In case you need a lot – I mean a lot – of torrent storage, the latest Buffalo TeraStation Pro is for you with its 6TB of storage capacity. Four 1.5TB HDDs provide the storage through either RAID 0, 1, 5, or 1+0 and gigabit Ethernet, of course, provides connectivity. This TeraStation Pro incarnation has all the standard NAS features like Active Directory support, built-in FTP server, and gawd-high price of €1,580 ($2,114). No word when this product will leave the Japanese market but chances are, we should see it here in the States shortly; your pr0n collection can’t wait.
Well, well. Seems Iomega’s put out a pretty affordable NAS hard drive in the $299 StorCenter ix2. There’s even a 2TB version for $479 if you’re really adventurous. This is a hopefully a good sign of things to come after Iomega’s merger with EMC earlier this year. Iomega promises an easy “four-click set-up” with the ix2 line and the drives include EMC’s Retrospect Express backup software for automating everything.
It also doubles as a media server with UPnP and iTunes support. And, get this, there will be an optional Bluetooth add-on that’ll allow you to upload stuff from Bluetooth-enabled devices. No word on when it’ll be available or at what price, but the ix2 system itself will ship on October 30th so maybe we’ll get more info then.
LaCie, no stranger to the storage game, is putting out a unique-looking and high-capacity RAID network-attached storage box. It’ll hold up to 7.5TB at the moment, which is a huge amount but looks smaller every day as storage capacities skyrocket. I’d say a year ago a terabyte was like “wow, a terabyte?” and now it’s like “yeah, let me get a couple of those.”
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Western Digital just announced the ShareSpace, a network-attached storage solution aimed at the home or small biz user. The 2 or 4 Terabyte NAS hooks up like every other NAS on the market through a gigabit connection and serves up your wares throughout the network. A front USB port allows users to dump other USB-based drives into the massive RAID array with just a touch of a button. Western Digital even included built-in backup software and an iTunes server. Interested? The 2 or 4 TB drives are currently available and going for $699 and $999 respectively.
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Sony’s got two new Walkman models due for release next month, the NW-S730F and the NW-S630F. They’re both flash-based, with storage capacities going up to 16GB. They play the standard file formats, including Sony’s ATRAC and H.264 video, but the lack of FLAC is just annoying. Differentiate your product from the iPod, Sony!
No price as yet.
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Credit to LG for demoing the world’s first network attached storage (NAS) with a built-in Blu-ray burner. Those are two really different technologies, a high capacity disc and a high capacity disk, but I guess LG is giving the people what they want. (How many of you have Blu-ray burners, by the way, and why?)
The NAS supports up to 4TB using four HDDs, while the built-in Blu-ray drive is mainly used to back up data.
Looking to share USB devices across your home network? Got $80? Then pick up the IOGEAR USB Net ShareStation. The product’s website says, “Users may not achieve optimum audio/video streaming performance when connecting to the USB Net ShareStation through a wireless Ethernet router,” but I loaded up a 1080p WMV file and streamed it via wireless just fine. You can hook up external drives, a 4-port USB hub, a webcam, a printer, or just about any other USB device.
IOGEAR USB Net ShareStation [IOGEAR.com]
IOGEAR’s ShareStation costs $80 and allows you to share USB devices. Smart, huh? You can share just about any USB-based device across multiple computers that are connected to the same network.
IOGEAR cautions that “Users may not achieve optimum audio/video streaming performance when connecting to the USB Net ShareStation through a wireless Ethernet router,” if you were to share, say, a USB hard drive, but it looks like most other devices that don’t require lightning-quick reflexes should do just fine — printers, scanners, and whatnot. You can plug the device into a 4-port USB 2.0 hub, too, and do a little four-way sharing. Very nice.
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Drobo phone home
Most of you have probably heard of Drobo, the data storage robot/system from Data Robotics. We’ve done a review of the original Drobo here on CrunchGear, but recently Drobo was updated with a little brother named DroboShare, which painlessly converts Drobo into a Network Attached Storage device. I’ve had one hanging out with me for several weeks now, and I’ve formed an opinion: It’s sweet.
