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Toshiba's new drive could take the headaches out of networked storage
There aren't many network-attached hard drives for the home, and those that exist aren't always easy to use... not unless you enjoy drive mapping, anyway. Toshiba may just make the experience simpler with its just-shipped Canvio Home, though. This sequel to the Canvio Personal Cloud takes some of the guesswork out of setting up and finding your storage on your home network; if you just need to drag-and-drop files, you could be up and running within minutes. The Canvio Home also introduces official Mac support. As before, you can access the Canvio Home from anywhere (including Android and iOS apps), and it will stream media to local DLNA-capable gadgets. Toshiba is selling a 2TB version of the new disk for $200, while its 3TB sibling costs $260.
Drobo 5N: Easy, inexpensive network-attached storage
Over the past few months TUAW has highlighted some of the storage products made by Drobo. First, we took a look at the five-drive Drobo 5D and found it to be a fast and very capable storage device. Next, we had a look at the Drobo mini, which uses four 2.5-inch drives to provide a compact and still speedy solution for those who want expandable redundant storage at a decent price. Today, we'll be looking at a Drobo network-attached storage solution, the Drobo 5N (US$599.99, available online for about $515). Specifications Dimensions: 5.9 x 7.3 x 10.3 inches (150.3 x 185.4 x 262.3 mm) Weight: 8.5 lbs. (3.86 kg) without drives or power supply Power: External AC Adapter, AC Input -- 100-240VAC~2A, 50-60Hz; DC Output -- 12V, 12.5A, 150W max Interface: Gigabit Ethernet (1 port) Capacity: Varies depending on the capacity of drives inserted into the five bays and whether single- or dual-drive redundancy has been enabled. Amazon Buyer Ratings: 3.9 out of 5 stars with 112 reviews RAID capabilities: Uses Drobo proprietary BeyondRaid setup. Can be set up for either single- or double-drive failure redundancy Enclosure Specifics: Not rack-mounted, the Drobo 5N is a self-contained unit Design As we've noted in earlier reviews of Drobo equipment, the company's BeyondRaid technology makes it simple to set up a RAID mass-storage device. Drives don't have to be of the same capacity or even made by the same manufacturer -- instead, you can pop out older, smaller drives when you want and put in newer, faster and larger-capacity drives to keep increasing the capacity of the array. Setting up the device with dual-drive redundancy limits the available capacity of the Drobo 5N, but definitely gives it the ability to withstand multiple drive failures without a hiccup. It's that extra bit of insurance against data loss in those one-in-a-million cases that seem to happen more frequently than that... This unit looks identical to the Drobo 5D with the exception of the back -- where there are multiple interfaces on the rear of the Drobo 5D, here there's just a single Gigabit Ethernet port. You can use that to connect directly to a Mac (that's what I did) or to a wired network. For those situations where you want to share data with others in an office, you'll want to connect it to your fast Ethernet network. Like the Drobo 5D, this unit has an easily accessed slot on the bottom of the device for adding an mSATA SSD for caching purposes. Like the other Drobo family members, the Drobo 5N uses the Drobo Dashboard application to allow configuration and setup of the device. The app recognized the 5N almost immediately, and allowed me to set up shares and users easily -- that's another difference with this NAS device that is not available with the single-user devices. The other big difference with the Drobo 5N is that it can run apps that have been written specifically for the device. Some of those apps include CrashPlan (back up locally and in the cloud), Elephant drive (cloud backup), FireFly open-source media server for iTunes, Modoboa Mailserver, MediaTomb (free UPnP media server), MySQL, Plex media server and Transmission (BitTorrent client). Functionality/Benchmarks Setup of the Drobo 5N was a piece of cake. Without reading the directions (yes, I do have previous experience with Drobo products), I was able to install the three 1 TB, one 2 TB and one 3 TB drives into the carrier-less drive bays, plug it into my Ethernet router and fire it up. The variety of drives used shows you how the Drobo design makes it easy to mix up drive capacities and even manufacturers. The Drobo Dashboard app was already on my MacBook Pro from previous reviews, and it found the array quickly. The Drobo 5N supports CIFS/SMB, but more importantly, it supports Apple Filing Protocol (AFP). For the purposes of testing external drives and RAID arrays, we traditionally use the Intech SpeedTools QuickBench 4.0 app to run multiple cycles of read/write tests. In this case, both the Mac that was running QuickBench (MacBook Pro with Retina display) and the array were