I read an article this evening that referred to an interesting little piece that I somehow overlooked over the holidays.

In short Western Digital supplies software with some of their new MyBook external hard drives that allow remote access to files on the hard drive.  The bad part?  You cannot access your media files.  Citing concerns regarding copy protected materials, they decided to handcuff most movie and music extension not allowing it's owners to legitimately access their media files while they are not near their maincomputer, be it from an external media player, laptop, gaming device etc.

Now ask yourself, "Why would I purchase a tera-bite hard drive to use for anything other than media files?"  Well, most people would not.  I can honestly say that I am certain that very small businesses would find it helpful to have one convenient central storage drive, and media files certainly could put a damper on employee productivity, but come on, the average WD external hard drive buyer is Joe Consumer.  Joe Consumer enjoys music and movies, and will purchase an external hard drive to either back up, or store media they do not want bogging down their primary hard drives.

As an early adopting consumer, I have amassed quite the collection of music and movies on my hard drive.  I like being able to access it from my home audio receiver, Tivo, XBox, Wii, laptop, and from secured remote computers.  I do not want to have to attach a separate storage device for each, of which I have to update them individually when I add new music.  It is a pain in the ass.  Now I have an older Western Digital hard drive.  It was my first external hard drive and runs quietly and has served as a reliable means of backup.  They do make good products, but this software addition is unreal and the move has soured any future WD drives for me.

My advice, if you do not own a portable external hard drive buy one.  They are life savers.  If you buy a WD external drive (which there are better alternatives anyway), DO NOT install the software.  There are far more efficient and effective ways to access your computer remotely.