WD My Net AC1300 router and My Net AC Bridge

Western Digital launched its first routers about a year ago, and now it's entered into the 802.11ac market with the My Net AC1300. It has also launched the My Net AC Bridge, which will be needed to get the best performance as few devices have 11ac capability yet.

It's by far the fastest 11ac router I've tested to date, achieving 170Mbps throughput at close range and 70Mbps at 25m. 11n performance was a bit patchy, though. It's not too expensive, however, at £135 for the router and £69 for the bridge. You can read my full news article over on ZDNet UK.

The WD AC1300 has a nice graphic menu system

At close range, performance is impressive

Even at 25m, throughput still topped 70Mbps

Design is compact but plain

The matching AC bridge has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports

Synology DSM 4.3 Beta launch event

If you like NAS and football, you might be interested in going to Synology's launch event for the next version of its DSM software. It willl be held at Manchester United's Old Trafford football ground on 27th June 2013. It's open to all, including end users, and it just requires registration at http://www.synology.com/events/2013_dsm4.3_beta_uk.php?lang=uk

Guests will get a goodie bag, and there will also be a chance to win a DiskStation.

Netgear's new ReadyNAS range uses BTRFS filesystem

Netgear has announced a major revamp of its ReadNAS range. The new models feature a brand new operating system, ReadyNAS OS 6, that uses the BTRFS filesystem, the first NAS OS to do so. BTRFS is an unusual filesystem with copy-on-write capabilities - this makes it easy to create data snapshots and recover any file, even if it's been deleted. You can read more about the new range in my article for ZDNet UK's First Take blog. Prices have not yet been announced.

Table of specifications for the new ReadyNAS rang (source: Netgear)

New Fritz!OS firmware launched for Fritz!Box

I noticed a few weeks ago that a new version of Fritz!OS5 had appeared on the German AVM site, and have been eagerly awaiting the International version. It appeared today (version 84.05.51), so I installed it on my Fritz!Box 7390 to give it a spin. I haven't had time to check out exactly what's new, but the look and feel is unchanged, with a few minor tweaks - such as links to Fritz!Box, Fritz!NAS and MyFritz at the top right of the interface.

One thing that has gone is the dreaded 'Green' LAN port power management feature that drove many users to distraction. There seem to be quite a lot of new features, and it's going to take me a while to sort through them. I have noticed that the FritzFON now has a built-in network media player, so you can stream music from any DLNA media server. Not world-shattering, but certainly novel.

There's also a new Smart Home section, apparently for the upcoming FritzDECT 200 home controller, which sounds quite interesting. You can also now assign user accounts for web access to the Fritz!NAS, and Google Contacts (and some other online services) can be imported to a new address book, which is very neat and works well. There's also a new FritzAPP, and (finally) a single sign-on for the MyFritz remote management service.

It looks like a very worthwhile release, and you can get it by going to the Firmware Update section of the System menu and clicking Find New Firmware. I hope to go into more detail later as I explore the new features.

The overview screen is largely unchanged

You can now import Google Contacts into an address book