joeware - never stop exploring... :)

So I am setting up my new Terabyte MyBook from Western Digital….

Complaints so far

1. The little getting started leaflet basically just says install the CD and use our software…

My problem with that is I hate installing software on my PC that I don’t really want and don’t want that software. So I check my DHCP reservations and sure enough, I find it pops up as MyBookWorld using my scope options… cool. I look in DNS…

2. Doesn’t register its own DNS Address nor ask DHCP to do it for it.

Grrr.

I go to the IP address in a web browser and voila it pops right up. Very cool. I start going through configuration.

3. It asks for an admin ID and password… Great. No clue, the little get started leaflet says nothing about it.

I search the internet and find it in about 33 seconds. Thank you yet again Google. For the curious, the default userid is admin, the default password is 123456

4. For TZ it doesn’t give standard names, it says things like America/Detroit.

Ugh.

So now I try to create a new user, I like to use $joe for anything that will be admin like actions and since this is for backups, that is an admin action.

5. Can’t use anything but letters and numbers for userid….

Come on, really?? Seriously???

So now I say, well I guess I better use joe…

6. Userid has to be between 5 and 20 characters

M u s t  C o n t r o l  B l o o d  P r e s s u r e  :o)

So I choose something else and it has me set the permissions for the default share named PUBLIC. Default permission is none, very good default. I pull up the security sheet for the PUBLIC share.

7. Everyone FULL control…

KAPOW!

8. No mechanism to see who is attached to the NAS.

9. Nothing to see the state of use of space by share.

10. No mechanism to maintain file level permissions via web manager

11. Look at permissions through Windows Explorer and see Everyone Read and Execute and a group called www-data(BACKUP\www-data) with Full Control and a group called www-data(Unix Group\www-data) with Read and Execute…

wtf

12. I can’t monkey with those permissions even though it lets me pick users defined on the NAS. Attempts result in access denied.

So much for this being a cool little small business file server. Not that I needed that, but come on. This wouldn’t have annoyed me as much except for 1-10. To use different perms you need to use different shares. A bit annoying, I like the idea of a single share with permissions on subfolders.

Its not all bad, for the money I still think it is a steal and it is pretty fast and a heck of a lot easier than setting up a file server be it Windows or BSD. Also if my house ever catches on fire or starts flooding I can grab it and throw it under my arm and run with it in case the stuff in the fire safe for some reason doesn’t make it.

    joe