Big HDDaddy
Let’s have a brief overview of the Drobo just in case you haven’t read up on it. Essentially, it’s a completely self-contained system that takes whatever hard drives you give it (up to 4) and makes the data pretty much indestructible. If you have two drives in it, it will mirror the data one to the other, and if you have three or more it will stripe the data across them with parity. It’s aware of the organization of the data and when things change, it reshuffles the blocks to make sure they’re both safe and accessible. The downside, of course, is that you lose actual space to put things in; two 500 gig drives, for instance, will result in a total of 500 gigs of useable space. Drives are so cheap these days that that’s hardly an issue, but no one likes their gigabytes per dollar to be messed with too much.
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Setting up a home storage server has long been fraught with peril. I’ve in fact had a terabyte and a half of storage space lying in NAS blocks in the past year and never stored more than a few movies on any of these devices. There just wasn’t a good, sane way to keep things updated without going through arcane web interfaces or maintaining a network disk connection that — in the end — would always fail.
That said, meet the Lacie Ethernet Disk Mini. It’s not a brand new device but I’m here to talk more about the on-board software than anything else. This is because the HipServ firmware that resides on this particular drive is probably one of the best examples of a home server that could actually be used and installed by anyone who actually lives in a house and does not have a Master’s in Information Systems.
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Drobo, our favorite storage robot, now has a sidekick, the DroboShare. Couldn’t you have come up with a fancier name then that? Well, whatever. If you have a Drobo and need to share that content with others in your LAN then the DroboShare is the ideal accruement. It works with all operating systems including Home Media Centers and is the first NAS to support all major file systems, such as NTFS, HFS+, EXT3, and FAT32. The system currently supports up to 8TB today, but can easily accommodate 32TB when the time comes. It’s available now for $199.
Product Page
This home-networking thing is really taking off. With the popularity of BitTorrent, and the average consumer realizing they can rip DVDs they own, home-based network attached storage is going to be a huge market. And Intel know it, that’s why its launching the SS4200 family of affordable, easy-to-use NAS systems.
The systems can contain up to 4 SATA drives and attach to the network via Gigabit Ethernet. Any computers on the network can then mount the share, and everyone can use it for storage, taking the load off all the laptops the pesky kids have.
Pricing will depend on exactly how much storage you need, but this is the first Intel NAS aimed at the home user, and we highly doubt it’ll be the last.
ss4200 series [Product Page]
Hewlett Packard’s MediaSmart Home Server, pictured here, made a brief blip on the internet radar recently when it showed up and quickly disappeared from various online stores (it’s still up on Amazon, however).
It’ll apparently be available to ship on September 15th and there will be two models available, a 500GB version for $599 and a 1TB version for $749. Each will have an AMD Sempron processor running at 1.8GHZ.
Other hardware partners include Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, Iomega, Lacie, and Medion so we might expect to see a wider variety of systems becoming available in the not-too-distant future. See our previous Windows Home Server post for a brief overview of what it can do.
Amazon leaks price, date of first Windows Home Server box [ComputerWorld] via ActiveWin.com
So if you were shopping for a network-attached storage drive and were on the fence about which to get, Buffalo’s added a little sumthin’ sumthin’ to tip you in their favor: Web access to your digital files. Now you’ll be able to access all your files stored on either the 1, 2 or 3TB TeraStation Live NAS devices from any Web browser.
The device includes its own dynamic DNS server so users simply log onto www.buffaloNAS.com, enter their user name and instantly have access to all of their files. Additionally, they can access their device by going to www.buffaloNAS.com/theirusername. Because there is no need to download software, set-up is a breeze. Web Access uses UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and requires no firewall configuration for seamless communication between the TeraStation Live and any web browser.
That sounds like a good time to me. Perfect for letting your friends and family have at your digital media. Remember: Sharing is caring.
