering and pausing.
Which tells me that the DLNA featured of this drive are where the software engineers need to focus.
I should also mention that I am not using ANY of the software that came with the drive. I am backing up
using Windows backup, and that seems to be working well. Even when I had two machines backing up at the same time, network was still very responsive…as it should be since everything on my Lan is gigabit.
In closing, so far the drive is doing what I want it to do, it’s providing a centralized storage area on the network.
However, if I had bough this drive to provide a centralized media source, it has failed miserably.
My suggestion to WD…fix it already! There are so many complaints out there, and not just on this board but several.
Mine is a 2TB drive which cost me $250. I could have easily bought two SEAGATE BARRACUDA"S and put them in an older box used as a fileserver which I’m sure would outperform this unit in both speed and reliability.
FIX IT!
If you’re setting a static IP (which I *always* recommend for NAS boxes) I suggest you set the address OUTSIDE of the range that the router would use for DHCP, that way there’s no possibility of some other device stepping on it.
So you disabled a few things simultaneously.
If you have the wherewithal or patience to narrow it down, it would be interesting to see if you re-enabled one thing at a time if you can determine what the problematic app was/is. After all, iTunes isn’t DLNA; it’s totally separate and doesn’t even interact at all with Twonky.
I’ve been using Twonky on my MBL since day 1, and I’ve just never seen an issue with it it at all. Maybe it was because I was patient until it was done indexing and cataloging all the media? I don’t know.
But this business you and others report that having the MBL simply ON the network makes completely unrelated systems start to suffer is beyond me. I cannot fathom what the MBL would be doing that slows down people’s internet speeds or PC’s ability to stream media to other devices… My only guess in this area is that the PC was actually doing something on the MBL (a Smartware backup perhaps) or something else in the background that wasn’t noticed?
I have *never* installed SmartWare. Never had a use for it. I use third party apps to do everything that SmartWare does…So my lack of using SmartWare may be another reason I’ve not had any of these performance issues…
I would like to add to that. This morning, I found that Twonky will only last for 2 hrs as in my AV receiver indicated “no content” while playing a selection. Not my receiver as it works quite will when playing from selections from the usb drive connected to the computer. It could be an OS problem but more likely Twonky doesn’t work correctly. Will need to find a used book on Apache to proceed.
TonyPh12345 writes:> * * *
If you have the wherewithal or patience to narrow it down, it would be interesting to see if you re-enabled one thing at a time if you can determine what the problematic app was/is. After all, iTunes isn’t DLNA; it’s totally separate and doesn’t even interact at all with Twonky.
But this business you and others report that having the MBL simply ON the network makes completely unrelated systems start to suffer is beyond me. I cannot fathom what the MBL would be doing that slows down people’s internet speeds or PC’s ability to stream media to other devices… My only guess in this area is that the PC was actually doing something on the MBL (a Smartware backup perhaps) or something else in the background that wasn’t noticed?
Tony,
I do have a lot of patience. You’re assuming that I did all of these things at once, when in fact I did them all seperately and found that ALL of these things when enabled contribute to slow performance on the network as well as not being able to view media on a local computer.
I believe the MBL is trying to take control of the network, perhaps the PC’s see it as a server and check in with it?
I am guessing here.
As far as not being able to fathom , it is happening to a bunch of us and shouldn’t be…period.
Case and point, if I brought this drive over to the elderly lady next door would it work flawlessly for
her? Perhaps…but if it didn’t do you think she should be patient and try to figure out what is going on?
Plug and Play…one of the easiest drives to use as it is advertised. I am not bashing WD, but for goodnes sakes
fix it.
Yesterday you wrote in another thread that you turned all those features off and your PCs were still screwed up.
What else changed between then and now?
TonyPh12345 wrote:
Yesterday you wrote in another thread that you turned all those features off and your PCs were still screwed up.
What else changed between then and now?
Enabled SSH…but all of this is moot as Dell came to their senses and are taking the drive back for a full refund, including picking up the tab for shipping. So currently the drive is being restored to the factory state. It’s got potential but only if WD comes to their senses and fixes the software/firmware that resides on this drive. As far as patience goes Tony, I lost mine after a couple of weeks trying to get this thing to work. So that is that…
I am purchasing a Seagate NAS220 with Raid as it will more suit the needs I have.
I should mention that Twonky was never an issue, even with a Samsung TV and Samsung Blueray…all could see and play files I put on the MBL as did the Itunes feature. MY problems were purely the MBL destroying the network.
