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Synology introduces DiskStation DS211+, review finds the plus stands for performance
If you're not down with this whole "careless computing" craze you still need somewhere to stuff your files, and Synology has introduced a new high-performance and (relatively) low-cost option. It's the DS211+, a dual-bay, hot-swappable NAS with an integrated card reader and software providing easy security administration, remote access, and even surveillance storage duties. It's priced at "around $400" and, according to an early review at KitGuru, it's well worth the cost, delivering "stunning levels of bandwidth" and leading to various other hyperbolic conclusions that make us think you might want to wait for a second, less euphemistic opinion before clicking the buy button. %Gallery-111503%
QNAP's TS-119P+ Turbo NAS offers a 'fashionably shiny design,' just one HDD bay
When it comes to external storage, the amount of gloss provided by the enclosure in question is really of paramount importance. QNAP knows this, and so it is touting the new TS-119P+'s "fashionably shiny design" -- oh, and its single HDD bay, iSCSI support, 1.6GHz processor, and 512MB of RAM too. It pulls down just 12 watts of power while in operation, five while sleeping, and thanks to the bevy of software sharing apps that come along with the thing you can stream media files straight to your iPhone or Android device, even host your Windows AD to unify login accounts. QNAP isn't saying how much you'll pay for this combination of features and style, but expect it to ship next week. BYO storage, of course. Update: Uwe wrote in to let us know that this is actually available now in Europe at a cost of around 240 €, which corresponds to about $325. %Gallery-107621%
Verbatim's diminutive MediaShare Mini NAS: memory not included
Verbatim, whose business is memory (and whose name means "to reproduce word for word," by the way) has done a Rick Moranis job on its MediaShare NAS, resulting in the MediaShare Mini. One third the size of its predecessor, this guy retains its slight stature by going the Iomega iConnect route of eschewing on-board storage altogether for four USB ports (so it looks like you'll have to factor the four thumb drives into the purchase price). And like the full-size MediaShare NAS server, this bad boy supports remote access via HTTP, support for a number of handhelds (including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, and Palm Pre), Facebook integration, DLNA-compliant media streaming, and more. Look for it now for an MSRP of $90.
WD Live TV Hub media streamer / NAS leaks out of Best Buy with gigabit ethernet, 1TB hard drive
Western Digital's got a few different media streamers to its name, but the only one with sizable internal storage was the pared-down Elements Play. No more, because the AVS Forums have stumbled upon a feature-packed alternative -- the WD TV Live Hub. Purchased at a Best Buy before the blue shirts realized their mistake, the slim new set-top comes with 1TB of storage, 1080p playback over HDMI 1.4, component and composite video out, optical S/PDIF, and all the internet connectivity you'd expect (including Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora, YouTube and Facebook) over speedy gigabit ethernet. We don't know how robust the network-attached-storage functionality is, but the lucky owner of this box says it serves up iTunes and DLNA and can function as a network share, just like the My Book Live. Not too shabby for $229, eh? Find plenty more pics and a list of supported formats at our source link. [Thanks, Arjun]
Seagate tosses 3TB hard drives into BlackArmor NAS, stores a digital boatload
It wasn't that long ago that an entire network attached storage box held just 3TB, but now that Seagate's reached that capacity with a single five-platter drive, the NAS are getting larger in turn. Though you can't buy a 3TB Barracuda XT all by its lonesome, you can today order four of them direct from Seagate in a BlackArmor NAS 440 with RAID 5, for the presumably reasonable price of $1,899. If that's too rich for your local area network's blood, however, we hear there'll also be a 6TB NAS 220 unit with a pair of disks for a penny under $650. Let's just hope the giant fan on the back of this box keeps those suckers cool.
LaCie's Windows Home Server-powered 5big Backup Server now shipping for big money
The last we heard from LaCie about its upcoming home server we didn't know much more than five bays inside, gigabit Ethernet on the back, and Windows Home Server running the show. Seven months on it's now available and we have all the details you could want. The 5big Backup Server apes the vaguely HAL 9000esque styling of earlier 5big storage devices, contains an Intel Atom D410 processor, manages up to 10TB of storage across those five bays, and offers four USB and one eSATA ports around back if you need more, more, more. Through WHS you can naturally support the backup needs of 10 PCs and there's also Time Machine support for 25 more fruity clients. The cost? You can get one with five 1TB drives for $1,199.99 (€1,239 in Europe), a bit of a premium over a comparable equipped HP Storageworks WHS box -- such is the cost of good aesthetics.
Plextor gets all zen with PlexMedia: a modular, network-attached Blu-ray player
It's not often we come across an external drive that looks like anything but a brick, so we were pleasantly surprised to see Plextor demoing something a little more svelte at Computex. We can tell the PlexMedia network attached media player (bottom) is a looker right off the bat, but it truly becomes useful when you plug in the PX-B120U (top) designed to go with it. The combination is a fully-functional Blu-ray disc player that apparently outputs to a TV, but the smaller box can also detach, slip into your bookbag and become an external Blu-ray drive for your PC. Since there's no specs or pics of the unit's rear, we honestly have no idea how it accomplishes either, but we imagine the info will spontaneously pop into our being if we stare long enough at those azure ripples, and thus complete our meditation. On the off-chance that doesn't work, we've also dispatched a carrier pigeon to Plextor HQ for the answers; in the meanwhile, you can peruse the presser after the break.
