Western Digital ShareSpace Network Storage System Review

by David Rasnake and Kevin O'Brien

Network-attached storage is a mainstay technology for many businesses these days. Essentially an external hard drive with an ethernet connection, network-attached storage (or NAS for short) has the advantage over Firewire or USB external drives of being able to share disk space between several computers across a network. Connect the device to your router, jump through a few setup hoops depending on the device, and the NAS's copious hard disk space is ready for immediate access as if it were another drive connected directly to each computer on your network.

For the more technically inclined, the possibilities for wireless networking, multi-computer, and even remote access with NAS devices are nearly endless. But if you're like many people, you may be less interested in what your NAS can do than in how easily it performs its most basic function: providing huge amounts of easily accessible storage space for your files.

The Western Digital ShareSpace is an NAS device offering either 2 or 4 TB (that's 4,000 GB, folks) of file storage space in a small form factor and a easily networkable interface, meeting - on paper at least - the basic criteria of massive storage space, multi-computer/multi-platform compatibility, and ease of use that photographers seek in an external hard disk solution. The device looks great, has a fantastic list of features, and offers loads of storage at a reasonable price. Could this be the perfect file storage solution for space-hungry digital photographers or iTunes addicts?

Build and Design

Although it's not the smallest NAS on the market, the 4 TB ShareSpace used for this review provides an impressive amount of storage space in a device that fits easily on most desktops. Basic footprint specs of our review unit are as follows:

• Height: 7.7 inches
• Width: 6.3 inches
• Depth: 7.8 inches
• Weight: 10 pounds, 12 ounces

Four large rubber feet keep the ShareSpace anchored in place and provide a bit of air space for ventilation on the underside. Given that our 4 TB review unit tips the scales at nearly 11 pounds, it's really not going anywhere anyway.

Let's get this out of the way early on: the ShareSpace isn't actually a single hard drive, but an enclosure housing four of them in a RAID configuration. We'll delve more into the specifics of RAID configuration throughout the review, but if you're a technophobe, all you really need to know is that a RAID arrangement allows the ShareSpace's four separate hard disks appear as a single ultra high-capacity drive when connected to your computer. No need to remember whether you stored those files on drive one or drive three: the RAID controller handles the dirty work for you, so all you see is a single, outrageously large (in this case, at least) storage area.

Speaking of drives, from the factory the 4 TB ShareSpace comes packing a quartet of 1 TB Western Digital GreenPower drives. As a power-saving measure, the ShareSpace's "Green" drives spin at a full 7200 RPM while being actively accessed, but spin up initially at a more energy efficient 5400 RPM and can park heads when the drive isn't being accessed.

The ShareSpace's brushed metal case looks great, and its roughly 8-inch cubed footprint is small enough to integrate easily with even small home office environments where space is at a premium. Power and backup buttons are the only two "controls" on the ShareSpace, but an array of indicators shows status of each of the enclosure's four drives as well as the network connection.

A front-side USB port provides backup/drive hosting options (more on this in the next section), and two additional ports on the back of the device allow further disk space expansion - though if you need more than 4 TB of storage in 2008 you're either A) a professional videographer, or B) in need of some help in being more selective about how much stuff you're backing up.

The ShareSpace's metal shell is held on by two thumbscrews, making it easy to get at the drive array inside.

Even if you're wary of diving into the internals of computer equipment, the WD's internal arrangement is logical and transparent, making drive swapping a simple affair should the need ever arise.

Setup and Configuration

From a setup perspective, the ShareSpace is an overwhelming success. Most people I know are only somewhat acquainted at best with the finer points of sharing disk space across a network, but with the ShareSpace, getting multiple computers connected to a single storage area really couldn't be much easier.

If you're shaky about how all of this works, Western Digital is there to hold your hand every step of the way. A printed quick start guide shows you how to connect the device to your router, and a CD based on-screen installation process takes things from there.

If you're just looking for storage space, the ShareSpace's two separate default drive areas (download and public) can be mapped to your machine from the startup screen with a single mouse click. To say that this is the easiest NAS we've ever connected would be an understatement: the setup and drive discovery process is so much simpler than what's required from many competitive devices that it's not even a fair fight. With clear prompting, even those who are essentially computer illiterate can handle getting the ShareSpace's basic functions up and running: kudos to Western Digital for offering an NAS device that doesn't require an advanced degree in computer science to set up.

And once the ShareSpace's drives are mapped initially, they're there: both Macintosh and PC machines had no trouble finding the device again without prompting when connected to the appropriate network. As an aside, I was even able to successfully use the WD's iTunes server functionality to serve up music off my primary desktop computer to every machine on my network; iTunes takes a minute or two to mount the drive the first time around, but then you're up and running with no additional setup. Brilliant.

