Costing just $613 for 500GB of storage, Western Digital’s NetCenter is a bargain if you simply want a network hard disk for storing and backing up files.

There’s a print server integrated too, so you can share a USB printer and anyone on the network can print to it, regardless of whether other computers are powered on or not. As there are two USB ports at the rear, you can also connect a USB hard disk or flash drive. If you connect a hard disk, you can easily back up the contents of the NetCenter onto it, or you can back up over the network to a second NetCenter. The only niggle is that disks must be “claimed” by the NetCenter and formatted before they can be used.

In the box is Retrospect Express 7.5, which lets you schedule backups from your PC onto the NetCenter. It also allows full system restores, point-in-time restores and individual file restoration.

But, beyond backup and printer sharing, the NetCenter lacks features. The disk will spin down when idle, but there’s no way to set up user or group accounts and no FTP, web or media servers. It’s good to see a front-mounted power button, but there’s only one power/status LED and no front USB port.

There’s only a 10/100 Ethernet socket at the rear too, which limits transfer speeds. Writing large files to the NetCenter, we measured 5.6MB/s, rising to only 7MB/s when reading. Small files took their toll, too, at around 4MB/s.

Fortunately, the NetCenter is one of the easiest to use. The EasyLink utility quickly finds any drives on the network (although it works best when hooked up to a router with the DHCP server enabled). The management interface consists of a set of wizards for adding shared printers, folders, passwords and setting up USB disks, but this can prove limiting for power users.

Another highlight is the absence of a fan. When idle, the NetCenter is virtually silent and seeks can only be heard from the side, not the front. It makes the Western Digital ideal for home use where noise levels are more noticeable. However, with the Maxtor costing even less and offering more features, we can’t recommend it.