Homemade 16TB NAS dwarfs the competition with insane build quality (video)
From the man that brought you the OS Xbox Pro and the Cinematograph HD comes... a cockpit canopy filled with hard drives? Not quite. Meet the Black Dwarf, a custom network-attached-storage device from the mind of video editor Will Urbina, packing 16TB of RAID 5 magnetic media and a 1.66GHz Atom N270 CPU into a completely hand-built Lexan, aluminum and steel enclosure. Urbina says the Dwarf writes at 88MB per second and reads at a fantastic 266MB per second, making the shuttlecraft-shaped 12.7TB array nearly as speedy as an SSD but with massive capacity and some redundancy to boot. As usual, the DIY guru shot a professional time-lapse video of his entire build process, and this one's not to be missed -- it showcases some pretty spiffy camerawork as well as the man's welding skills. See sparks fly after the break.
DC-MCNAS1 Movie Cowboy NAS will wrangle your torrents, herd your HDDs
Having a box sitting on your network and offering up terabytes of storage is a lovely thing, but it's even lovelier when that box can kind of take care of a variety of other problems as well. Such is Digital Cowboy's DC-MCNAS1, a case with dual 3.5-inch SATA bays into which you can slot whatever volume of storage your budget allows. Once connected to your network (over gigabit Ethernet) it can serve up MySQL instances, accept files over FTP/SSH, manage your printers, and of course handle however many torrents you can throw at it. The box ships to Japanese buckaroos next week and, while there's no price set on this one yet, hopefully it won't break the bank. %Gallery-91537%
Toshiba's new REGZA record over LAN, convert 2D to 3D quite soon in Japan
Though Toshiba's flagship ZX900 Cell TV has yet to make its feature-packed US debut, the company is already planning fancy new toys for the motherland. This week, Toshiba announced a full fifteen new LCD HDTVs destined to spice up the sweltering Japanese summer -- each of them ready to pull double duty as DVR -- and Nikkei Electronics reports that the company's 3D-converting sets will debut around the same time. Meanwhile, Google Translate tells us a bit about the rest. While the low-end REGZA HE1 series have only a built-in 500GB hard drive and LED-backlit LCDs (as if that weren't enough), the RE1 can send footage to up to four external hard drives over USB in a system that gives each family member their own dedicated hard drive. But the Z1 series takes the cake -- it's got fleshed out DVR functionality that lets users record two programs at once (while watching a third) and jack into a LAN switch with eight drives for a veritable NAS of up to 4TB. It's little things like this that make us wish we lived in Japan.
TUAW review: LaCie Network Space 2 low-cost NAS
Everybody needs storage, and lots of it. The race for space began when we started taking digital pictures, accelerated when we began purchasing music online, and went positively orbital when movies and TV went digital. While big drives in desktop machines are becoming commonplace (1 TB drives are now standard in most iMac configurations), what happens when you have a couple of laptops or older machines that you want to back up, or if you want to share data with others in your office or home? That's when some sort of network-attached storage comes in handy. Network-attached storage is nothing new; you can even consider Apple's US$299 Time Capsule to be a wireless NAS. Now storage manufacturer LaCie has released the US$190 Network Space 2 device, providing 1 TB of storage and speedy connectivity. LaCie provided TUAW with a Network Space 2 for review purposes, so we put it through its paces before sending it back to the company. Read on for a review of this attractive and useful peripheral.
Iomega iConnect review: getting your printers, HDDs online has never been simpler
Iomega's iConnect managed to launch during the whirlwind that was CES 2010, so if you didn't quite catch it the first go 'round, here's hoping that you're paying attention today. In essence, the device is fairly simple. It's a small, port-filled slab that's designed to sit beneath or beside your current router or hub, and while we're certainly dumbing things down somewhat with this description, it's basically a variant of the Pogoplug. Equipped with four USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet jack and an internal 802.11b/g/n WiFi module, the iConnect is designed to put your existing thumb drives, external hard drives and / or printers online. We've had less-than-awesome experiences in the past with devices that turn localized storage into network accessible storage, so we went into this overview with fairly low expectations. Much to our surprise, we came away duly impressed with the package that Iomega has assembled, so be sure to read on if this one has been sitting on your maybe-must-have list. Update: After a couple of months of use, we ran across some pretty intense issues with this device. Eventually, none of the PCs and Macs in our house would print to the networked printer, and our USB hard drives would only show up sporadically. Needless to say, our enthusiasm has been significantly tempered, and we wouldn't recommend this for homes where mixed platforms reside. %Gallery-88219%
MyDitto is the cloud-accessible NAS for people who don't know what NAS stands for
There are plenty of ways to get your datas online, more coming online by the moment, but if you're the type who doesn't know your WAN port from a MAC address you're probably looking for the most straightforward solution. As of now the myDitto from Dane-Elec looks about the simplest. It's a dual-bay device that can manage RAID 0 or 1, also sporting a pair of USB ports for when internal storage just won't cut it and DLNA and iTunes support for media accessibility. If you don't know what any of that means here's the important bit: to access that storage all you need to do is connect it into your network and then plug a myDitto USB key into any internet-attached machine. Then, hey-presto, your storage will be accessible and you won't have to configure a thing. In practice these fire-and-forget sort of implementations can often create more headaches than they solve, but if this one works it could be an ideal way for non-networkers to get networked. Mind you, at $249 for a 1TB model that simplicity will come at a premium when it launches in March.