Of course, if you want to go beyond the basics, there are plenty of configuration options and tools to be found in the advanced side of the ShareSpace's browser-based configuration utility.

As noted, the ShareSpace has a built-in RAID controller, allowing its four discrete drives to function as a single disk in a variety of configurations. By default, the ShareSpace ships with a RAID 5 configuration: although it eats into the total available disk space, a RAID 5 drive configuration means that every bit of data you store to the ShareSpace is actually routed to at least two of its four drives; should any one drive fail, a RAID 5 configured ShareSpace still keeps all of your data intact, and can actually rebuild a drive from the parity data on other disks should you need to replace a faulty one.

In order to maximize disk space, you can also opt to reformat the device to either a RAID 0 (striped) or a RAID 1 (mirrored) setup via the advanced configuration menu. Depending on how much data you're clearing - remember that everything gets wiped when going from one RAID level to another - expect the reconfiguration process to take a couple of hours at most.

Features

From a small business or home office perspective, one of the ShareSpace's key features is a front-side USB 2.0 port capable of hosting other devices. What this means in theory, at least, is that you can attach an external hard drive and with a single press of the device's backup button pull your files directly to the ShareSpace's download area.

In practice, it's sadly not that simple. First off, we were surprised that the port is recessed. From a functional perspective, it's almost impossible to attach most USB flash drives for instance, which simply don't fit into the ShareSpace's narrow recess. The same applies to some cordless card readers.

Secondly, the USB port will only mount the first drive it recognizes, which makes using multi-card readers difficult (since in most cases, separate drives are recognized for each card slot, even if there's no card inserted into a given slot). Hence, if you want to make the ShareSpace's front-side USB a part of your workflow, a single-type card reader is a smart investment.

Finally, the most damning issue with the direct-connect port is its speed. It would seem that having a USB 2.0 connection directly to the device - rather than across the network - would yield significantly faster file transfer speeds than pushing files from a computer-connnected card reader across a network. In our testing, however, this really wasn't the case, largely mitigating many of the ShareSpace's USB host port advantages. More on the ShareSpace's speed issues all around under "Performance and Benchmarks."

You can also use the front-side port to connect an external hard drive and, by pressing and holding the download button for more than three seconds, back up all files on the NAS onto the connected external hard drive. Unfortunately, transfer speeds are no faster in this direction, meaning that while one-touch backup is a really great idea, in practice it's just not as good as it should be.

As noted above, the ShareSpace can also serve as an iTunes server, allowing music from one computer to be streamed to every computer with iTunes on your network. Again, it's a nice touch that shows off one of the many benefits of NAS technology over direct-connect drive hosting.

The ShareSpace also comes bundled with a license of MioNet's remote file sharing software, which allows direct access to files on your ShareSpace from any computer with an internet connection. Although we didn't spend a lot of time playing with the MioNet software, the setup process is simple enough, and in one test attempt I had no trouble getting at my files from the coffee shop around the corner. The ShareSpace can also function as an FTP server - providing password-protected access to files for clients, for instance. For a business or a part-time freelancer, this array of personal and public remote access options is one of the ShareSpace's primary benefits.

Performance and Benchmarks

The ShareSpace supports the high-speed gigabit ethernet interface, with theoretical file transfer speeds of up to 125 MB/s. In practice, the ShareSpace claims to not only provide shared storage across a network, but to do it at speeds as fast or faster than Firewire or USB 2.0 direct-connected hard drives (assuming you have a GigE router, that is).

Speed bottlenecks with the device's direct-connect USB port were our first clue that all might not be as well as it seemed with the ShareSpace, however. Tested transfer speeds were significantly under what we had hoped for on an external storage device with nearly 4 TB of usable space. No matter if you were transferring data over a gigabit network connection or copying files off a drive through the front USB port, observed speed left much to be desired. In order to mimic a best-case gigabit connection scenario, we measured the time it would take to transfer 4.48 GB of photos from my laptop connected directly to the ShareSpace via ethernet. With the RAID 5 disk configuration, the system took 9 minutes and 25 seconds to compete, at a transfer speed of 8.2 MB/s average. In RAID 0 mode, it took 8 minutes and 54 seconds, or 9.3 MB/s on average. In either case, it's a far cry from 30-plus MB/s average speeds expected from a gigabit interface.

Assuming the slow-down to be somewhere in the ethernet interface, we expected much better speed for direct file transfers using the front-mounted USB port and the auto-backup feature. In reality, things were even slower here, working out to around half the file-transfer speed that we saw going over the network. In RAID 5, the ShareSpace needed 37 minutes to transfer 9.54 GB of data - a rate of 4.4 MB/s. This test was performed using a Western Digital My Passport Elite external USB drive, which normally peaks out at around 28 MB/s when transfering files to a computer. Running the test with the ShareSpace configured in RAID 0 mode, we copied 9.64 GB of data in 33 minutes, at an average speed of 4.98 MB/s.

