Introduction
All of us are hoarders – data hoarders that is. Every day we accumulate more and more files; some are useful and some are pure junk. Photos, videos, music, documents pile up on our PCs until we have nowhere else to put them. While some of us are moving files to external USB drives, many of us have found out the hard way (myself included) that these USB external drives aren’t infallible, and eventually turn around and die on you.

This is where Western Digital’s MyBook Live Duo comes in. The device may not look like much at first glance, but under that relatively simply exterior lies quite a robust little file server. The model I reviewed was the 4TB one, but there’s also a 6TB one available if you’re looking for even more space for all your digital essentials.

Build quality and features
So what is it that makes the Live Duo better than just an ordinary external drive? Well for one thing, at 4 and 6 terabytes of space, you’re not going to be running short any time soon, thanks to the two drives hidden away in the device. Secondly, the drive also features RAID0 or RAID1 support – in RAID0 mode you’ll have access to storage on both drives, so when one drive is full, your data will be diverted to the second drive. In RAID1 mode, you’ll only have half the storage capacity (2TB in this case), but anything you copy onto the device is mirrored on both drives. So in the event of one of the drives failing, you simply slot it out and add in a new one without losing a single byte of data.

The MyBook Live Duo looks like most of Western Digital’s storage devices, except this one is slightly thicker to accommodate both drives inside. The top grill can be pushed down gently to reveal the two drives inside, clearly labeled as Drive A and B to make it easier to replace a failed drive. Swapping out a drive is as simple as lifting the plastic tab firmly and tugging upwards to slide the drive out. The front of the Live Duo has the Western Digital logo and a very tiny status indicator light which glows green when the drive is online. At the back you have a small selection of ports such as power, gigabit Ethernet, a reset button, and a USB port which allows you to plug in an external drive to add a bit more storage to your device.

Installation and Software
Getting the Live Duo up and running was very simple – I just plugged the power in and connected it to my router, and then ran the supplied CD. The setup software detected my drive in a few seconds and automatically mapped a network drive to it in My Computer. It also gave me the option to install some of the available software, such as Western Digital’s own backup software and some other utilities, but I chose to skip this part.

Once the drive has booted up, you can access files by just double-clicking the network shortcut, or browsing your network shares. You also have the option to access the drive’s setup pages via a web browser, which allows you to rename the drive, setup users and shares, and also configure media streaming and remote access services. As somewhat of a Power User, I was able to navigate through the various pages with ease, but I think novice users will need to spend a bit of time going through each of the pages to understand what exactly everything does.

The Live Duo also includes a host of remote access options to securely access your content without making any adjustments to your firewall or ports. On iOs there is the W2Go Free and Premium apps to setup and access your Live Duo – the only difference between the apps is that the Premium app allows you to download files directly onto your device. You can also configure mobile access as well as direct file access through a web browser, so no matter what you’re using there’s at least one way for you to get your files from your drive as long as you have an Internet connection. The iOS apps means that you can technically add gigabytes of space to your device, accessing everything through your own personal cloud.

Performance
With the drive up and running, I decided to run some simple tests to see what my transfer speeds would be. In RAID0 mode, I was able to transfer a single 1.67GB file at about 52MB/s and with RAID1 mode the same file clocked roughly 43.2MB/s – this was with my test PC connected via LAN and not wirelessly. While the transfer speeds aren’t as fast as some larger network storage solutions, it’s nothing to be disappointed at; given the size and cost of the Live Duo, it performed respectfully well with reading and writing whatever I threw at it. Swapping between RAID0 and RAID1 mode was very simple, however the drive did warn me to take a backup of everything first before swapping over. The switch actually took about 4 minutes to accomplish, but after that the drive had to ‘reinitialize’, which took roughly 4 hours to finish.

You also have the option to stream content to both iTunes and DLNA devices, and this again was easy to accomplish. Streaming music and video to my PS3 was flawless, and I was listening to music on my laptop upstairs via iTunes without a hitch. You can of course turn these features off, but it’s handy that the Live Duo has streaming capabilities built in from the start.

There are only two things that I found a bit puzzling about the Live Duo. For one, the USB port on the back isn’t USB 3.0, so transferring large files around does get a bit time-consuming. It would have also been great if the same USB port could have been used to share a printer as well, which I think would be perfect for a small business that might want to use the Live Duo in their environment. The other strange thing is that the Live Duo doesn’t have a power button at all – if you need to shut down the drive, you need to log into it via a web browser and click a button there to power it off. While not necessarily a deal breaker, I found it a bit odd considering the other two Western Digital drives I currently have at home are equipped with power buttons. Still, like I said it’s not a catastrophic loss, but could be something that Western Digital addresses in future models.