connected via Gigabit Ethernet. The MacBook Pro was using an Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter; the Drobo 5N has built-in Gigabit Ethernet; and the two were connected via a Linksys Gigabit Ethernet router. The Drobo 5N did not have the optional mSATA SSD installed for caching, so the benchmark results you see here are on the low end of what the device is capable of doing. To ensure accuracy in testing, I performed a 100-cycle complete test. This subjects the drive to sequential and random read and write tests with file sizes from 4K to 100 MB, then graphically or textually displays that information to show the "sweet spots" for a specific drive or array. For example, if your work involves shuffling around a lot of very large files, you'll probably want a drive that has peak read/write speeds for files around your average file size. Here are the test results: Sequential Read: 48.452 MB/Sec (140.504 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Sequential Write: 12.398 MB/Sec (93.245 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Random Read: 51.344 MB/Sec (116.435 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Random Write: 21.866 MB/Sec (70.410 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Large Read: 109.947 MB/Sec (341.327 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Large Write: 71.205 MB/Sec (282.060 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Extended Read: 107.690 MB/Sec (255.953 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) Extended Write: 46.833 MB/Sec (262.864 MB/Sec for Drobo 5D connected via Thunderbolt) As you'll note, the results are slower across the board for the network-attached Drobo 5N than for a Thunderbolt Drobo 5D -- but that's quite expected as these are two different animals. The Drobo 5N is all about sharing data, and in that it excels. The drive can act as a "poor man's server" for small offices, complete with the ability to set permissions and users. Through the use of Drobo Apps, the device can be an email or database server as well. Sure, a Drobo 5N doesn't provide all of the many capabilities of a "real" server, but for a small business, the combination of large, expandable and redundant storage, security and apps could be a relatively low-cost and easily supported solution. I didn't mention some of the other publicly supported Drobo apps, but the ability to run MySQL, PHP and Apache as well could make this an excellent WordPress server for a serious blogger. The bottom line? If you need large, fast storage for one person, then the Thunderbolt-connected Drobo 5D is an excellent solution. But if you want an easy-to-setup, easily supported network-attached storage solution, the Drobo 5N is the device you want to buy. Price-wise, you're looking at a really reasonable solution, too. At Drobo's online prices, a 5N with five 2 TB drives (7.26 TB of usable shared capacity) runs US$1,099. Buy the same device on Amazon at $490 and add five Western Digital 2 TB NAS hard drives for $98.95 each, and you're looking at less than $1,000. Drobo offers a standard two-year warranty for the device, with a 3-year extended warranty and enhanced support available for a fee. Conclusion Drobo's product line has matured, and for the better. We've tested all three of the professional line -- the Drobo Mini, the Drobo 5D and now the network-attached Drobo 5N -- and all of the devices are stoutly built, easy to install and relatively fast. While the Drobo 5N won't break any speed records as an Ethernet-attached device, it's still quite speedy and a very reasonably priced NAS solution. The addition of Drobo Apps adds a level of flexibility that makes the Drobo 5N a no-brainer for small business shared storage. I honestly don't know how any vendor can make network-attached storage more simple to set up or inexpensive to buy than Drobo has with the 5N. Rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 stars possible
Samsung's HomeSync media hub will play nice with non-Samsung Android devices
If ever a product needed to work harder to justify its price tag, it'd be Samsung's new $299 HomeSync box. Fortunately, the manufacturer seems to be self-aware enough to make some changes: the Android-powered storage, streaming and mirroring hub will soon offer full support for Jelly Bean phones and tablets even if they're outside of the Galaxy stable. This should allow an average household with numerous, diversely-branded devices to store and share their photos, music and videos using the HomeSync's 1TB "personal cloud," while also using their handsets as remote controls and as sources for mirroring via the box's HDMI input. As things stand, however, only a handful of non-Samsung phones, like the Sony Xperia Z and HTC One, are listed as compatible over at the Google Play store, and it could be a while before the HomeSync becomes truly brand-agnostic. In the meantime, there are plenty of other mobile-friendly NAS solutions around that are worth a look.