For a storage system that has 2.7 TB of available space in RAID 5 mode or a full 4 TB in RAID 0, to fill up that space at the transfer speeds we observed would take literally forever. At 4.4 MB/s over USB in RAID 5 you would need more than 7 days to complete a 2.7 TB. In RAID 0 with slightly more space it would take almost 10 days at 4.98 MB/s.

Obviously, it's unlikely that you'll be filling up the ShareSpace all at once, and hopefully the device's speed issues can be ironed out with a firmware update. Still, with over-the-network speeds consistently under 10 MB/s in a best-case scenario, we found the ShareSpace less than ideal for working directly with images, and almost impossibly slow for video: unless you're doing some simple adjustments, be prepared for long save times when accessing files directly across the network.

Similarly, the speed and connectivity issues associated with the device's front-side USB port make it difficult to envision how a user might easily integrate this port into his or her daily work. With all of the caveats involved, we're betting most users will prefer to keep transferring files to their local hard disks. Better the devil you know, as they say.

Heat and Noise

We were also pleasantly surprised by just how quiet the ShareSpace is in operation. Even hitting the drives for video file work, the device was barely audible over other typical home office white noise - making it impossible to get an accurate reading. With a desktop computer running simultaneously in the same room, we're willing to bet that you'll never even notice the ShareSpace is there.

Likewise, a desktop-grade cooling fan on the back side of the ShareSpace keeps temperatures low. While you'll want to make sure to give the device a little vent space just to be on the safe side, after nearly an hour of hitting the drive the device was barely even warm to the touch. Our readings never topped out much beyond a very manageable 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike some NAS enclosures, you won't be heating a small room with this one under normal operating loads.

Conclusion

In most every area except pure speed, the WD ShareSpace is an excellent storage solution. What may be the most straightforward discovery and configuration process on the planet for an NAS makes this device an excellent choice if the thought of configuring networks puts you in a cold sweat. And while, at a full $1,000 out the door for the 4 TB model, the ShareSpace isn't cheap, the price to capacity ratio here is pretty good: you'd be hard pressed to source the drives from this enclosure for much less than its retail price, and given how much value the housing's RAID controller, ethernet connection, and USB ports add, you're looking a pretty decent bang for your buck all around.

The ShareSpace's Achilles' Heel is unquestionably speed. To say we were expecting more from a GigE interface is an understatement, though this isn't the first NAS to underwhelm us in terms of speed. Indeed, the ShareSpace really doesn't really take advantage of gigabit speed at all, and the painfully slow front-side USB transfers mitigate the usefulness of one of this enclosure's coolest features for ease of use. Obviously, you're not going to be using your NAS for rapid access of huge files, but even so you may find that the ShareSpace simply doesn't make sense for direct file access. As a backup tool or a way to share limited numbers of files, though, it doesn't get much simpler than the ShareSpace.

Pros:

• Heat and noise well controlled
• Easiest setup of any NAS we've used
• Huge storage space
• Loads of connectivity options

Cons:

• Slow, slow, and slow
• Front-side USB could use a redesign

 

Interesting.

Any idea how much power this uses both when under load or on idle? NAS devices tend to be left running 24/7.

Now, where would I save the contents of this device if I wanted to reconfigure the RAID array? Sensibly it's a case of buying two and storing them in different locations.

John

 

Is the terrible speed due to the HDDs, or the thing itself (+ firmware)?

 

The worst desktop HDD nowadays can transfer data at least 5 times faster.
It must be the controller or a non well done firmware.

 

It's pulling ca. 10 watts at idle, spiking to upwards of 30 when you're hitting the disks.

As for the speed issue, it's certainly controller/firmware related. Unfortunately, this really isn't unusually bad for the NAS enclosures I've used. Doesn't make it less disappointing, given the potential of GigE, however.

dr

 

That's a powerful feature I'd be interested in. I tend to find myself on multiple computers and travel a bit with laptop in tow so not having to worry so much about which machine I take with me knowing I can access my files from one place would be great.

With the price tag of $1,000 a service such as Mozy.com would probably serve better for my needs of having a central place to store files. I don't have 4TB worth of stuff to store. Obviously if you're a media fiend with several GB of files and want to do things such as stream music to multiple computers this is your huckleberry.

 

Most stand-alone NAS enclosures tend to be on the slow side compared to a full desktop with a SATA drive connected to a network.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4491

If you want NAS you have to decide if you want speed and setup a dedicated server/computer on your network or if you want low operating costs and a small form factor of a stand-alone enclosure at the expense of speed.

 

And wow, I just realized the price tag. Are you kidding me?

A 1TB desktop drive is what, ~$100?

Paying ~$500 more for the USB and ethernet port sounds straight like a ripoff to me.