Conclusion
The Western Digital Live duo is a capable little network storage device with plenty of room for all your data. I would highly recommend running it in RAID1 mode – even if you have to sacrifice half your storage space, you can sleep soundly knowing that you’ve always got a backup of everything you’re storing. For a no-fuss network storage solution with whisper-quite operation that won’t break the bank, the Live Duo is the easiest choice to make.

Yes you read that correctly, I just described a router as sexy. An inanimate object has officially given me the chills. When the Asus RT-N56U router arrived in our offices, I honestly thought it was maybe a fancy DVD case or some sort of press kit. There was no way that something that sleek could be anything but something pretty to look at, never mind a fully functional router. Well after using the device for the past week, I have to honestly say – I’m in love.

Build quality & Design
The Asus RT-N56U sports a beautiful black diamond design, with crossing lines and grooves in the front that completely skews what the device is designed for. This is one router that you won’t want to hide away, it looks that good. While it’s not wall-mountable, there is a small footstand that you can slide in at the base to hold the device upright, or simply lay the router on its side. The router is very lightweight yet sturdy, and its sharp profile is attributed to its mostly glossy plastic finishing. At the back are four Gigabit Ethernet ports and one Ethernet WAN port. There is also a tiny reset button and surprisingly two USB ports which allow you to share a printer or external hard disk. On the other side is a WPS button to connect supporting devices to the router, and hidden beneath the designs on the front is a column of blue LEDs that display various thing such as network status, internet connectivity, etc. Unlike other routers I’ve tested, the LEDs aren’t ridiculously bright, so this router won’t keep you awake at night if it’s setup in your bedroom.

Features & Setup
The biggest feature that the RT-N56U touts is that it is dual-band, which means it’s able to run a 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless network simultaneously. For the average user this might mean absolutely nothing, but for anyone who appreciates the value of a router that can broadcast to all areas of your home, this router certainly won’t disappoint. The router also has a feature called Ai Radar, which allows the router to focus its signal in the direction of connected clients to boost speed and connectivity.

Setting up the router was very easy – once powered up you can navigate to the slick web interface to set up the wireless networks and LAN configurations, as well as configuring any devices that are connected via USB. The inclusion of USB ports instantly wins some brownie points with me, as you can attach a USB drive to the router and utilize the inbuilt BitTorrent, FTP, and HTTP functions to save and access data. The router also performs very well at streaming media content from attached drives to various compatible devices, so there’s a whole host of things you can do with this router. My only observation is that though the web interface was very intuitive, it took a bit longer than expected to apply changes to the router, but maybe that’s my rather lofty standards getting the better of me.

Connectivity
Once setup, it was down to some serious testing. I’d like to think that my villa is a great testing ground for routers, as there are quite a number of dead spots around the house, so I have my main router downstairs and two repeaters upstairs. Setting up the RT-N56U on the ground floor and surfing on the 2.4GHz network I experienced more than adequate speeds when transferring files across the network or streaming media to my laptop. My experience did suffer a bit when I headed out into the garden, which is something that my current router also does. Upstairs the performance was slightly better with some dead spots having at least one bar of wi-fi connectivity. So as a 2.4GHz router, the RT-N56U gets the job done but doesn’t feel much different from any other standard router.

Hopping on to the 5GHz network however, and things took a different turn. My entire garden became a three or four bar area, and visions of a LAN party in my backyard floated in front of me. Standing a few feet away from the router I had really great transfer speeds, and upstairs I had no issues at all with connectivity except for one area near the guest bedroom where I think the signal was being cut off by the fuse box just outside. But walking around to all the rooms I was able to stay connected and continue browsing or watching content without any hiccups. At its worst performance with one bar of connectivity, transfer speeds on the 5GHz network were a little under 1MB/sec, but I was still thankful that I was able to remain connected to the router wherever I went. Heading downstairs things picked right back up and it was great to be able to sit in the garden and work uninterrupted (until I was assaulted by a dragonfly).

While the RT-N56U only supports cable Internet connections, you can connect it to an ADSL modem’s LAN port to boost your connectivity, or configure it as a repeater if you face issues with your wi-fi not reaching everywhere. It might sound a bit overwhelming as there’s just so much you can do and configure with this router, but trust me it never gets confusing. The web interface is so well designed that any novice can set this router up within minutes, and advanced users will certainly appreciate the many tweaks and tricks they can pull off with this device such as URL filtering, firewall options, and many more. If you’re in the market for a new router, then this would be one of the easiest purchases to make.

