Hard drive maker Western Digital to now sell network routers

Western Digital (WD) has decided to start making network routers. Western Digital, a company well-known for making hard drives and off late, also a reputed brand for HD media players with their WD TV line of products have now decided to get into the networking market by launching six network devices under the brand name ‘My Net’. There are three routers, a switch and two network-based storage devices being launched. There’s no news of whether the products are going to hit India, but the products are available in U.S stores, online and offline, starting today.

Entering a new market

Western Digital’s decision to get into this field isn’t just a random move. According to a report by Nielsen and NM Incite for the last quarter of 2011, it’s learnt that some 33 percent of users stream media using online media services, such as Netflix and Hulu. Of course, this doesn’t stand true for India, but YouTube is a very popular service, here in India. The report talks about increasing interest in video services, online gaming, video chat services being used on tablets, smartphones in addition to traditional PCs and notebooks. Western Digital hopes to cater to this demand and that’s primarily the reason for this recent move. 

Here’s a brief of the products being launched:

My Net N900 Central 

The My Net N900 Central HD dual-band storage router has integrated storage for wireless backup and remote access. The My Net N900 Central is designed to deliver delivers HD content smoothly over the network. The wireless-N storage router features speeds up to 900 Mbps (450 + 450 Mbps on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands combined), as well as integrated 1 TB or 2 TB internal storage for automatic wireless backup. The My Net N900 Central has 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. My Net N900 Central is Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) capable.

My Net N900

The My Net N900 HD dual-band wireless-N router features speeds up to 900 Mbps (450 + 450 Mbps on the 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands combined) and also includes 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. 

My Net N750

The My Net N750 HD dual-band router provides a combined data rate of up to 750 Mbps (300 + 450 Mbps) and features 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 2 USB ports.

My Net N600

The My Net N600 HD dual-band router offers a combined data rate of up to 600 Mbps (300 + 300 Mbps) and features 5 Ethernet ports with 1 USB port.   

My Net Switch

My Net Switch is an 8-Port Gigabit home entertainment switch with Gigabit Ethernet up to 10/100/1000 Mbps.