I'm pretty sure a router with a USB port through which you plug in an external harddrive would serve just as well, if not better, at a small fraction of the price.

 

Well, closer to $125-$140 each for the drives in question. Again, a stand-alone NAS enclosure is different than just a regular external hard drive enclosure. A stand-alone NAS enclosure has to be able to be connected directly to a wired or wireless network connection and allow access to the drive(s) over the network. Unless you have a router that supports USB storage connection you cannot just connect your external hard drive to your router and have an instant NAS.

You're paying for the convenience of not needing a separate computer running the drive(s) that you want to connect to your network.

Of course, as more network routers come to the market that support USB storage connectivity the premium for stand-alone NAS enclosures won't make as much sense.

I highly suspect that the vast majority of consumers are better off with a standard external hard drive enclosure (USB, Firewire, or eSATA) and/or an online storage service.

However, if you care about the security of your files and want to manage your own network attached storage so that you can share huge files over your office/home network or over the internet then a device like this still makes sense.

 

Jerry's hit on the key issue here. For most users, an NAS doesn't make sense. If you don't need to routinely share files between several computers, the premium you pay for this sort of thing is a frivolous expense. You can easily get this much storage space in a traditional direct-connect arrangement for half what the ShareSpace costs.

But...

If you're working on a home or small office network with several machines attached (as most designers/photographers are, with dedicated machines for video work, image editing, plus notebooks for doing initial work on the road and for taking files out, etc.), centralizing your sharing space makes a little more sense. From where I sit, the luxuries you pay for here have to do with the data protection afforded by RAID 5 and the easy of mounting the drive across the network compared to cobbled-together shared drive systems.

I won't argue that the device is expensive - probably too expensive for most non-specialty users. But for certain markets and types of users, this sort of thing really does make more sense than a direct-connect HD (at least until serving a drive from a wireless router becomes the standard rather than the exception...).

dr

 

Having had two of the four WD hard drives that I own fail within the space of a few months, I can't say that the RAID 5 is much reassurance to me, especially with four drives crammed in a limited amount of space, cooled only by a low speed fan.

 

Ouch, not a good track record there. That said, the ShareSpace seems to be surprisingly efficient in its cooling for whatever reason. Even hitting the drives hard, we couldn't get external temps much above "hand temperature," and even the internal temps as measured were very reasonable.

Even the coolest drives can still fail, though...

dr

 

Anyone know what this thing offers in terms of remote access?

FTP was mentioned in the article (great article, btw!) so I suppose it supports SFTP. What about ssh/scp? And is it possible to use it as a server for things such as a cvs or subversion repository? I suppose that wouldn't be standard. But I guess it's a fair question, since you can do that on NSLU2 and such...

 

i was just wondering whether this product is overally better than similarly priced... small cube mATX/mITX 'board based (atom or some cheap power efficient cpu and platform as with athlon64 2k on puma...) pc. i'm checking the offers on many of the products and checking lots of reviews and here's what it seems... a whole pc running one of those energy efficient platform can go on less than 60W (that's smaller than a normal light bulb ). an old friend of mine has used one small "server" like mobo with that athlon setup that runs on the small side of 35W when under load, but he's been using 1 hdd that's 750GB... should one use more hdds, the price and power to performance should reach almost the same levels as of the sharespace, or maybe i'm not that right here? basically my point is that i've seen those tiny pcs run very well with only one big problem when compared to this wd product - while the wd one is almost as much a plug'n'play type of a product the small factor pc requires some more setup steps (including obtaining some small linux distro prepared to control such a product)... so is this tool really that good? for the same price and even almost lesser you might get yourself a tiny pc with at least one or 2 hdds, plus you can get lots of other features as well, and the whole thing should be faster than the sharespace (you pointed out the fact of its lack of speed ) and if properly configured not more power hungry and still probably better suited for various needs.

or maybe i'm just wrong here?

 

You might be able to get power consumption on a PC setup approaching the level of this thing, but we were topping out at around 35W hitting the drives (which may well be an indication of just how much the ShareSpace's processor isn't doing in terms of working hard).

I would think that a PC-based system would be much more efficient in terms of server speed, and more readily able to take advantage of a GigE connection than this thing - which is clearly crippled a bit on the front end. But as you point out, there's the issue of network complexity to deal with in that case: as someone who's far from a networking expert, and who uses an NAS primarily for backup, I'd be willing to make the performance trade-offs for just how easy this thing is to set up. On my home network, it really did take less than five minutes to have it up and running.

Of course, there's the cost issue as well: if you had some parts lying around to donate to the cause, you could potentially be running with a similar setup for about half what the WD would run you.

Just some thoughts to bounce around...

dr

 

I'll admit that I'm largely out of my depth here for anything other than network-side usage. It does indeed support SFTP, and I know the previous version could be hacked to support SSH. Not sure about this one though.

dr