Seagate FreeAgent DockStar Network Adapter STDSA10G-RK (White) Review

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(More customer reviews)You can use this as a home network server for windows without signing up with pogoplug or installing any software.
Plug your USB drive into your computer, format it (preferably with NTFS) and create a file on it named .ceid
Using notepad, or your favorite text editor, put these lines in the file (replacing yoursharename with a name of your own choosing). Note the mode=rw allows reading and writing.
servicename=yoursharename
xcode.metadata=never
xcode.thumbnail=never
xcode.stream=never
cifs.mode=rw
Plug the usb drive into the Dockstar, and you're all set. The drive will be available as
\\fadsMMMMMM\yoursharename (where MMMMMM are the last 6 letters and numbers of the Dockstar's mac address, which is on the label on the bottom).
Note you can plug up to 3 regular usb drives and one Seagate Go drive into this. You do not need a go drive.
For maximum security, I recommend using your internet router's firewall to block all internet access from whatever ip address gets assigned to the dockstar.

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The FreeAgent DockStar network adapter allows you to share your digital life with anyone, anywhere. Centralize your files to a single location and access them with any networked computer in your home. Create a shared space for your friends to download content you designate and to upload their own content.The FreeAgent DockStar network adapter is a compact dock which allows FreeAgent Go portable drives and most USB storage devices to be shared on your local network or accessed remotely via the internet, after service activation. The FreeAgent Go drive simply slides into the FreeAgent DockStar network adapter, making it easy to remove when you want to take the drive with you while on-the-go. All other USB storage devices plug into one of the two rear-mounted or one side-mounted USB ports. The FreeAgent DockStar network adapter simultaneously supports up to four storage devices, so you will never have to worry about running out of storage space. Simply plug in two cables (Ethernet and power) and visit the web activation page to activate and automatically configure the network adapter. Once activated, you can access all your files with a clean, web-based interface. The same interface is used to view files from any networked computer in your home and outside of the home when accessing files remotely. The user interface displays all the files on all of the drives you have connected to the FreeAgent DockStar network adapter, along with all of the files shared with you by other FreeAgent DockStar network adapter owners.You can easily navigate the user interface with thumbnail or list views, search by file name or filter by media type. The FreeAgent DockStar network adapter also appears like a local drive on your computer, so that you can easily navigate and drag-and-drop files just like a folder on your desktop.

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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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Hitachi SimpleNET NAS Head USB 2.0 Portable Dongle SNET (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)Hatachi SimpleNet NAS USB to Ethernet promises a truly simple way to connect a USB storage device to your home network via wired Ethernet connected to your home router. Setup and control is managed through an internal web server accessible through Apple's Bonjour (zero configuration networking) software. No MAC (Media Access Control) address in included on the box so installation of Bonjour for windows ([...]) is mandatory. Apple Mac users have Bonjour built-in to OS X through Safari.
All of this innovation as well as the small form factor induced me to purchase the device and set it up for use with both USB thumb drives as well as a Western Digital external USB storage device.
As promised SimpleNet connected to the disk / flash subsystems and made the storage accessible over my home network via Bonjour. However in about 10 minutes the plastic box housing SimpleNet became very warm. At that time the disk / flash subsystems were no longer network accessible. The internal web broswer's setup pages then became blank and no longer displayed information.
Removing the power (supplied through an included 5 volt adapter) for twenty minutes to permit the device to cool again allowed me to connect to my storage, but only after repeating the setup process. Clearly this became tedious.
Note that no paper manual is provided and the mini disk containing the manual and Bonjour for Windows software is only compatible with tray drives CD readers.
Sadly it's back to the store with this device. It would have been a great way to create a NAS (Network Attached Storage) system to a home or small business network. I hope they try again, but first do the beta testing in the lab.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Hitachi SimpleNET NAS Head USB 2.0 Portable Dongle SNET (Black)

SimpleNET is the easiest way to make your existing USB drive even more valuable!Share its contents across your network, quickly and easily!SimpleNET is a small network adapter that enables you to share and access existing USB hard drives over a network.Simply plug a USB hard drive into SimpleNET and then plug SimpleNet into an Ethernet network. The drive then appears as a network drive on the network.Easy to install, easy to use! SimpleNet is extremely cost effective too!Why pay more for a new hard disk drive?Make your investments pay off by sharing music, photos, videos or documents in minutes!No configuration necessary, no additional drives to buy.

