Buffalo Technology TeraStation III 8.0 TB (4 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage TS-X8.0TL/R5 Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the first time I've ever taken the time to write a review, but I'm here to buy yet another one of these units, and I felt compelled to respond to a couple of the negative reviews here.
First off, this is the Terastation III, not the Pro as referenced in another review. Additionally, I own a medium sized video and animation facility, with up to 7 artists accessing one of our three Terastation IIIs at all times for video, animation, and rendering, and this unit IS compatible with Apple OS. Configuration is done via a web browser, not a PC. We're cross platform here, and PC vs. Mac has nothing to do with this unit. As for Mac, since it doesn't use drive lettering, you do have to know how to set it up as a server, by IP address, in MAC OS. PC is much easier in terms of mapping the drive, but either way it works fine regardless of platform.
These drives are fast, particularly if you set up port trunking, which is a very high end feature for a NAS in this price range. By using port trunking (which uses 2 network ports to effectively double the network connection speed), we have been able to eliminate several of our NAS units in favor of just a few Terastation IIIs. Multiple users can access the drive simultaneously with no problems.
As for reliability, we did have one DOA unit, which Amazon promptly replaced at no cost (not even shipping). Other than that, we've had absolutely no problems. Having said that, we ALWAYS back up nightly (that's an easy thing to set up in the web browser based config panel), and there's no substitute for that no matter what kind of NAS you buy.
As for Buffalo in general, we have used several different models of Terastations and Linkstations, some of which ran continuously for 4 and 5 years without failing before we removed them from service. In fact, the only Terastation that has failed on us, wasn't even the unit itself; it was one of the drives. 5 years isn't an unusual life span for a hard drive that runs day and night.
So I give this 5 stars, and Buffalo tech support is pretty much the best I've experienced. When you call, the phone is answered by a real person at Buffalo's service center (in Texas, I believe), and they always know pretty much everything about their products without having to read it from a computer screen. Hold times vary, but support is top notch.

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Buffalo's TeraStation III Series is the ideal choice for businesses or demanding users looking to implement a RAID based Network Attached Storage solution. As Buffalo's flagship NAS product the TeraStation III includes all firmware features presently found in the Buffalo lineup of NAS products. Especially, business oriented features, such Active Directory support, DFS support, disk quota support, a share level replication feature and port trunking make the TeraStation III a top choice for small to medium sized businesses. Hardware features like hot swap and dual Ethernet ports add to the list of new features. Reliability and performance are again the key design criteria for the TeraStaion III. A heavy-duty power supply and oversized cooling system, as well as vastly improved CPU speed guarantee excellent and reliable performance. It is the clear choice for those users who desire maximum reliability and robust features.

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Iomega StorCenter 4 TB ix2-200 Network Storage Cloud Edition 35430 Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this just a few weeks ago, but am happy to share very positive first impressions. The compact unit is generally cool and quiet, except for the usual SCSI chatter when active. Setup was just as simple as they said it would be, although there is a bit of a learning curve with the new feature set. One mistake I made was to underestimate the volume I needed to back up files from three computers (and three external USB drives) in the house; as a result I got midway through the process before deciding that I really needed to forego the RAID 1 redundancy and just use the whole 2TB as JBOD. Unfortunately, this meant starting all over -- so estimate your storage FIRST and avoid my mistake. I did have one technical issue in the middle of the reformatting, but online and on-phone tech support from Iomega was excellent and got me back on track in short order.
And now everything is just so much simpler! New music and media downloads are instantly accessible to all devices in the house. The backups are scheduled and perform automatically, plus you can configure for each copy job whether you want to trigger it off the front button on the device. This is a great feature, because any time during the day that I want to make an ad hoc backup, all I do is just touch one button and the rest is automatic.
Best of all, now I have my own personal cloud, completely within my control, but without a lot of administrative hassle. I may get a second unit to store at a secondary location to replicate storage -- if you have a lot of sensitive content, this is a great solution. But for now, I am happy to take advantage of my free Amazon Cloud storage, which materialized around the same time. So I actually have a hybrid cloud setup. And to be clear: I am not any technical wiz with this stuff, it's just designed to be really easy.
The only disappointment at all is learning that my current router may not support the bridging required to enable the remote access; but with the cloud configuration I really have all the access I need anyway, and I already use GoToMy PC to get all the remote access I need.
Bottom line: this product has solved every problem and delivered every functionality that I needed it to do, and has taken me to the next level with my own cloud at the same time, all for just a little more than a standard network attached storage solution. I give it all five stars.