Ask Engadget: best home backup system?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Stevie, who wants to get into the archival game. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I'd like to set up a central backup system for all four of our home computers. I'd like to have a wired and wireless option as they're all scattered around the place, and would need to have a very safe redundant disk system of some kind, and also to act as a media storage device for future HTPC uses. Am I wanting too much? Is there some hope out there for me? Thanks!" Now, in our humble opinion, what you're really looking for is a beefy NAS with enough speed to pump backups in and movies out at a comfortable rate. Our first thought, therefore, is to suggest the LaCie 2big, which'll throw information around your network at 100MB/s and can be picked up for under $500 (if you go for the non-Thunderbolt version). The big upside of using a device like this, of course, is that it'll happily work with both Windows and OS X backup software, taking a lot of the hard work out of your hands. Still, that's just one suggestion from us, we're reasonably sure that the mavens who lurk in our comment threads will more than happily oblige you with some more suggestions.
WD upgrades NAS-friendly Red drives with 2.5-inch versions and 4TB desktop model
If you're looking for hard drives built to withstand the rigors of network-attached storage, Western Digital has a treat in store for you. The company just expanded its Red line of NAS-ready drives to include 2.5-inch models in 750GB and 1TB capacities; both disks fit into smaller enclosures while maintaining the Red series' power and speed optimizations for always-on media servers. WD is offering a few perks for desktop users, too. The existing 3.5-inch range now includes a high-capacity 4TB drive, and every new Red model ships with NASware 2.0 technology that should improve reliability. All three Red variants are shipping today; the compact 750GB and 1TB disks respectively sell for $79 and $99, while the 4TB behemoth costs $229.
LaCie's updated NAS OS 3 software boosts RAID write speeds, expands hybrid cloud capabilities
Rely heavily on a LaCie 5big NAS Pro or 2big NAS? If so, you'll want to carve out a few minutes to inject a bit of new software (tap "Support" in the product's Dashboard). The aforementioned outfit has updated its NAS OS 3 software today, increasing RAID 5 write speeds by 25 percent, expanding hybrid cloud capabilities and adding more professional features. With this update, the LaCie 5big NAS Pro now features RAID 5 write speeds up to 100MB/s on a single LAN, a 25 percent increase from the previous NAS OS version. In addition to letting users sync data between a computer and the cloud, NAS OS 3.1 now lets users sync data between a computer and the NAS. For the pros in attendance, you'll be pleased to know that the software now features hardware monitoring that alerts the admin in real time of potential issues with the fan, CPU and RAM. The new build (v3.1) is available today for the 5big NAS Pro and will be available in August for the 2big NAS; for more, peek the full presser after the break.
Apple's newest AirPort Extreme base station gets dissected
The skyscraper? The hauteur router? The dapper WAP? All reasonable nicknames were considered, but in the end, Apple's sticking with "AirPort Extreme." The newest base station -- the one introduced alongside the company's Haswell-infused MacBook Air at WWDC -- takes on a new look and gains 802.11ac support, but that's not what you're here for. You're here for two reasons: first, you want to see this thing reverse engineered, and second, you want to get an idea of just how repairable it is. The gurus over at iFixit have done their usual teardown, offering up a plethora of lovely JPGs and settling on a respectable 8 out of 10 on the Repairability Index. Eager to learn more? Give that source link below a soft tap... with the key word being soft.
Plex app now available for Drobo's media-savvy 5N NAS
With its quad-core ARM processor, the Drobo 5N is capable of much more than just storing files, and you can now grab a Plex app to help it live up to that potential. Once installed, it'll turn the NAS into a full blown media server to distribute up to 16TB of protected media to any of your Plex- or DLNA-supported SmartTVs, handheld devices, Mac or PC computers, set top boxes and gaming consoles. Plex said that the Drobo, while not capable of performing real-time video transcoding, will be able to demux multiple video and audio streams and transcode multi-channel audio to stereo AAC in real-time. If you already shelled out $600 for one of the speedy boxes -- on top of the drives to populate it -- the free cost of the app is probably a relief. You can grab it from your Drobo Dashboard.