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Buffalo LinkStation Live 500 GB Multimedia Storage Server HS-DH500GL Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm just writing this review because I believe this product and the company are dealt with a bit unfair in other reviews.
I just installed this device - I own a older Linkstation which works without any problems for non-stop 3 years now - and I would like to mention a few points. I also talked to Buffalo support before buying it (which yes, has a long waiting time on the phone but very compentent people, I believe, that answer at the end, and got clarification on a few points.
The good:
+ fast, just copying 75 GB in around 90 minutes on a 100 MBit network, and the speed is just fine
+ good looking, this device looks great
+ easy to install
The bad:
not much really
- if you enable the media server it reads/writes constantly, the reason is it indexes the disk for new files all the time - buffalo support is aware of this and will release a new firmware which allows you to index manually with a button on demand, this is a good solution for me
- no more bad, sorry ;-)
I find many of the reviews here a bit strange, lets talk about some examples:
- Scanner does not work (well, ALL these devices dont support Multifunction printers, because they technically can't, this is not Buffalos fault
- I put a new firmware on my device and now it's broken - well, apparently, earlier firmwares where different for the Pro and Live model, if you put the wrong firmware on it can't boot anymore, is this Buffalos fault??
- noisy hmmhh, mine is SUPER quiet - actually quieter than the old modell, how quiet do you expect a harddisk to be??
- web interface slow, that's true and I find it a bit strange, but how often are you changing parameters over the Web gui? It's a bit strange, but only a very minor nuissance.
I get the feeling that many users buying a media server are a bit novice at IT devices. Also because the PRO line gets better reviews.
Anyway, I nearly would not have bought this device because of all the bad reviews. But it would have been a mistake. I love it. It's not expensive and I personally recommend it!
Hope this helps.
Armin

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LinkStation Live 500GB Shared Network Storage

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Western Digital My Book World Edition 2 TB Network Attached Storage Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought the 2TB version of this (but not the version that has two physical drives). I'm not really all that interested in having the redundancy of RAID, weird programs backing up my computer when I'm not around, or software that allows me to connect to it remotely. I just want to throw my data on there from any one of the computers on my network and be able to get it off reasonably quickly, and I want it to go to sleep when I'm not using it. This drive does those things well.
I was looking for a drive that:
1. allows me to ssh in and tweak things by hand if I want
2. goes to sleep when not in use and wakes up without a problem
3. is cheap, quiet, and looks good
4. is fast enough for my needs
5. doesn't have any gotchas that impair its use significantly
In these respects this drive performs well.
The first thing I did when I got it was enable ssh, which you can do through the web menu. Then I logged in and disabled the mionet script. Mionet is the software that allows you to log in remotely, but it's apparently the buggiest and most wasteful program ever. You can supposedly disable this through the menu but it comes back on when you are not looking, so you actually need to physically go in and disable the startup script. I'm a linux guy so this was no problem. There are some howto's on the web that will tell you how to do this.
I played around with twonky, which is the software for playing media through UPnP. I think it's a cool idea, but the truth is that I have no need for it. I don't need/want to stream to anything but computers, and in that case it's easier to just map this drive and play the movie or song from that computer using my normal software. So I disabled twonky as well. It seemed to have a bunch of spawned processes, so this was probably a good thing. This also needs to be done through ssh.
I didn't install any of the software that comes on the CD's or anything. Apparently that software is crap anyway. I'm not sure what I would want it for. This drive works once you stick it on the network...no configuration necessary. I can get to the drive either by referencing its IP address or the hostname I gave it through the web interface.
The drive is silent and unobtrusive. The led white bar on the front slowly flashes on and off if it's sleeping and moves up and down if it's not. You can disable these leds through the web interface so it's even less obtrusive. I was worried that the sleep feature wouldn't work correctly but it works perfectly, which is one big plus about this drive. You don't notice it go to sleep because it's so quiet anyway, but it does after 15 minutes or something of not being used. Then when you try and read from it again it starts up quickly and there's no fuss. No need to turn it off or mess with it in any way, ever. Nice.
Performance is...pretty ok considering the type of device it is. According to the reviews I read, this drive is fast compared with others in its class. If you want something real fast, you have to pay up. Anyway, I have a gigabit network and I do realize you can't ever actually get the theoretical optimal speed. For reference (indicator of how good my network is or isn't), when I copy from one computer to another (both pretty fast computers) using SMB I get about 19.5 MB per second. When I use SMB to copy something onto this NAS I get about 10.8 MB per second. It's not as fast as copying to a computer, but I knew that going in. This is a powersaving and inexpensive device and both of those say it won't match performance of a fast computer with a PCI express gigabit connection. Anyway, when I read from it I get more like 16 MB per second or a little more. That's nearly as fast as a computer-to-computer copy. So I'm satisfied. I can certainly watch movies off of this drive directly without any skipping or anything. If you want a dramatic speed improvement over those, you can use ftp instead of smb (the latter just means mapping the network drive and copying to it through windows for those of you who may not know). I don't need the extra speed, though, and it's more of a hassle to use ftp, so I disabled the ftp server. Some day I may actually upgrade the SMB server the drive comes with. Apparently you can get a significant performance boost doing that but it's much more of a hack than the things I mentioned above. I don't want to risk screwing anything up in this drive now that it's working so flawlessly.
You can still remotely use this drive if you configure your router to pass http requests or ssh requests to it. No need for mionet. That's true of any computer that runs ssh and an http server. I would be crazy to sign up for some service to provide this capability. I didn't look closely at the twonky server, but I got the feeling that it would eventually want you to sign up for something as well. I shouldn't comment too much because I just disabled that garbage.
Things I don't do that apparently this drive can do:
1. Stream movies, pictures, or music to UPnP devices or Ipods
2. ftp, apple protocols
3. remote use using mionet
4. automatic backups
5. utilize an external USB hard drive
6. anything else besides just hold
so you will have to read other reviews for info about these features.
So yeah, I'm more techy than probably the average user, but the few tweaks I used weren't that significant. Since this drive allows ssh access, runs linux, and is popular enough that lots of people have it and have figured out how to tweak it, it's pretty easy to get working perfectly and there are plenty of howtos on the web. I'm real happy with it.
================
Edit: Instructions on how to do the tweaks I did are not available in the instructions. There are a number of sites on the web that describe how and why to do them. Just make sure your tweaks apply to the new "white light" version, which is this one. Some tweaks refer to the old "blue circle" version. Anyway this is what I did: First enable ssh through the web menu and ssh in as root. Default password is welc0me. Use these tips at your own risk obviously.
1. To disable mionet: First disable it through the web menu. Unfortunately the wakeup script will start it up again in 20 minutes or so because of a bug, so we fix it by editing /usr/mionet/monitorCVM.sh using vi. At the top (after the comments) add the following:
# Start of hack to make Mionet obey startup flag
if [ ! -f "/etc/.mionet_on_startup" ]; then
exit 1
fi
# End of hack to make Mionet obey startup flag
2. To disable twonky by moving its startup script to the root home directory:
mv /etc/init.d/S97twonkyserver ~
3. To disable mDNS responder by moving its startup script to the root home directory:
mv /etc/init.d/S9mDNSResponder ~
I disabled ftp through the web menu. There are other things that can be disabled or even upgraded but these are what make the difference and it all works for me. Reboot the NAS after making these tweaks.
If you do a "top" command before these tweaks you will see a number of processes dealing with these three features. After you will see that much less is running and when you copy to and from the NAS you will notice a performance boost. For security you can then disable ssh through the web menu if you want.
=========================