Iomega's iConnect turns thumb drives into NAS drives, puts it all online
If you don't trust any of your datas online, meticulously delete your cookies and cache from your browser, and never use the same search engine twice for fear of your online activity being tracked... this post probably isn't for you. But, if you wish you could get to your most precious of thumb drive files even when those thumbs are at home, Iomega's new iConnect looks to be about the easiest way to do so -- and at $99 one of the cheapest. The device packs four USB ports into which you can plug storage or printers, connecting to your home network via Ethernet or 802.11b/g/n. With a few clicks everything will be available online, and when you're on your home network you can make use of DLNA streaming, Time Machine backups, and even rely on the integrated torrent manager to make sure your feed ratio is properly philanthropic. All this can be yours next month.
QNAP's NAS lineup sacrifices another bay, creates TS-110
For many, four bays is a bit excessive. Two bays? Nice and cozy. One bay? Maybe a bit too snug for some, but QNAP is hoping its mono-bay TS-110 will be just right for others. It features the same 800MHz Marvell processor and 256MB of DDR2 RAM on the TS-410 and TS-210, with the discretely vanilla styling of the latter but at roughly half the girth. It keeps the same DLNA, FTP, file serving, and MySQL support of the other two, all configured through a fancy AJAXy web interface. No word on price yet, but we'll find out soon enough as it's set to ship by the end of the month. Meanwhile, we eagerly await the TS-010 announcement, which should rely entirely on theoretical storage. %Gallery-75845%
Freecom's MediaPlayer II NAS and media streamer aims high, scores low
Freecom has released enough diverse disk-based products over the past few years to inspire hope that its latest attempt to bridge the network-attached storage and media streamer divide would succeed. Not the case, according to Register Hardware's review. File copies to the device were quick enough over USB, but once tethered on Ethernet got rather slow (10 minutes for a 1GB file, 36 minutes for 1,024 1MB files), and even worse over WiFi (14 and 44 minutes, respectively). So, that whole NAS aspect doesn't exactly work out. Neither does the streaming side, with an inability to open H.264 or WMV9 files, and while it can decode high-definition MPEG2 files, it fails to play them smoothly. It can open DivX and Xvid files, and can even play DVD ISO files, but, sadly, that's where the positives end for this £115 ($190), 500GB multi-tasker.
mCubed's RipNAS Statement now available in Europe
mCubed's RipNAS Statement may be unique, but it isn't apt to be widely adopted -- at least not with price points like this. Hailed as the first SSD-based CD ripping NAS device, the product is also available in a traditional HDD form, though both handle automatic ripping, NAS duties and media streaming. Within, you'll find a dual-core Atom CPU, gigabit Ethernet, a TEAC DVD drive, four USB 2.0 sockets and a fanless design. The pain? €1,795 ($2,500) for the 3TB HDD version, or €3,295 ($4,590) for the 500GB SSD model. If you're unfazed by sticker shock, you can pick yours up right now over in Europe.
LaCie adds to NAS catalog with Big Disk, d2 Network
Looking to add some color to your extensive NAS collection? Well, you find it here, save for the company's characteristic blue button. If you're willing to look past that cold, aluminum exterior, however, LaCie's Big Disk and d2 Network storage solutions should serve you well. The former sports up to 1.5TB capacity with eSATA port for expansion, while the latter goes up to 3TB by concactenating two drives in RAID 0. Both support the usual array of backup software, including Apple's Time Machine, and work with all DLNA-compliant devices. LaCie says they're on sale now, $190 for d2 Network and $380 for Big Disk Network.
RipNAS Statement: world's first SSD-based CD ripping NAS device
We'll be perfectly honest with you -- the Atom-powered RipNAS definitely caught our interest when it launched with practically no major competitors back in February. Now, the RipNAS family has grown by two with the introduction of the Statement SSD and Statement HDD. We're told that the former is the world's first SSD-based CD ripping NAS device, and we've absolutely no reason to believe otherwise. The totally silent, all-silver box is based on the Windows Home Server OS and handles a cornucopia of tasks: CD ripping, media streaming and networked file storage. Internal specifications include a dual-core Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM and four USB 2.0 ports. The Statement SSD arrives in a 500GB configuration (2 x 250GB SSDs), while the Statement HDD holds 3TB by way of two 1.5TB drives; mum's the word on pricing, but don't bank on 'em being cheap.
Pogoplug iPhone app makes its way into the world
Just in case you've been trying to worm your way into your network-connected hard drive via your phone, the folks at Pogoplug have made their iPhone application available, free of charge. After you're done Skype'ing, you can check out some family photos. C'mon -- you know you need those files.