Transporter: Network attached storage with flair
The Transporter from Connected Data offers a new generation of network-attached storage (NAS). This technology allows you to connect a hard drive to your router, access it from anywhere and share its stored files. It is a bring-your-own drive alternative to the cloud. Units cost US$199 for a supply-your-own drive system (the company recommends any major brand 2.5" drive) or ships with 1 TB ($299) or 2TB ($399) ready-to-go drives. The drives sit inside the Transporter enclosure, making the system both compact and clean. Just connect to your Ethernet router and power, and you're ready to rock and roll. Net-connected drives offer all the cloud-like convenience of data-anywhere without the monthly or yearly costs you'd fork over to Dropbox, Google, Box.net, Amazon or SkyDrive. You supply the disk, so accessible storage expands as much as needed. What you get is privacy. Many users cannot use Dropbox-style storage due to HIPAA or legal concerns. Sending data to third-party sites in the cloud can contravene security. With NAS, you own and control your data, ensuring you limit who can access it remotely. There are drawbacks to these systems as well. Because they physically sit near your home computer, they're not really suitable for cloud backup. A fire that destroys your computer will also destroy your Transporter. (You can, of course, buy one for your office and another for your home, sharing data and helping to mitigate this limitation.) And, they don't offer the kind of server-based redundancy guarantees that many online services like Dropbox provide. That's why I was so disappointed that the feature I was most hoping to use the Transporter for has not yet shipped, specifically buddy-based private offsite backups. Mark Fuccio of Connected Data Marketing told me that while the company is definitely committed to rolling out encrypted folders, the option won't be available for at least three to six months. With encrypted off-site folders, you'd be able to share, say, half your drive, with a friend. You could then store data there providing the offsite component that's missing from most NAS installs. Right now, if someone physically steals a drive, all bets are off -- the data is readable. What's more, any data you place on a buddy's Transporter is also readable, making you rely on, as Fuccio put it, the "honor system" for the near future. The Transporter is not meant for use as a Time Machine destination. Its focus is on providing a turnkey solution with a well-controlled sharing experience. If you're looking for an offsite backup solution, you'll probably do better subscribing to one of the dedicated services like Mozy, Crashplan, Carbonite or Backblaze. In our testing, the Transporter basically did what it promised. We easily shared data locally and remotely, with a dedicated web interface to manage the drive. The software felt a bit first-generation, but that's what you normally expect from early access. We ran into one major problem when files I shared to Steve Sande initially overwhelmed his network -- but we quickly found the online bandwidth limitation options and restored his network to reasonably working order. Transporter seemed to measure up well against the NAS field and I particularly liked the unit with the built-in drive enclosure. Anyone looking for this kind of off-site data access should be pleased with the hardware and performance it offers.
Intel launches Atom CE5300-based storage platform with multiple streams, smart scaling
There's been more than a few Atom-based storage servers. Most of them either have to lean on the same Atom processors you'd usually get with nettops, though, which makes them less than ideal for media tasks than a chip dedicated to the job. Intel has just launched a new platform that might be a better fit for home network storage. New NAS arrays from Asustor, Synology, Thecus and others (none yet pictured here) all revolve around a dual-core Atom CE5300 system-on-chip that's better-optimized for media processing duties: it can stream video across the network to multiple devices at once, and can automatically downscale video to accommodate smaller screens. The small chip contributes to a relatively small price at the same time, with NAS boxes starting around $299. Not everyone can suddenly justify a dedicated media server in the home just because the CE5300 is an option, but those that do may at least get more for their money.
Kanex meDrive turns any USB drive into a NAS for iOS devices, we go hands-on
Kanex may be more famous as a cable maker, but it still has priors when it comes to knocking out the odd device. meDrive is a small white box that's designed to turn any old USB HDD into a network attached storage (NAS) drive. We're no friend to buzzwords like "private cloud," but as the unit promises to swell the capacity of our microSD-slot lacking iOS devices, we couldn't resist giving it a go. Does this $99 box do all that it promises to do? Find out, after the break.