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Simplified set up and best-in-class performance make My Book World Edition Home Network Storage the easy choice for centralizing data and backing up your home computers. Connect the drive to your network router and youre up and running in minutes. Use the included back up software to protect your familys PCs with automatic and continuous backup plans. Store all your digital media in one central location so everyone in the family can have access to it. Compatible with both Mac and Windows files.

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Cisco-Linksys 1 TB Media Hub with LCD Review

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(More customer reviews)Everything you read about the features and setup of the LinkSys by Cisco NMH410 MediaHub is true: it is very easy to set up and to configure other computers and it does offer a browser-based way to access your media.
The problem is that most of it doesn't work. The lion's share of the software is broken, buggy, or simply incapable of doing what it is supposed to be doing. A quick glance at the support forums will confirm this, and unfortunately it appears to be endemic for many of the models of MediaHub, not just the NMH410. The problems that you will encounter are:
1) The Media Hub Online tool will not "see" all of your files. They will be physically visible when you use a computer to browse folders, but they will not properly share or index, even if they meet the stringent requirements (no long names, no special characters in the names, must be in one of the supported file formats, etc.).
2) The Hub will continually rebuild its index of your files. In other words, "now you see some files, now you don't". It regularly "forgets" what's on the hub and starts over, one by one, re-reading every file. You have no control over when it does this.
3) The Media Hub will not respond when it is busy. I can play an album that I manually launched from the folder, but if I try to open the File Browser, look at Configuration, or even just click a bit too fast browsing the media, the MediaHub Online will throw me "MediaHub is Disconnected or not Responding" errors and stop taking any commands. I have to randomly try again and hope to get lucky and get in.
4) The website for Remote Sharing (in other words, logging in to your device through the Internet from another location) regularly has Server Timeouts. You never know when it will let you in or when you will just get a dead white page.
5) Some features reboot the hub without warning. You choose the option, it says, "Resetting the MediaHub" and the next thing you know, the browser interface fails, the hub loses all of its indexes, and it starts all over again crawling through your files and not responding to your clicks.
It's very distressing to see aggressive releases of software and firmware updates, whose release notes claim to have solved these problems...only to find that all the "fixed in this version" problems are still there. If these issues really were considered fixed by the company, then Linksys/Cisco's problems are much larger--they may need to consider a recall. Thus far, the only features that truly work are the ability to view files and folders on a computer and the optional computer backup program (which should only be used for files and not as a full system backup).
It should tell you a lot that there are actually two pieces of software embedded in this hub: the Linksys by Cisco software, and a third party tool called "Twonky Media Server". Twonky is better, but still not what this product promises above. Both have really bizarre problems that should never have made it to the sales floor.
I'm reaching the point of complete surrender. I managed to get indirectly engaged with the hardware/software development team and have offered them access to my hub to try whatever it takes to solve the problem.
As of October 19, 2009, my unit was used for the Beta and the new Firmware was released. If you own an NMH and are having the above problems, you should give it a try. Unfortunately for me, the best I have seen with this new firmware is that the fixes are spotty: almost seems to mostly-work one day, then it's back to completely acting up the next. The cruel part is that one day I'll discover an amazing new feature or two that I'd never seen before...and the next day it's gone again. Content appears and disappears, and the system is always rebuilding itself. I have spent many, many hours on and off support calls struggling with this device and I'm sorry I bought it. It's November 19th, 2009, and my NMH410 Media Hub is now back in the original packaging waiting to go out the door back to LinkSys. I've lost over 4 months trying to get this to work and I can't recommend it to anyone.