BUFFALO TECHNOLOGY ADDS EASY REMOTE ACCESS TO ITS TERASTATION LIVE NAS DEVICE
Searching for a bargain NAS and own a Mac Mini? You really couldn’t ask for more with the Lindy Mini NAS. Aside from looking like the Mac Mini’s illegitimate brother, the Mini NAS has space for full-size 3.5-inch drives and comes with a built-in FTP server, Samba support, and 10/100 Ethernet. Oh noes! No gigabit!
Not a networking guru? Who cares. Use a USB cable to easily connect to the Mini NAS. You can cop this hot piece of NAS for about $132.
Lindy’s Mini NAS enclosure hearts your Mac mini [Engadget]
Windows Home Server software is heading to its OEM partners today, according to a post on the WHS team’s blog.
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Need more storage? Buy a larger hard drive. Need A LOT more storage? Pick up the new 3TB TeraStation Live (HS-DH3.0TGL/R5) or the 3TB TeraStation Pro II (TS-H3.0TGL/R5) from Buffalo Technology. The network attached storage drives were announced and released today, stamped with a company claim of being the “industry’s fastest single NAS devices in its class on the market today, delivering a high-speed processor for ultra-fast data transfer rates of up to 38MB/s which is comparable to a USB 2.0 hard drive.”
For the unfamiliar, the TeraStation Live (already available in 1TB and 2TB versions) is more for media sharing than simple file storage with its abilities to be used as an iTunes server and now can save pictures and video directly from cameras. The TeraStation Pro II (also in 1TB and 2TB versions) is aimed at SMB and SOHO customers with improved power management and security features.
With an estimated street price of $2,499, they certainly aren’t for everyone. In fact, while I get the SMB demand for the Pro II, I can’t imagine the market for the consumer-friendly 3TB Live NAS drive is a big one, but you know, maybe it’s a “if you build it, they will come” kinda thing.
BUFFALO ANNOUNCES THE FIRST 3TB NAS OF ITS KIND [press release]
In an effort to make your life all the more easy, Belkin has come up with the Network USB Hub. The hub plugs into your home network (router, access point, what have you) and then you can plug up to four USB devices into the hub. From then on, you’ll be able to access those devices from any computer on the network.
Since it’s compatible with the still unfinished 802.11n, it’s conceivable to stick the hub and a bunch of external drives, printers, scanners, etc. in a closet, so as not to clutter your desk. I know mine is pretty filthy, thanks in part to a bunch of external drives I have strewn about.
This wunderhub will be available in June for around $130. And since external hard drives are fairly cheap nowadays (don’t believe what Microsoft has to say), you can start building a data library that rivals even Alexandria.
Belkin 802.11n hub to link up USB add-ons remotely [The Register]
Thanks Liam!
I would absolutely love one of these to keep my, ah, “home movie” collection on. Jack In The Box MZK-NAS02 is essentially a NAS with two SATA bays plus a dedicated Bit Torrent client built-in. Using a web-based interface, you can control the Bit Torrent and NAS functions easily, allowing you to pirate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from any location in the world. Jack is capable of RAID 0 or 1 arrays and supports hot-swapping drives. Have a speedy internet connection in your home office? Take advantage of it by using Jack’s Gigabit Ethernet connection or add your own media via the SD/MCC card slot on the front of the device.
Now before you clean your saliva up, pick your tongue up off the floor etc., we should warn you that Jack In The Box is currently Japan only and there is no official US release date in sight. The expected cost for the device is around $333 and no word yet on if you’ll be able to easily import it.
Jack In The Box: BitTorrent-Enabled Network Storage Guaranteed To Spook RIAA [Gizmodo]
Illegal downloading just got a good bit easier, L.A. Boy Scouts Be Damned. Software maker BitTorrent has signed a deal that will enable it to pre-install its software on electronic devices. The first companies to go along with this are Asustek Computer, Planex Communication and QNAP Systems. If all goes according to plan, and the RIAA and MPAA don’t intervene some time soon, BitTorrent will be available on wireless routers, media servers and network attached storage (NAS) devices pretty soon. While I understand the worth of something like this, it’s being touted as a “PC-less downloading solution.” But how are you going to access your NAS without a PC?
In Brief: BitTorrent inks deals to embed software in products [InfoWorld]