QNAP adds NAS lines with XBMC support, skips the home theater middleman
High-rolling (or just highly nerdy) home theater PC setups often have network-attached storage to hold the reams of video that invariably won't fit on the PC itself. QNAP wonders why we don't just cut to the chase -- both of its TS-x69L and TS-x69 Pro entries in the Turbo NAS range support XBMC's home theater software out of the gate, letting either NAS serve as the front-end as long as they're hooked up through HDMI. They won't be the most powerful when they're powered by dual-core, 2.13GHz Atom chips; that might be forgiven when there's space for as many as eight hard drives shareable across the entire home. The lineups start at $479 for empty two-bay editions and scale up to $1,099 for eight. Not cheap, we know, but they may be relative bargains for any movie-watchers looking to simplify the living room.
Corsair outs Voyager Air with WiFi storage, NAS, USB 3.0 and repeater all in one
Corsair is very much associated with devices that need a physical connection to work, whether they're thumb drives or memory sticks. It's looking to cut the cord in style through its new Voyager Air. You'll have seen some of what it does with a predecessor like Kingston's Wi-Drive, with media streaming to Android and iOS devices, a WiFi repeater mode and USB 3.0 support, but Corsair's drive goes the extra mile by serving as network attached storage through a gigabit Ethernet link. The 7-hour battery life when completely wireless certainly helps its prospects, at least among its immediate rivals. Corsair plans to ship the Voyager Air by early February in a 500GB version for $180 and 1TB for $220; either price sounds reasonable for a home media server that ultimately doesn't have to stay at home.
How to move your iTunes library to a NAS (Updated)
Update: We've heard from a knowledgable source that the process described in the Ars story may lead to issues down the road. Specifically, newly purchased or rented video content that ends up on the NAS filesystem may be unplayable due to format errors (previously purchased movies or TV shows should be fine, however). There's also a vigorous discussion in the Ars forums regarding the wisdom of relocating the library to a case-sensitive filesystem, and suggesting that a symlink to a sparseimage may be a better way to go. Other readers suggested using the $14.99 TuneSpan application to manage the offloading of media to the remote library folder, which would avoid a lot of the complications. If you've got a NAS iTunes library, let us know how you solved these challenges. --- Given how many functions iTunes is actually used for these days (iOS syncing, app shopping and buying books, music and movies), it's easier than ever to forget what it was originally used for: listening to music. But of course that's still the software's main function, and if you want to move your entire library over to an NAS -- which stands for network-attached storage, or a hard drive that connects up to a local area network -- then this writeup from Ars Technica has you covered. The easiest way to share an iTunes library in this way is simply to move the mp3 files (and then re-add them to whatever installation of iTunes you're using), but as Ars says, that will lose all of your collected metadata so far. If you want to actually keep all of your extra data, however, you'll need to actually move your folder location in iTunes to your new NAS folder, and then tell iTunes to copy over all of your collected music and data. Note that because of the differences between file systems (some may be case-sensitive and some not), just moving your iTunes files location may cause a few issues. And of course having a larger or more complicated library can be problematic as well -- if your library is due for a cleaning, it might be worth it just to say goodbye to the data so far and move on. But iTunes can be resilient if you do your homework before trying to make the move. There are other ways to do this as well -- you could just share your library from one computer to another with the built-in library sharing feature on your Mac. Or you could move a hard drive around (which might be handy if you need the library in a few different networks, like home and work), keeping your entire library on there. There are plenty of cloud options as well, which will only become more and more easy to use as time goes on. iTunes may be used for all sorts of other operations these days, but it's still a very robust and powerful music listening and organization app as well.