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The Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 Network Storage, Cloud Edition offers content sharing with advanced security, and is ideal for small and remote offices, workgroups or home networks. Based on enterprise-class EMC storage technology, the StorCenter ix2-200 provides easy file sharing, iSCSI block access, and multiple RAID configurations for optimized data protection. The Iomega Personal Cloud offers unparalleled simplicity and versatility for data sharing and protection. Business users will appreciate the robust data protection features such as UPS support, print serving, folder quotas, rsync device-to-device replication, and user replaceable drives for business continuity and disaster recovery. The easy-to-use interface provides no-hassle management. Active Directory support and remote access round out the comprehensive business features. The StorCenter ix2-200 supports up to five Axis IP security cameras for basic video surveillance. Home users benefit from the advanced media features such as the DLNA certified UPnP AV Media Server, PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol), torrent download compatibility, and Bluetooth upload. Award-winning backup software is included, and RSA BSAFE encryption ensures protected installs and upgrades. Supports PC, Mac and Linux clients and is VMware certified for NFS and iSCSI.

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Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - 2 TB Network Attached Storage 34481 (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been waiting for this for a long time. This NAS works period!. It works with Apple Time machine. It works with Ubuntu 9.10 (SimpleBackup) and it works with windowsXP (Windows Backup Program).
I wanted a RAID1 NAS storage. RAID standard dictates how hard disks are used. In RAID1 both the hard discs contain the same data. So if one fries the other one will save your day till you replace the broken one with a new disk. I wanted Iomega to act as the backup repository for all my systems which include a macbook (Leopard), ubuntu Linux (9.10) and WindowsXP Pro.
Pros
----
+ For 200+ bucks this offers you RAID1. Which is lot better than over prized Apple Time capsule which has only one hard disk.
+ Works seamlessly with Apple Time machine software
+ Supports FTP Server, UPNP (for media streaming) and SMTP (to send you an emails about diagnostics errors etc)
+ Supports Good Security. Remember once you connect any device to network you should enable user accounts passwords etc.
+ Very Very simple configuration.
+ You can connect external USB storage devices and they are available to all users in your home network. Makes regular usb printers network printers how cool is that ?
+ Very reliable. So far I have transferred 100 Gigs of data over the network and not even once did the network connection drop.
+ Compact and easy to service (in case the hard disk fries).
Cons
None so far
Help Instructions
For Apple Users
Once you install the supplied software the provided TimeMachine folder on the drive is visible to your time machine software as a backup drive. Configuration just involves opening up your time machine preferences and pointing to the NAS timemachine folder. Done! its that simple. I have tried creating a backup and restoring from it and it worked seamlessly.
For Ubuntu
I used the macbook to configure the NAS. Open the admin page in your browser and go to Settings->NetworkServices and Enable NFS. Once you do this the drive will turn on SMB protocol automatically (something that linux and unix worlds love). Now you can either create an additional folder on the drive (like i did or use the existing Backup Folder). Once you decided which folder to use, click on the small "Configure" Spanner icon next to it. This would open up the configuration page. Give a proper name and click next. In this page the software would ask you if you want NFS enabled for the folder. Check the box and give a name. For instance UbuntuBackup. Click ok. Now start your ubuntu computer-> places->Network and the explorer would show you the UbuntuBackup. To let Simple backup store backups here open the System->Administration->SimpleBackup Config-> in destination folder check the second option (SSH or FTP) and enter the following smb://EnterUserName@IOMEGANASNAME/UbuntuBackup (note you have to use username and password only if you have enabled security as i did. Your are done. Do a test backup and restore
Windows
Map the NAS as a drive (assigning a drive letter) and make the backup program use the mapped drive as the destination

