Maxtor teams up with Fabrik on personal server
By Ryan Block 
posted April 1st 2006 8:17PM
posted April 1st 2006 8:17PM
So Maxtor and Valley startup Fabrik are up to something together,
which they're calling Project Fusion. It sounds very cloak and dagger and whatnot, but it's actually pretty transparent
and literal: they're building a personal server (i.e. a big external hard drive) that connects up to the Internet with
Fabrik's service and allows you to access your data with a web-accessible frontend. There's even a new buzzword to
describe the package: "personal media portal." Ok then. According to Maxtor the device could go for as much
as $799 for a 500GB, which leaves a bit of a bad taste in our mouths (especially when there's, you know, about ten
thousand companies out there trying to get your files online for you), but Om likes Fabrik, and you can't really argue with Om.
$700? Hah! I rather buy a used Mac Mini and turn that into my "personal media portal" server ala DynDns or something of the sort.
$799 is a bit too much for this device despite the fact that it has a capacity of 500GB. Maxtor should really address the price issue here unless they may have to suffer a huge setback.
Obselete already at that price Samsung has stand alone VPOD media drives in the 1/2 TB and one TB size coming with price points in the $500 to $1k range...
Wow what a rip for $800...
I'm just hoping we can get Irfant NAS style raid boxes with gigabit and web connectivity for $300 with no drives soon instead of the $800 or so they are now...
Paying $400 for a $25 integrated xscale system on a chip with a single enclosure is a rip (price without drive)
If you want to get your stuff synced/available over the net from your PC try www.foldershare.com it's free and works great.
You definaely don't need to spend $799 to get this experience. If you want browse your files from the web or sync with folders on other machines, get FolderShare for Mac or PC (http://www.foldershare.com). While the server is PC only, Orb (http://www.orb.com) can be used to stream all your movies, pictures, and music to any internet connected device (including phones). Its basically a software version of the SlingBox...
"Project Fusion"?
It must be a hard drive with six blades.
I store all of my files on an external 300 gigger Maxtor. It would be great to access those files from anywhere without having to leave my computer on, just not for $800, though.
I use a Linksys NSLU2 with Unslung firmware for this exact thing, and it didn't cost me more then $110. It's lets you connect any USB-harddrive or USB-flash memory and you can access the files by SAMBA, NFS, FTP or web server etc.
I work for Maxtor and would like to address the pricing concern. Maxtor will offer a broad range of appliances and services that will range from $199 to $799. The high-end offering is a top-of-the-line appliance, not just storage in a box with remote access. It will have its own operating system, motherboard and high-speed processor. However, there will also be a service offering bundled with the purchase of a Maxtor OneTouch or Maxtor Shared Storage solution. The online service will be approx. $50 per year, a minimal cost. For the latest updates on the Maxtor/Fabrik offerings, go to http://www4.maxtor.com/PressCenter/index.cfm.