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Enjoy your digital music, photos, and videos throughout your home! The Linksys Media Hub stores your favorite media files, and lets you view and listen to them on any PC, laptop, or TV in the house, or through the Internet anywhere in the world! The pre-installed hard drive holds thousands of photos or songs, or hundreds of hours of DVD quality video, and the empty second drive bay and two USB ports let you add even more storage as your collection grows.The Media Hub presents your music, photo, and video collections in an attractive "catalog view" from most web browsers. There are no confusing network addresses to remember; give your Media Hub a personalized "name" (i.e., "Smith-Media"), and just type it into your browser to view the catalog. Use the same name to log in to your Media Hub from a web browser anywhere, and get the same easy-to-use access to your media.

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Synology DiskStation 4-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS411J (White) Review

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(More customer reviews)OK, my review might be biased. Coming from the Drobo, which was absolutely terrible, to this Synology unit was the best technological move I've made since I switched to OSX 10.1 all those years ago. Speeds are fantastic, built-in server features are excellent, and aesthetically the unit is very pleasing.
Unboxing/Installation/Initial Setup:
The unit arrived from Amazon in a large cardboard box along with the two SATA drives that I ordered for it (Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD20EARS). The box for the 411j was very sleek and easy to unpack. No weird seals or wire ties to deal with. The unit itself fits well with the IKEA-assisted look of my office. To install the drives, you remove some handscrews off the back and the top/sides of the unit will come off (in the stock photo, the aluminum piece with the logo on it). The drive trays are plastic and slide out of the back of the unit. You just sit the drives into the unit and use the included screws to mount the drive in place. Then, just push the tray back in and the drive will be connected. No cables to connect was a big plus here. After the drives are all installed, push screw the back on and plug in the power and network cables.
One thing that was unexpected was that the unit has no software installed on it initially. Not a bad concept though..it forces you to load the most current version this way. The software from the CD happened to be the current version (major revision in December I think) but that might not always be the case, you it might be better to just download the latest Synology Assistant and DSM software from the company website before you begin. The Synology assistant recognizes the unit on the network and allows you to install the DSM (operating system) onto the unit. This process is pretty quick, and the unit will automatically restart when it's done.
Disk Allocation and Backups:
The recommended data allocation that the Synology makes is to use all the drives that are available, and in the hybrid RAID format. This will allow for one drive to fail (assuming you have more than one in it) and all the data will still be fine. It also lets the drives to be different models/sizes, which isn't compatible with regular RAID. You don't get the full drive size available to you. You actually lose the space of one of the biggest drives in the unit for redundancy. Plus a small formatting loss. The wizard makes the partitioning very simple; you can have multiple volumes if you want. I just went with one and have multiple folders. You can also have USB drives plugged in (and printers too I think, but my AIO HP is already networked) that are treated as an additional volume. One nice feature here is that the device will backup to the external drive on a defined schedule. So actually, the Synology can fail and the data would still be safe on the backup drive.
Shared Folders:
The device is capable of creating multiple shared folders. You can create a very complex multi-user system with individual shared folders if you want to. Or you can go the simple route like I did and just have a couple including the app-generated music and video folders. I also have a Time Machine folder that has the sparsebundle images that I use to backup my two Macs. Only one user with full access rights, and read-only access to everything for guests. In my home setup, this is plenty because the computers are the only devices that write data, and my jailbroken AppleTv2 is the only device that reads from it (for XBMC). As far as allowing guests read-only access to everything, my WiFi is WPA2-encrypted, so only those select few people have access. And those that do I couldn't care less about what data of mine they see.
Applications:
I haven't explored the apps very much aside from the media server. It will create a DLNA environment that allows the PS3 and also some TVs (I think) to play movies directly from the drive. For those of you that use PS3MediaServer for this purpose, it's not foolproof. PS3MediaServer trans codes on the fly those file formats that the PS3 can't naively play. The Synology, however, plays the files directly. This is a hardware restriction. Putting a CPU and enough memory into the unit to handle video transcoding would raise the price to about $1K. You can still use PS3MediaServer and map the videos folder as a file location, but be aware that if you do this wireless there will be bumps. If the computer is plugged directly into the router that the NAS is plugged into, it should be fine.
Misc:
The unit is surprisingly quiet. My old Drobo was too loud to keep on my desk (and ended up on a table in the corner). It's also very fast compared to the Drobo. On this unit, I average ~30Mbps write and up to ~45Mbps read. I use Aperture and have my entire library stored on the unit. It handles this fine and suffers no lag issues. One computer is directly connected to the router where the NAS is. The unit has gigabit ethernet on it, so that's great. Speed from laptops will obviously be slower. Even wireless N speed can only sustain about 15MB from what I've noticed, but that has nothing to do with the unit. On the Drobo, the fan at the back was behind a plate that couldn't be removed. I like to be able to open the unit and clean it if I have to. My home is near an airport, so it can sometimes be quite dusty during the warm months of the year. Overall, I couldn't be more happy with this purchase. The performance improvements over my Drobo were enormous. It's UI is great and has many features that I hope to someday experiment and explore.
Edit: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - When I purchased the unit, I put the two mentioned drives above into the unit, but I also put two 1TB Green drives from my old Drobo into it. One of those two drives failed last week. The unit sent me an email notification and set off on its warning beeps that the volume was degraded. I immediately Teamviewered into my desktop from my iPhone, and logged into the Synology UI. I was able to discover the serial number of the disabled hard drive and request an RMA from WD. Credit card was authorized for the replacement price, received the new one via UPS 2-Day Air, and returned the old one via UPS ground. For anyone that hasn't done this, you get charged the price of the replacement unit, you buy a discounted UPS shipping label ($6), and send the old one back in the replacement's box. When they receive it, you get refunded the replacement price.
The NAS allowed me to "repair" the volume with the new drive, and a few hours later the unit was back to operating at 100%. Flawless :-D