I’d like to think that my house is a bit of a tech utopia. From high-def projectors to LCD TVs, to every gaming console on the planet, there’s nothing that I haven’t at some point picked up to add to my growing collection. I’ve now discovered that many of the gadgets in my house now piggyback onto my dinky little wireless router on the ground floor, syncing data, downloading updates, streaming media, and causing all kinds of mayhem at times. So as if by magic, I got a chance to check out the Belkin Play N450 DB router this week to see if I could improve my wireless network.

Build quality & Design
At first glance the N450 doesn’t look like much – in fact it looks like two small dinner plates sandwiched together. But it’s somewhat svelte design means that it can fit snugly in most locations and remain hidden from view with the cables neatly cascading at the back. The only flip side is that the router has absolutely zero status lights on it – there’s a thin slit at the top which glows blue when the router is connected, and flashes orange when there’s a problem. Just below that is a button for WPS connectivity, and that’s it. The minimalist look may work here, but I’m used to seeing at least LAN or Internet status indicators on routers, so call me old-fashioned for wanting more lights on this thing. At the back of the device four Ethernet ports, sadly running at standard speeds rather than Gigabit Ethernet. There’s a yellow port to connect to your modem, as well as a small reset button and the power port.

Features & Coverage
The N450 prides itself on an ‘easy setup’, and I’ve often taken claims like that very lightly. But I was pleased to discover that this router actually did what it said on the box, and connected to my Etisalat connection without much trouble. I just connected the required cables, popped in the software CD and I was up and running in about 15 minutes tops. The router status light glowed bright blue to indicate it was ready to go, so I lined up my gadgets for some testing fun.

There are some rather interesting features with the N450, the first of them being the dual-band nature of this router. You have the option of connecting to the standard 2.4Ghz or the 5GHz network, with the 5GHz boasting speeds up to 300Mbps and being optimized for video streaming across the network. I decided to put this theory to the test, and fired up a 720p rip of ’28 days later’ on my Ubuntu laptop. With my old router this was almost impossible to do without plugging my laptop into a LAN port. On the 2.4GHz network of the N450, I faced similar issues with the file loading fine but stuttering every few seconds. Switching to the 5GHz network allowed me to open the file and stream it without any interruptions at all. I have to point out that this was done with the router a few meters away from me, so when I headed upstairs the movie did still stutter, but only every twenty minutes or so, which was far better than the 2.4GHz band. Since I had placed the router in a central location on the ground floor, I had excellent coverage in all the upstairs rooms, including my bedroom which is a dead spot for my previous router. Surfing the web, streaming video and music all worked great on the 5GHz network, and I was even able to take my iPad out to the very edge of the garden and still get Internet access.

Another feature of the N450 is Belkin’s ‘Multibeam’ technology which is supposed to improve antenna reception greatly as compared to traditional routers. This technology gives the N450 an ‘apple-shaped’ range of coverage while other routers tend to have ring-shaped coverage. This of course means little to the average consumer – as long as they can walk around the house and stream YouTube videos of cats, they’ll be fine. But seriously, this might be behind the somewhat zippy feeling when surfing websites using this router – everything loaded just a fraction faster (or felt like it did) and I was able to scroll through pages comfortably while the rest of the content loaded up. While the router averaged decent speeds with different proximities, it was a bit disappointing to not have USB ports included on this model. If you could share a printer or hard drive using this router, that would instantly bring up its appeal but that’s a luxury relegated to the other Belkin routers.

The Belkin Play N450 DB is a shoo-in choice if you’re looking for a brand new router with better than average coverage. If you’ve currently got a working wireless router that you’re happy with, there’s no real need to swap to the N450 unless you really do care about streaming content over the 5GHz network while the rest of your household enjoys uninterrupted network coverage on the 2.4GHz one. For a sleek, fuss-free, easy to deploy router, the N450 is a great fit to any setup.

If you consider yourself to be a hardcore WoW fan, and also like showing off your techy side, then this auction will be right up your alley. After upgrading their servers recently, Blizzard has decided to sell off their old blade servers used to host World of Warcraft realms.

“Following a recent upgrade of our World of Warcraft server hardware to improve your gameplay experience, we have decided to auction off the retired HP p-Class server blades and donate the proceeds to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,” Blizzard announced.