Drobo's new 5N is a speedy $600 NAS for when you need files, stat
Tragically, we only learned about Drobo's new 5N after we'd hired a warehouse the size of an aircraft hanger to store our latest, 12 million page novel. If you want to avoid our mistake, then the company's latest NAS might end your own storage woes. The new hardware is part of the same family as the 5D and Drobo Mini, except this one ditches the Thunderbolt connection in favor of a single gigabit-ethernet port. Inside, there's space for five 3.5-inch drives, giving you a maximum capacity of 20TB. An mSATA slot for an SSD drive will let you make use of Drobo's "data-aware tiering" feature, which gives applications like Adobe Lightroom and iTunes faster access to your NAS-stored files. The base model will set you back $600 and will be available in "mid December," which we impatiently hope is a euphemism for "tomorrow."
Western Digital offers 8TB version of its My Book Live Duo NAS
Western Digital is mightily proud of its new 4TB hard drives, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see them winding up in the company's range of external storage products. The latest to get the spec bump is the My Book Live Duo, the dual-drive RAID box that promises to keep your memories safe should the worst happen. The range-topping 8TB edition will set you back $660, but if your credit card isn't that elastic, you can snag a 6TB unit for $440 and a 4TB box for $375.
Seagate Wireless Plus drive appears at the FCC teasing next-gen WiFi storage for Android, iOS
Seagate has jumped into wireless mobile storage with both feet, launching the GoFlex Satellite (now just the Satellite) and even experimenting with an LTE-equipped drive for dedicated road warriors. The FCC has just revealed that Seagate isn't having second thoughts about its strategy anytime soon: a previously unknown Wireless Plus drive has popped up at the US agency carrying 2.4GHz WiFi and a considerably slicker design. We don't know much more, although a handily provided copy of the quick start guide makes clear that the Wireless Plus is still centered on Android and iOS device owners wanting to stream media beyond what's on their internal memory. FCC clearance won't give any clues as to capacities or a ship date, but it suggests that it won't be long before our mobile devices have some added headroom.
Ask Engadget: What's the best way to store my media collection?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Michael, who is suffering from a storage crunch. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I'm a bargain-basement kinda guy, and I've picked up lots of DVDs cheaply during the sale season(s). I was planning to rip my collection with Handbrake so I could watch them on my iPad, but my 1TB HDD is already close to being maxed out! Is there a better solution out there than just buying a 2TB HDD now, waiting a year and buying a 3TB HDD when the prices come down? Is there a cheap RAID-style system that plays nicely with my iTunes? Please help!" You can pick up a standalone 3TB external HDD for between $150 and $200, Or you could take the leap and set up an iTunes home server, perhaps using the cheapest Synology DiskStation, which is $200 plus the cost of the drives. That way you can get a 4TB iTunes server for just under $400. You could also snag a Drobo that'll give you the same storage options with significantly increased expandability, up to 16TB in the future. That said, perhaps our friendly readers know a way to tame this man's ever growing media collection, so if you've already set up your own system, why not share your knowledge in the comments below?
Iomega releases two new StorCenter NAS drives to contain that ever-expanding data waistline
If you're an advanced user or small businessperson with a storage shortage, then Iomega's new hardware is probably trying to catch your eye. The StorCenter px2 and ix4 are a pair of full bodied NAS systems that offer a secure and speedy haven for your most important data. Using EMC storage technology, the hardware offers a personal cloud and Time Machine support for Mac using backup-fans. The barebones px2 is $500, with the prices running to $1,200 for a 6TB model, and if you're in need of something heftier, the storage-free ix4 sets you back $600, but can take up to 12TB worth of drive if you splash out $1,300.
ioSafe takes to Indiegogo to raise funds for the N2, its new disaster-proof NAS
ioSafe makes hard-drives so sturdy that it can reduce fire, electricity and Terrence O'Brien to tears at the mere thought of them. Now, it's producing a new disaster-proof NAS, but as a small business, needs a cash injection from consumers to make it happen. As such, it's taking to Indiegogo to raise funds for the ioSafe N2, a private cloud Synology-powered NAS that'll keep up to 8TB of data protected from the elements. On the outside, a steel body that'll take a building collapsing onto it protects a chemically bound fireproof insulation and water / heat barrier will stop your discs flooding or melting, depending on the catastrophe. The company's planning to have the units shipping by January next year, when the 23lb box will set you back $600 without discs -- and if you're hard enough, you can find PR after the break.