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Synology DiskStation DS411j is designed to provide a cost-effective file storage and backup solution with RAID protection for multi-user home environments. The operating system, Synology DiskStation Manager, delivers rich features for multimedia enjoyments, worry-free backup, Internet sharing, and energy-saving options.

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D-Link DNS-343 4-Bay Network Attached Storage Enclosure Review

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(More customer reviews)This is my third D-Link NAS. I bought a DNS-323 one year ago and it has been on ever since, serving up files reliably to my PC/Mac home network, downloading torrents, and streaming videos to my PS3/XBOX 360 (after installing Twonky Media Server). Based on my mostly positive experience with D-link products and price-to-features ratio, I decided to stick with the brand. I had wasted money on a Galaxy Metal Gear NAS, and read mostly lukewarm reviews for Netgear, Iomega, Linksys, and other makers. Other NAS devices like the DLNA-enabled Buffalo Technology LinkStation Live were attractive, but their price point or storage capacity was not. I need a large number of bays to create a centralized media server.
When I outgrew the DNS-323, I bought a DNS321 2-bay when I really should have applied that $130 toward this 4-bay product instead. I wanted to consolidate the half dozen 1 TB external drives I had sitting around and network them so I didn't have to keep plugging and unplugging USB cables when I wanted to retrieve files. My home network is heterogeneous and I also needed the ability to write large files (4 GB+) to the drives. FAT32 is the only mutually writable format across XP and Mac, but it has a 4 GB filesize limit, making it impractical for my movie storage needs. The D-Link uses a Linux file system (ext2 or ext3, your choice), so filesize concerns are now gone.
I've had this product for a week, and so far so good. The device can be configured from any web browser, so you don't need the CD (which is a Windows-only configuration app). I have 1 TB Hitachi and WD drives inside. Build quality is solid (made of thick aluminum). It's a brick of a device and looks quite durable.
For the price, I am not expecting world class security and many bells and whistles. I just need it for storing my personal files and media on my home network, and stream them, and for that, it works to my satisfaction. The iTunes server works very nicely. For file transfers, I FTP to it and do all my copying that way. For some reason, the Mac is a lot faster (20MB/sec) than copying from XP (10MB/sec). Vista is the worse, and I usually get 5MB/sec.
It would've been really great for D-link to include BitTorrent support for this, like the DNS-323. Maybe in a future firmware update.
All in all, I'm quite happy with this product. I don't place heavy expectations on it and don't demand $1,500 server performance from a $370 device. It was the cheapest 4-bay NAS I could find for the features I wanted and gives great overall performance for the price. You can install telnet on it (look for Fonz's funplug) and open the device up to more hacking if you are so inclined.
Will update this review as I use the device more.