Each of these server blades is sold as-is, in non working conditions, although they probably do work. However, what makes the auction great, apart from 100% of proceeds being donated to a children’s hospital, is that each blade has a clear plaque with the WoW logos inscribed on it. And apart from the realm name which the server was used for hosting, the below message is also there:

“Blizzard Entertainment has carefully preserved and archived our retired server blades, releasing only a limited number for a noble cause. To us, this server blade is more than just hardware: within the circuits and hard drive, a world of magic, adventure, and friendship thrived. From fishing in quiet lakes to defeating Arthas in Icecrown Citadel, this blade was home to thousands of immersive experiences across the world of Azeroth and beyond. We thank you for the safekeeping of this important part of history.”

And the development team signatures follow below.

Right now most of the 2000 servers that are being auctioned on eBay are up for around $100, with some famous servers like ‘Nagrand’ touching sub-$200. Shipping is apparently provided worldwide, so UAE residents shouldn’t have any problems getting this technically historical piece of gaming memorabilia into their homes.

Size does matter, especially in the world of gadgets. Bigger screens, smaller phones, larger capacity drives – it seems everything around me is either expanding or shrinking. So I was rather nonchalant when I received the Belkin Surf N150 USB Wireless Micro Adapter for review. The device is a little bigger than my thumbnail, so I was interested to see if this little gem could live up to the task of being my wireless interface for the day.

Installation is very simple and is just a matter of popping in the supplied CD and then plugging the Belkin adapter in. I disabled my laptop’s Wi-Fi and instantly the Belkin Wireless Adapter kicked in with a flashing blue light, and Windows prompted me to connect to my home network. The device is compatible with most forms of wireless security such as WPS, WPA and WEP. Once I was connected, performance was quite good with streaming videos off my network drive, and I found that I was able to continue surfing upstairs in the guest bedroom where I previously wasn’t able to pick up a Wi-Fi signal. But strangely enough when I walked out into the garden, the signal suddenly dropped to just one bar, even though my router was just a few feet away behind a wall. I never had any issues with using my onboard Wi-Fi outside, so this was a bit peculiar.

The true beauty of the N150 Wireless Adapter is surely its size. Measuring just 18mm x 15mm, you can plug it into your laptop or desktop and completely forget about it. It’s almost flush with the side of my laptop, so it doesn’t cause any problems at all when I slide my laptop back into its carrier case. If you do decide to take it out, I suggest putting it someplace safe as it nearly disappeared into the depths of my bag!

Speeds using the Belkin N150 were overall satisfactory. It took me 14 minutes to transfer a 1.67GB file from my laptop to my network drive and just over 12 minutes to copy the same file with my onboard Wi-Fi. Apart from the issues with wireless coverage outside, I was able to stream comfortably from my media centre as well as YouTube without any interruptions. The only downside is that this is a Windows-only device (Ubuntu was able to detect it as a Belkin wireless adapter) and will not work on a Mac.

If you’re looking for a quick wireless replacement for your Windows based laptop or want to add some Wi-Fi to your desktop PC, then this little gem is for you. Its easy installation and ridiculously small footprint will charm most users, though be wary of the device’s drop in performance if you wander into the great outdoors.

Streaming boxes should be the norm in every modern household nowadays. There is just too much media online not to have one hub hooked directly to your TV. While there are many options available locally, Western Digital’s media boxes have always had a major presence in the market. Today I’ll be looking at the latest WD TV Live.

In the past we’ve had some forms of WD TV media boxes, most notably the WD TV Live Hub which comes with a 1TB hard drive built-in. The first thing you’ll notice about the WD TV Live differing from WD TV Live Hub, apart from the price difference, is the incredibly small footprint. Whereas WD TV Live Hub has a very low profile and sleek design, the new WD TV Live is very boxy. Even so, the matt black finish makes it very easy to blend with your existing setup.

Measuring just 125x100x30mm, the WD TV Live weighs a mere 200 grams. The front has a simple transparent plastic plate which just shows the white activity LED (which can be turned off) and a USB port. On the rear you have the power plug, Optical out, LAN input, HDMI out and another USB port, finished off with an old school AV out port.

Pretty much the entirety of the bottom panel has holes in it, with the bottom of the circuitry having a large metal plate. And unlike the WD TV Live Hub, there’s no fan in the WD TV Live, so the entire thing is passively cooled. You’ll only be thankful for this when the WD TV Live is in standby mode, because the WD TV Live Hub would have its fan running almost all the time.

Included in the box is the power cable, manual, the remote control plus batteries. The remote control itself is identical to the WD TV Live Hub, which means it has the same irritatingly long rubber buttons. The layout, however, is nice and simple to use.