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The Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 Network Storage offers content sharing with advanced security, and is ideal for small and remote offices, workgroups or home networks. Based on enterprise-class EMC storage technology, the StorCenter ix2-200 provides easy file sharing, iSCSI block access, and multiple RAID configurations for optimized data protection. Business users will appreciate the robust data protection features such as UPS support, print serving, folder quotas, rsync device-to-device replication, and user replaceable drives for business continuity and disaster recovery. The easy-to-use interface provides no-hassle management. Active Directory support and remote access round out the comprehensive business features. The StorCenter ix2-200 supports up to five Axis IP security cameras for basic video surveillance. Home users benefit from the advanced media features such as DLNA certified UPnP AV Media Server, PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol), torrent download compatibility, Bluetooth upload, and Cooliris slide show plug-in. Award-winning EMC Retrospect Express backup software and RSA BSAFE encryption for protected installs and upgrades. Supports PC, Mac, and Linux clients and is VMware certified for NFS and iSCSI. Available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities.

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Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) Network Attached Storage ST320005LSA10G-RK Review

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(More customer reviews)I feel like I'm in a good place to review this item because I own both the Seagate 220 and also the Western Digital MyBook World Edition, and they are competitors. Both are inexpensive network attached storage appropriate for a home office or for home use. For both machines the only feature I use is reading and writing to the hard drive through windows sharing (from either a windows computer or a linux computer). For that reason I will not comment too much on some of the features like automatic backups, media sharing, etc. For the most part on machines of this level those features are gimmicks. They don't work very well and they degrade overall performance of the NAS, as you will be able to read from other people's reviews. When I want to play media from my NAS, I just mount the drive through windows sharing and play what I want. When I want to back up my computer, I copy stuff myself. For the reason I have a generally more favourable view of both of these machines than other people.
Anyway, on with the review. First I will mention two issues I had to overcome before this NAS was reasonably functional for me.
1. This is the big issue I had to fix: This Seagate NAS does not work well with just any gigabit switch. I originally had it plugged in to a TP-Link switch. I could write to the NAS at full speed, but when I wanted to read from it, the speed was horrible. Maybe 1/20th the speed at which I could write to the NAS. After spending a good deal of time researching the issue online I found out the NAS doesn't play well with some routers and switches. Notably it does not work with D-Link switches. Well, I will add TP-Link to the list it doesn't work with. If I plugged the NAS directly into my Linksys router, the problem went away, but that's only a 100-megabit connection. The funny thing is that the traffic still had to go through the TP-Link switch. In other words, the device this is directly plugged into matters, the rest of the network really doesn't. Anyway I tried various solutions (changing the frame size and so forth). They don't work. The only solution was to buy a netgear switch. If your network has a TP-Link or D-Link switch or router that you'd like to plug this into, budget for a netgear gigabit switch. They aren't real expensive, but I was very annoyed at this problem.
2. This is a small issue, and partly windows' fault: If you create a shortcut to this shared drive in windows and then play a movie from the NAS, it will disconnect 20 minutes into the movie. I originally thought this had to do with the NAS going into sleep mode, but I disabled that feature and it didn't change anything. I didn't notice the problem when playing from my linux machine, and the WD NAS doesn't do this. Anyway, the solution is to actually map the drive in "My Computer" instead of just using a shortcut to get to it. You'd think there would be no difference between those two, but the former works and the latter disconnects after 20 minutes.
Having overcome those two problems, the NAS now functions very nicely for me. The main thing I use this NAS for is to play movies that I have ripped from my DVD collection. They play perfectly on any computer in the house and I can even play two movies on two different computers. Actually I'm not sure how many movies I can play at a time. Nor have I tried playing any HD movies yet, so I can't comment on that, but the speed over my gigabit network seems more than adequate for that.