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The D-Link ShareCenter 4-Bay Network Storage Enclosure (DNS-343) connects to your network instead of to a computer so everyone on your network can back up content to one central location. Plus, it lets you share your stored content across your network and over the Internet so family members, friends and employees can access it no matter where they are.

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Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 4 TB Network Attached Storage 34560 (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(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

Click Here to see more reviews about: Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 4 TB Network Attached Storage 34560 (Black)

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 the 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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Western Digital My Book World Edition 1.5 TB Network Attached Storage Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Good device for storing data and media. After updating firmware and connecting via gigabit router, it wirks well with DLNA samsung TV, support farst seek media and control action in video (pause FF, REV).

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Simplified set up and best-in-class performance make My Book World Edition' Home Network Storage the easy choice to store and protect all your family's important digital content and files. Connect the drive to your network router and you're up and running in minutes. Use the included back up software to protect your family's PCs with automatic and continuous backup plans. Store all your digital media in one central location so everyone in the family can have access to it. Compatible with both Windows and Mac files.

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NETDISK SOLO NewFAST - Enclosure 351UNE Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
The Iocell NetDisk 351UNE is a poor product. The name makes everyone believe this device is a "Network Attached storage" device (commonly called a NAS device). This is NOT a NAS device. This device is a 'NDAS' device.
A NDAS device is a made-up word by Iocell/Ximeta to mean their version of a networked storage device. With the Netdisk 351UNE - Using NDAS- the storage device requires every computer to install the 'Netdisk' install utility.
Once done only ONE computer with THEIR software installed write to the drive. The rest can only READ from the drive. With newer versions of their software multiple people may have permissions (beta version). With the upgraded beta versions of the software- the 'host' computer (first computer to have write access while installed) must ALWAYS-BE-ON for other drives to access the data and write to the drive. The included software that ships with the drive only allows for ONE computer to write and is only compatible with Win98/2000/2003 Server for network access. Vista drivers included are only for e-sata/usb.
The Netdisk 351UNE does not support ftp/bit torrent servers/ ect as there is no IP address assigned to the networked drive ever. There is no configuration web page available and no drive statistics to view. To 'mount' and 'unmount' the drive you click on the drive icon available in the task-bar at all times.
Summary:
Do not buy this expecting a NAS device (A drive enclosure that you could simply turn on and have a drive available on the network to save files to retrieve files). The NetDisk 351UNE is not a NAS device. The NetDisk 351UNE is a network gimmick for a poor-mans networked hard-drive at a comparable price.


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3.5" USB/eSATA/Ethernet Enclosure For USB or Network Storage

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

Average Reviews:

(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.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Iomega StorCenter 4 TB ix2-200 Network Storage Cloud Edition 35430

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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Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage ST340005LSA10G-RK Review

Average Reviews:

(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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4TB Blackarmor NAS220

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

Average Reviews:

(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

Click Here to see more reviews about: Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - 2 TB Network Attached Storage 34481 (Black)

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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D-Link DSM-G600 Wireless G Network Storage Enclosure Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)If you don't mind wired speeds of 5.8-6 Megabytes / Second or Wireless 54g speeds of 1.5 Megabytes / Second then this is the device for you. D-link should not market this as Gigabit, it's just not true. I have a gigabit network infrastructure and from computer to computer or computer to other gigabit storage devices I get real-world speeds of 20-22 Megabytes per second transfer rates, BUT going from the same computer using the same network, the transfer speed to the DSM-G600 is 5.8 Megabytes per second. This is awful if you plan on doing anything useful with this device.
I thought I got a bad one, so I even took it back to get a new one and I get the same speed. I verified this with a friend who has the same model, same 6MB/Sec speed. I spoke w/ D-link level 3 support and they told me today that 6MB/Sec is what they have seen with this device and that if a firmware upgrade was available; it would only marginally improve this. There are reports on the internet of speeds between 20-25MB/Sec, so something is going on and D-Link needs to address this issue. BTW, I have Hardware Rev B1, Firmware 1.00
Other than that, the idea for this product is great and the price is right, just don't expect gigabit performance, heck it doesn't even reach 100 megabit speeds. What a shame.
The choice is yours.
11/22/2006 - I thought I owed everyone an update on this box. Since Jan I've been messing w/ this thing just trying to get it to work as advertised. I have tried all 3 Rev. B firmware: 1.00, 1.01, 1.02 (just released) and unfortunately 1.01 and 1.02 are worse than 1.00 - you will experience the web-gui pages only loading ½ way before the box reboots on you. So, now I'm stuck because I can't edit my wireless settings because the box won't stay alive long enough to edit anything. As usual, I will have to downgrade to 1.00 for it to be somewhat functional, although that kills uploading any file > 2gb. I really gave d-link a try on this one, but I would advise people to just stay away from this thing and wait for something better from some other company who offers true support and more frequent and accurate firmware updates or check out freenas, google "freenas" and build your own NAS box for free (minus the hardware) or if you are stuck w/ this google "fun_plug" to at least make this thing somewhat useful. Too many cons on this one:
1.Poor Tech Support
2.Lack of quality, tested firmware
3.Very long delays between firmware revisions
4.NOT GB speeds, way too slow for anything useful except word documents, etc.
5.Wireless has issues with WPA w/ TKIP and sometimes WEP (depending on what firmware you are running)
6.Hard drive doesn't spin down, so you waste energy and hard drive life
7.Very noisy, the fan is so loud you have to keep far away
8.Power button doesn't work right, they tried to fix it in firmware 1.02..
9.List goes on..


