WD Enters Wireless Home Networking Market With My Net

By Kevin Parrish
published

Western Digital is now officially in the networking business with the launch of four routers and a switch.

Western Digital unveiled on Thursday its very first line of wireless home networking products, the My Net family, designed specifically to accelerate movies, video and gaming.

According to WD, the My Net family of products feature the company's new exclusive FasTrack technology. This new tech instantly detects entertainment traffic on the network and fast-forwards it to gaming consoles, media players, smart TVs, tablets, smartphones, computers and other Wi-Fi connected devices.

"Our successes in creating Connected Home solutions with our WD TV media players and personal cloud products have given us valuable insights into the network-overload problems of  home wireless users, and entering the wireless home networking market offers WD an exciting opportunity to strengthen our Connected Home offerings that are aimed at enhancing the home entertainment experience for consumers," stated Jim Welsh, executive vice president for WD's branded products and consumer electronics groups.

The My Net family makes its debut with four routers and a switch: the My Net N900 Central ($349.99 for 2 TB, $299.99 for 1 TB), the My Net N900 ($179.99), the My Net N750 ($119.99), the My Net N600 ($79.99) and the My Net Switch ($69.99). My Net N900, My Net N750, My Net N600 and My Net Switch will be available June 14 at select U.S. retailers and online at wdstore.com. My Net N900 Central will be available next quarter.

The My Net N900 Central is a dual-band wireless-N storage router that provides accelerated HD streaming plus 1 or 2 TB of integrated storage for wireless backup and remote access. The router includes both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands at 450 Mbps each (900 Mbps combined), 4 LAN and 1 WLAN Gigabit Ethernet ports for up to 10/100/1000 Mbps wired speeds, 1 USB port for additional storage, printer and media share server use, and range amplifier antennas for extended range.

The cheaper My Net N900 dual-band wireless-N router doesn't come packed with on-board storage. Instead, it offers additional features including 7 LAN and 1 WLAN Gigabit Ethernet ports for up to 10/100/1000 Mbps wired speeds, 2 USB ports for additional storage, printer and media share server use, and range amplifier antennas for extended range. Both routers are UPnP and DLNA certified.

"The My Net N750 HD dual-band router is optimized to deliver multiple simultaneous HD media streams on the network, delivering accelerated video to all connected wireless and wired devices," WD explained on Thursday. "WD’s exclusive FasTrack technology detects entertainment traffic and prioritizes bandwidth on the network to smoothly stream multiple HD movies, shows, games and more to connected devices. The router provides a combined data rate of up to 750 Mbps (300 + 450 Mbps) and features 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 2 USB ports."

WD's My Net N600 is a dual-band router for simple and fast web surfing and entertainment streaming with FasTrack technology. The router provides a combined data rate of up to 600 Mbps (300 + 300 Mbps) and features 5 Fast Ethernet ports with 1 USB port. As for the My Net Switch, this gadget contains eight Gigabit Ethernet ports for instantly expanding wired connections up to 10/100/1000 Mbps.

All products save for the My Net N900 Central are available for purchase now, and the Central model will be available in 3Q12.

Kevin Parrish
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • techcurious
    These look really good on paper.. But only time will prove the more important points, like reliability and stability of connections.. Too many networking products are awesome on paper but frustraiting to use with frequent reboots needed to keep things running....
    Reply
  • ubercake
    Is this a deal with Netgear? I think Netgear has some routers with the same model names?
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    techcuriousThese look really good on paper.. But only time will prove the more important points, like reliability and stability of connections.. Too many networking products are awesome on paper but frustraiting to use with frequent reboots needed to keep things running....
    no kidding! after so many bad routers in the past I finally got the wrt54gl and played with Tomato and DDWRT. They are perhaps overkill on my uses for security, but at least it works right! 6 years later things have not improved in the wireless arena one bit, and even the linksys stuff sucks now.
    Reply
  • thecolorblue
    If their past products are any hint of the (lack of quality) that we can expect from their network products (i.e. myBook World Edition II with stupidly slow data transfer rates) then this is a non-starter
    Reply
  • Tom's Adware
    Reply
  • goodguy713
    lol try living in an apartment complex where every one has the same AT&T modem/ router and all the channels are occupied this means a lot of wireless signal interference for sure.. pain in my ass!
    Reply
  • internetworksolutions
    Western Digital is best known for its hard drives, but the company is far from a one trick pony.
    Reply
  • bmyton
    I bought a MyNet 750 and was disappointed.

    The USB transfer speed was average (10MB/s) on larger files, but on small files it crashed (200-500kB/s). After the first week I started seeing random loss of internet connection on both the gigabit wired, and the wireless service. I didn't see anything in the log files to help diagnose and decided that I didn't have the energy to fight with it.

    I exchanged for a Cisco EA-4500 and couldn't be happier (better range, faster USB speeds, and stable connection so far).

    Ben
    Reply