A couple of comparisons with the Western Digital:
1. This machine is significantly faster than the Western Digital. When I upload to this machine from my Linux box I sustain about 18 or 19 megabytes per second. On the Western Digital I get about 11. This may not sound like a big difference here, but when copying a large file or backing up a whole computer, it makes a very noticeable difference. I don't pay a lot of attention to my download copy speed, but it is above 30 MB per second, whereas I get more like 19 from the Western Digital. I am running this in a RAID 0 configuration. However, I also did a speed test using JBOD and the speeds were exactly the same, so the gain is not really from the RAID (the WD I use has only one HD in it, so there's no RAID option).
2. The Seagate is significantly louder than the Western Digital. It's not loud compared to most hardware, but you can hear the drives spinning if you get close and listen, and when they start up or go to sleep you can hear a click that is pretty noticeable. Sometimes it clicks when no one is using it and you would think it would just be sleeping peacefully. At first I thought this was a hardware problem but it turns out that my NAS is fine. It's just louder than expected. Of course, WD sets the bar high for silence. It is almost impossible to tell if the WD machine is on or doing anything if you ignore the lights on the front (or disable them, as I have).
3. The Seagate is much larger physically. It's not big on an absolute scale, and I don't keep it on my desktop, so it's not a problem, but it's much larger than the WD. The WD is just a hair larger than the actual drive inside it. The Seagate looks like a UPS or something. Anyway I think it looks nice, but one should be aware that it's not as minimalist as some others.
4. The Seagate doesn't try to accommodate tweaks from expert users as much, and it has a much smaller and less active user base. Both machines run Linux under the hood, so if there's a problem with them an experienced user could get in and change things up. On the Western Digital you can enable ssh access through the web interface. And there are bunches of tutorials online about how to fix the technical glitches this comes with and even install new hardware on it. Personally I went in and disabled their media playing software and the software that runs an apple network. Apparently on the WD these things run even though you disabled them and they mess the machine up. Anyway, there is no ssh option on the seagate, so in principle you can't go in and change things. There aren't really help pages for experts. However, recently a user did figure out a way to enable ssh. He wrote an update to the firmware. I used it and it works great, but I can see how some users may not feel comfortable upgrading their firmware in order to get ssh access. Anyway after ssh'ing in, I found that there is one windows bug that the NAS wasn't dealing with well. That is, windows clients delete the last character of the share when they are reading and it causes a bunch of errors to the log, though it still seems to work ok. The workaround is to create another share on the NAS that is not visible, called "Publi", which refers to the same directory. So I'm glad to be ssh'ing in now. Still, for tweaking, it's a better bet to go with the WD. It's been vetted by more linux people.
Anyway, this drive works very well for me. It's my larger and higher performance network attached storage and it is quite reliable for me. When I purchased it, this was cheaper than the equivalent capacity in WD (I use the 4 TB version). In part I believe I'm happy with it because I don't try and use the features that get touted in ads. I just use it as network attached storage. That's true of both drives, and it's what I recommend. The forums for both these machines are full of people ranting about how their device doesn't do what they want and that no one at the company seems to care about them---that's why I say just use it as a remote hard drive. Based on my perusal of the forums, Seagate seems to support their NAS customers less (at least on the forums), though neither company is real great in that respect.
I love both of my network storage devices and I use them both all the time. This seagate is a great buy. When I bought it, at least, it was the cheapest NAS available with this capacity and it turns out to be a very good performer. It's really nice to be able to back things up or store all my large files in one place and be able to access them from any computer in my house. If I were to buy a third NAS, it would probably be another Seagate, just because it's cheaper and faster than the competition.
But make sure you plug it into a NETGEAR device, not a TP-Link or D-Link. I'm not sure about other brands.