Click Here to see more reviews about: D-Link DSM-G600 Wireless G Network Storage Enclosure

Share files and digital media with everyone on the home or office networkAttach up to 2 USB 2.0/1.1 drives for additional storageGigabit Ethernet portAccess point functionality - creates an 802.11g wireless networkBuilt-in FTP serverProtect important files by making regular backupsIncludes detachable antenna power adapter Cat-5 UTP Ethernet cable and software

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Cisco-Linksys Network Storage System with 2 Bays (NAS200) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The others have said it as well as I can. I agree with almost everything written (except the brief 2 line review that says it stinks). But here is my pro/con/comment report:
Pros: Very easy to setup. Very easy to install SATA drives (no cables, just slide in like a hot-swappable scsi drive). NO CLIENT SOFTWARE needed to map drives (just connect to \\nas200\sharename). Web based configuration so no software needed to manage. Option to power down hard drives after 10/20 minutes of inactivity, then another option to power down internal fan 10/20 minutes AFTER hard drives power down (to allow case to cool, I guess. This option makes the unit completely silent when not in use (this wasn't mentioned in other reviews). Inserting a USB hard drive (even one previously formatted as NTFS) results in instant detection, AND instant default share created (\\nas200\disk_1_1 for USB1). (to remove the usb external drive while the NAS is running press the small eject button next to the appropriate USB port. If you pull the cable or shut down the external drive, the NAS needs to be reset to see ALL shares). RAID1 option for protecting that precious data (it recommends configuring as individual drives, but no way would I do that. Why wouldn't you select RAID1 if available? Protect those precious family pictures, guys!). Small footprint, stacks with other linksys gear (routers, switches, APs, etc). Option to automatically shutdown every day or a given day of week at a set time. As nice as that is, the fact that the drives and then fan shutdown after inactivity makes it quiet and power saving anyway. Smaller and quieter and easier than using a separate computer (if you were considering making a Linux file "server" out of that spare tower case you had lying around). You don't need client software to map drives, however, the included client software, if you choose to install it, is very helpful and makes mapping drives very easy (adds a system tray icon to quickly map/unmap drives). Also, the software lets you attach the external USB drives from the NAS as if they were local USB drives (which I thought was very cool).
Cons: somewhat slow. I did 6GB in 30 minutes, so figure over an hour for 10-12GB of data over the 100Mb network. I think people are expecting too much from FastEthernet. Especially if you are using wireless! Here are the numbers: 100Megabits per second = 12.5megabytes per second = 750megabytes/minute = 45,000megabytes/minute = 44(real)Gigabytes/minute (assume 40 because FastEthernet really only gets around 90Mb/s in real world). So this unit is running around 25Mb instead of 100. But I wouldn't throw it out because of that. Also, if you are on wireless, well then your network is only really going around 12Mb/s at its best (over 802.11g) real world numbers. To display the list of files in an explorer window sometimes takes 10-20 seconds (but sometimes the files pop right up in a few seconds). When you have gigabit file sharing at work, the NAS is excruciatingly slow. No support for usb printer (the SLUG unit that linksys sells, basically this device with only 2 external USB drive support, has an active community writing Linux firmware that adds all kinds of features, including print server and firewall. I wonder if anyone is working on open source firmware for the nas200?). I digress. More cons: no provision to backup internal drives to external drives (another item on my Linux wishlist). For some reason, I thought that was mentioned on the spec sheet. If you pull an external drive, all shares disappear and you have to power cycle the unit. Takes almost 2 minutes to boot up. No option to power down external USB drives after inactivity, so even when the nas200 fan and internal drives shutdown, the external drives are still humming along. Not as feature rich as making a Linux file server out of that spare computer case you have lying around ;-).
Conclusion: I like the unit. I think it's really 3.5 stars. Its a little slow, but quiet and small, and it holds as much as you put in (I got two 320GB SATA drives, $80 each). If the USB ports could be print servers, that would be one less device in my linksys "stack". If the box could automatically backup internal drives to the external USB, that would be a little more peace of mind. I use it as my picture, document, and MP3 primary storage. The raid1 protects my data, and I use external USB drives to backup (but it's combersome because I simply map drive letters to both the internal drives and the external drives, then copy from one to the other. It would be nice if that feature was built-in). Its nice to have a unified file storage system at home, where I have 4 laptops and a desktop (for gaming :-), and to do it for about $300. Considering the small outlay, its worth getting to fool around with. If in the end, the speed is too slow for your home/SOHO network...you are only out $140 (and you can put the SATA drives in your beefy gaming rig).