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Seagate BlackArmor 2 TB NAS 220 Network Attached Storage Server

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Buffalo Technology LinkStation Quad 4 TB (4 X 1 TB) Network Attached Storage LS-Q4.0TL/R5(Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)Good product for the price (paid $404 from Amazon). The price attracted me to this, since the "real" RAID 5 solution w/o performance issues are around ~$600~$800 w/o the hard drives. Bought it to protect my distributed data around 5 computers, and enough performance to keep all the files from the computers on the networked NAS drive, and protected.
RAID 1 (mirroring) was not my preference, and RAID 5 (parity, N+1 protection) was, which limited my choices to quad drive models.
Positives
- Easy management via browser, reasonable security and read/write privilege settings, even without setting up SMB server or equivalent (did not test the SMB server authentication yet).
- DLNA - for those who have DLNA TV, and TV connected to home network, the expected DLNA functions (content discovery, streaming, etc) worked well.
- Worked well with other SATA drives. Originally came w/ 4 x 250 G WD drives, and I put 500 G Maxtor, Seagate, WD, and Samsung drives, and all got recognized and ran without any issues.
- USB expansion -- I have a few of USB drives, that got instantly upgrade to NAS operation by connecting them (2) to this unit. Seems to handle mixed file systems fine: at least for NTFS and FAT32. Power on/off the external units as I need them.
Neutral
- Performance is reasonable -- works near 100% bandwidth in peaks over Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s), but at Gigabit Ethernet speeds, it only peaks around 150~220 Mb/s. In human perception terms, no noticeable delay using files on NAS for editing or streaming music or video, but copy (e.g. back up) of 500 G data takes about 7~8 hours (compared to local disk to disk copy taking about 1~1.5 hrs).
- Performance during disk fault recovery operation is very good -- When fully operating, I removed a drive (simulated disk fault), and added a different drive (500G). The file server (access, copy from and copy to NAS) degraded performance was NOT noticeable during the fault recovery (as it shouldn't). A large directory copy (~20 G) was measurably noticeable (about 20~25% longer copy time).
- Performance per price point is reasonable that is.
Negatives
- RAID 5 should work on 3 or more drives. LinkStation Quad only supports RAID 5 on 4 drives. So, my original plan of using 3 drives for protected (and recoverable) data (e.g. family photo, work files), and 1 drive for bulk storage media (e.g. mp3 music, family video, etc) is not an option. So I configured RAID 5 over 4 internal drives, and put external USB drive for unprotected bulk storage.
- RAID initialization takes several days, YES, SEVERAL DAYS!. Manual warns about this, and it is true. I had several extra 500G drives, and had uses for 250G drives, so I bought the cheapest LinkStation Quad (1 TB model), and replaced it w/ 500G drives to get 2 TB (raw, before RAID). This replacement forced me to do format and the RAID initialization -- in my case, it took 2.5 days straight. The break down is about 1.5 days for individual drives to be low-level formatted to XFS (for 500G), and about 1 day to get RAID initialized (for 4 x 500 G) RAID 5 mode.
- Major ISSUE for Power users, but minor for casual users: Tested the gradual upgrade of the system capacity -- meaning start w/ 4 x 250 G, and start replacing each drive with 500 G, allowing to recover each time. When all 4 drives are replaced higher capacity drives, the unit SHOULD use higher capacity automatically, but it DID NOT. Had to remove all data, re-init the RAID 5 array (again 1 day), at which time the system reported higher capacity, and then put back the data (again about 1 day for 500 G).
Short Recommendation on selecting models (circa 01/2009) based on Price and Time only:
I bought 1 TB model, because I could use 4 x 250 G on my desktop PCs. But all the headaches and time does not justify the price difference. The 2 TB model is the best option (price, capacity, and upgrading w/ your own drives, all considered) if you have no use for the 4 x 250 G drives. 4 TB model seems to be the same price as if you bought 1 TB model plus 4 separate 1 TB drives (and you end up w/ "free" 4 x 250 GB drives. Again valuable only if you have use for those).
Not yet tested but will test:
- Access to this NAS storage behind home router from my work that has both firewall (incoming and outgoing), using both Buffalo's portal as well as fixed IP configuration. If this works well, my extended family could pull family photos directly from my home server, and I could access my personal documents on this NAS from work!