Click Here to see more reviews about: Cisco-Linksys Network Storage System with 2 Bays (NAS200)

Now you can quickly and easily add storage space onto your network with the Linksys Network Storage System. This stand-alone network appliance features two available SATA hard drive bays so you can attach as much storage as you need now, and add more later as your storage needs grow. For even more expandability, there are two USB ports that let you connect readily available USB 2.0 hard drives for even more storage space -- or plug in a USB flash disk for a convenient way of accessing your portable data files.

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NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Well I purchased 4 of these units, hoping to make this stack of 40GB, 80GB and 120GB drives I have laying around the house useful again. So far, buying these was not a good idea. I attribute most of my problems to there not being enough real technical review of the product available, and all documentation simply glosses over technical details in exchange for sales-speak. First, I'll say these are niftily crafted units that might have been pretty slick if they'd worked the way I expected them to. Problems encountered and gripes mounted include:
* These are not NAS devices, as some of the documentation might lead you to believe. A NAS device (network attached storage) typically offers clients the ability to connect to the device, using it's native fileshare method. CIFS for Windows, NFS for Linux/Unix, etc. These devices offer none of that.
* Device is available to Windows clients on the network only. If that's not bad enough, check the following gripe.
* Every PC that wants to access the device needs to have the software CD installed. Usually a NAS device will offer a shared filesystem that can be mounted in the OS's native method. With this box, all the PCs need to have a driver installed in order to see the device.
* DHCP only. There is no option to have a static IP address on the device. It is DHCP only.
* On first install, lamely worded error message hindered the install. After installing the device and the driver, it kept failing with the error "Unable to enumerate drive". The help file was useless. After an hour of messing with it and finally deleting all of my mapped drives, the installation suceeded and I was able to use the device.
* You MUST use the included software. Although the device seems to be listening on port 80, there is no web interface to configure it. The included software, running on Windows is the only way.
* Non-Windows systems are out of luck. This is a Windows only device. Do not try to connect to it with Mac OSX or Linux (both of which I have). The device can be connected and re-shared by a Windows PC, allowing Macs and Linux to get to it, but this has proved painstakingly slow.
* Painstakingly slow. I connected the device to an older Windows PC and the best sustained data transfer I could get (read or write) was around 3MB/s. Hardly a speed demon. My linux fileserver on the same network can easily sustain 10MB/s. I am going to connect the device to a faster Xeon based system and see how speedy it is then.
* Simple security. I saw no method of creating usernames or any kind of security on the device other than the single password that can be setup to access the device. Probably because this is designed for the home where there are not a bunch of users and passwords to manage.
Now this is a pretty new product, so hopefully it will get better with time. It seemed like such a good idea (obviously, I bought 4 of them), but I'm not convinced it was the best execution. Buyer beware.

Click Here to see more reviews about: NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central

The NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central is an expandable storage system that allows shared access by all computers on your network. With space for two IDE hard drives, you can set the device up to mirror each other so you have a backup of all your files in case either one fails.
Excellent Value and Easy Setup Unlike other network-attached storage (NAS) devices, the SC101 does not come with any drives but requires you to purchase your own. This allows for considerable cost savings. Opening up the SC101 only requires turning a latch that can be done with a quarter; no tools are needed. Attach the power connectors and IDE cables, set the jumpers, and slide the drive into place, and that's it.
After the hard drives are installed, plug the device in, attach it to the network, and install the included software. The software guides you through setup step by step. When everything is ready to go, it looks like a new hard drive has been installed on your PC and you use it just as you would any other hard drive. Backup software is included for users who don't already have their own preferred software. Please note that the SC101 is only compatible with Windows machines and won't work with Macs or Linux.
Outstanding Performance with Various Storage Options The SC101 connects to your network via a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet connection for fast data transfers. When you connect two drives to the device, you have the option of having them "mirrored" or "spanned." Mirrored storage lets you keep two copies of every file, one on each drive, so that everything is backed up in case of drive failure. When two drives are set to span, they appear as one volume so they are easy to work with and the device will automatically find your data across both drives.
The front panel has three LEDs to let you know the status of the power, hard disk and network at a glance. The NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central is backed by a 1-year warranty.
What's in the Box SC101 Storage Central, resource CD, power adapter, Ethernet cable, installation guide, SmartSync Pro Backup Software CD, and warranty/support information card.

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