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Linkstaton Quad Nas 4tb 4x1tbPerpsata Raid Gbe 5 Web Access Dlna

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Verbatim MediaShare 1 TB Home Network Storage 97159 (Silver) Review

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(More customer reviews)To start out I am a System Administrator, technology is what I do while at work and when I get home I want something that's going to be easy to use and that works. I've had the Verbatim MediaShare 1tb home network storage server up and running for only a couple days but so far I am very happy with it.
I have used the media server in 3 different roles so far as I try to figure out exactly the right role for this device in my home.
I started out using it as a share point to store files I needed to get access to everywhere. On the side of being a Sys Admin I also fix computers on the side so it's great having all my files in one location so when I am at a clients house I can connect to the drive and retrieve any files I am needing to fix their computer. The Storage server worked great in this area and it felt very secure, however I seemed to have better performance using my current web storage service I subscribe to so for me this wasn't the optimal role as most my files are very large. This did work great with smaller files like word documents and spreadsheets.
Next I tried using the media network storage server as an Apple Time Machine backup drive. Previously I was using a local USB drive; the thought of a network storage device was appealing. It didn't take much to get apple to see the device and prep it to be used as a time machine backup drive, very simple setup. And the response time was pretty snappy when browsing the time machine backup. Granted, i only had a few hours of backups on the drive and I am curious as the backups go from hours to months if the drive will still be as quick, but so far I am impressed. But since I already had an exteranl drive I was using this didn't seem like the optimal fit.
The last thing I tried is what I think this box will truly be in my house. A media server to share videos. On initial tests I ripped a few DVD's and put the video files on the media server and did a few tests. First I tried streaming to an Xbox 360 on my network and it had some issues initially connecting however once the connection was established it performed better then I expected. Next I tried to stream to a PC on my network, that to worked perfectly. The third test was the real external test. I fired up my laptop, jumped on my verizon wireless aircard and attempted to stream a movie, at first I wasn't sure if it was working as designed as the video appeared to buffer for a very long time, however I also noticed I had issues connecting to websites so I disconnected from verizon and reconnected and attempted the stream again, this time it started playing very quickly, I believe this was an issue with the verizon network and not so much the media share server.
overall I am very pleased with this storage server. With my different tests I was able to see how it would work best for me and I think I'm going to use this primarily as a Video streaming server and free up a lot of room on my other computers. This drive operated very quietly and over the last few days hasn't heated up to the touch as much as I thought it would. I am happy with this and would recommend it for anyone looking for a network storage server. This is a very universal product and for me has plenty of ways to utilize it.
I will mention, performance of your network will determine the quality of the server, time it takes to move file etc. For external access you really need a high speed broadband internet connection. If your connection is slow or unreliable your performance of accessing files externally will be significantly impacted.
***********UPDATED 7/15/2010*************
FYI, I just found out that there IS a iphone app to allow you to access your media content on your iphone and ipad! Simply go to the apple app store and download HipServ. Now it's not the best app, but it is the official app for accessing your MediaShare server. Please note you will need to sign up for the premium subscription which they do give you 30 days free to use this app. But the app itself is free, the 30 days trial is free then I think it's like $20 a year which isn't bad. Because the app doesn't have good directions on how to configure it, below is a copy/paste of the review I wrote about the app in the apple app store telling you how to configure it.
-----
I love this app. It is NOT the easiest thing to configure... Well it is, but they don't explain anything about it.
So, in my use I have a Verbatim MediaShare server. You MUST have the premium subscription to use this app with your mediaserver, if you look at the comparison chart between free and premium you'll see mobile access is only available on premium. Good news you get 30 days free at least through [...]
To configure the app do the following:
1. Launch the app
2. Click "Add Account"
3. for Portal Name put in [...] (if you are using [...] to access it remotely from a browser)
4. HipServ name is the name of your device. I called mine "MediaBox" so that's what I entered.
5. UserName is your username you configured to log into the box
6. Password is your password for your username you configured to log into the box.
7. Click "Save"
As long as you are a premium member you can now access your media share via your iphone anywhere you are.
I am having issues watching some videos, but they do show in my catalog. So I may have some video conversion settings wrong and I will be playing with that, but I can access pictures, music, etc. Videos are listed, they just don't play yet...
Anyways, this is a good app, wish they would write some instructions for it!***********UPDATED 1/8/2011*************After many months of use the Verbatim MediaShare is still doing pretty good. Although I found that I had some issues with it.
1. Every morning around 5am I noticed a lot of network and disc activity from the box. I had cancelled my Pro membership so I wasn't backing up to the MediaShare backup servers anymore, and didn't have any external drives connected. I did some network sniffing and couldn't identify what or where that activity was coming from. It concerned me a bit as the box would be quiet all day and then at 5am just come to life. If anyone knows what it is doing let me know!
2. I don't use the mediashare as much as I originally thought I would. I still use it as a remote FTP drive that I can access from work, my ipad, anywhere I go. I constantly am putting files on it to retrieve later. Works great for that.
3. I don't use it to stream movies anymore. As I mentioned I cancelled my pro membership so I no longer can use the mobile client. So I have moved all the movies to an external drive on my mac and am using pyTivoX (free mac app) to stream movies to the TiVo and then to stream to the iPad I am using Air Video Server and bought the app for the ipad which was like $5. Now I can stream any movie any time for free with no monthly fees. If Verbatim MediaShare included streaming for free I would still use it, but I can't justify paying when I get get another option for free.
4. Backing up computers, I don't use this for that. I did for a while but Remembered the 3-2-1 rule. You should have a total of 3 backups, on two different medias and 1 of those should be off-site. Now I could use it as one of the media types but I don't, mainly because around 5am the drive goes crazy and I don't know what it's doing with my data. So I don't store anything personal on it. What I use is a Western Digital passport (1tb) and I partitioned several drives. I made one 500gb parition for backups. So this gives me 2 of the 3 backups for a file. The one on my local computer, the one on the passport drive (using time machine on the mac to manage) and then I also subscribe to BackBlaze online backup which is $5 per computer, a great deal. This means I now have 3 backups of all my files, 2 different medias (1 external drive, 1 internal) and one of those is off-site so should my house get broken into and my backup disc and computer get stolen I still can get my data back.
5. But how did the media share do with streaming? It did good. Of course it all depends on your network. I tried both wireless and wired configurations and found that if the media share was connected to the same wired network I had zero issues with buffering, when I tried a wifi mix occasionally depending on what else my family was doing on the network at the time there was some slight issues. But nothing major.
6. The media share it does work, but I've found for my personal uses I was able to get the same results using other options that I have more control over. Now I am a total tech. I like to play and tinker and a lot of people wouldn't want to mess with my current setup. If you are one of those people the mediashare is still in my eyes an excellent option for non-techs to use. It works and it works well. But for me I can't customize or control it as much as I would like. It is still powered on and used as a file dump for me like I said, but in reality I use Box.net, dropbox, or my apple iDisk when I need to keep a file. If the file is to large then I fire up the mediashare connection. Other then that it looks cool sitting on my rack at home.

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Simply share, store and stream with the Verbatim MediaShare server. The MediaShare offers up to 1 TB of storage and allows you to share photos, save and protect files, stream media and even access your content-from anywhere. Use your MediaShare to create photo albums and send them to friends and family or upload your photos directly to Facebook. Back-up home laptops and automatically save important files directly to your MediaShare so they are in one centralized location. Stream music and photos through Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 or other DNLA compliant devices. Lastly, quickly upload, download and manage your files via remote access by simply connecting to myverbatim.com from any internet connection.

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