Seagate's DockStar can support up to four USB drives
(Credit: Seagate)Do you want to turn a USB hard drive into a cheap, easy network-attached storage device? Seagate's DockStar is designed to let you do just that. Like the preceding Dock+ model, the DockStar can host a FreeAgent Go drive in its cradle, plus up to three other USB drives. However, instead of linking to your PC via USB, the DockStar uses its Ethernet port to live on your home network.
Network access is enabled via technology Seagate has licensed from Pogoplug--in other words, it's just a Seagate-skinned version of Pogoplug's interface. That's a good thing, since Pogoplug's standalone product is exceptionally simple to set up and easy to use.
The system offers a Web interface for accessing the drive's files from any computer (on your home network, or worldwide via the Internet). The Web interface works on any Web browser, it requires no software installation, and lets you set specific folders for others to access, as well as publish RSS feeds of your files to various social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace). Alternately, you can download Pogoplug's software plug-ins for mapping the DockStar to a drive letter on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Even better, Pogoplug offers a free iPhone app that lets you access files via iPhones and iPod Touch handhelds.
On the downside, Seagate is charging $30 per year for the capability to access the drive from outside your home network (after one year of free access). That contrasts with Pogoplug's standalone product, which requires no fees. With DockStar and Pogoplug both costing $99, we'd be inclined to go with Pogoplug's instead. That said, Seagate is planning to add SMB drive support to the DockStar via a future firmware update. That feature--not currently available on Pogoplug's standalone product--should allow the DockStar drives to be accessible via non-PC DLNA-compatible network devices, including Seagate's own FreeAgent Theater+.
The Seagate DockStar is available as of Wednesday. (The Pogoplug has been available since early 2009.)
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No, I am not talking about something that's for or from an airplane. It's simply a network attached storage device from VOX. The full name--don't hold your breath, you've already read the creative part--is BlackBox Dual Bay Gigabit RAID Shared Network Storage. As if the naming it BlackBox were not sensational enough, VOX decided to paint the device silver.
The Vox BlackBox can accommodate two 3.5-inch SATA hard drives of any capacity.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)Other than the confusing, yet very telling name, the device is actually straightforward. It's a dual bay NAS device that supports RAID 0 and RAID 1. It's always nice to have the option of using either a high-performance or a data redundancy RAID setup. The BlackBox can also work without RAID and show the hard drives as separate volumes. The BlackBox ships with two 500GB hard drives, making it the best deal in the NAS community with the price tag of only $310. That's about $0.31 per gigabyte. For now, you probably can't find another NAS device that offers better value.
The BlackBox boasts an interesting design. It's made entirely of aluminum and is very rugged and heavier than it looks, though it is still compact. On the front, its drive bays are locked and you can't open them with the provided keys. However, looking at the keys, you will soon realize that they are not necessary. You can open the case with a paper clip. You just need a pointed object to poke the little hole on the front of the drive bay and the latch will swing open.
The BlackBox also is the first dual bay, compact NAS device I've seen that doesn't have a power adapter but comes with just a regular power cable (found in most desktop computers). This means one less thing to clutter your work space. However, you might not want to leave the BlackBox on your desk since it's very noisy. The BlackBox requires a decent amount of ventilation since the power supply is in the box. It has two fans on the back and--when the device is turned on--these fans are noisy enough to be heard from across the room.
Overall, this seems to be a simple and interesting NAS device with a very appealing price tag. It's available for purchase now unless, but you might want to wait and check CNET.com for our review, which is coming soon.
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The 1TB StorCenter includes 2 drives.
(Credit: Iomega Corp.)Iomega announced today three new members of its StorCenter Network hard drive family. All three offer a built-in media server, an on-board print server, Active Directory support, a journaling file system, and EMC Retrospect backup and recovery software, as well as two external USB ports for hard drives or printers.
The 1TB product comprises two 500GB drives and supports RAID 1, RAID 0, and JBOD. The 500GB and 750GB versions each contain just one drive. All three use 7,200rpm SATA-II drives with 8MB of cache. They also offer a gigabit Ethernet connection.
Both Macs and PCs are supported, as well as Linux-based PCs. Supported operating systems include Windows 2000 Pro; Windows XP Home/Pro/Pro x64; Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium/Business/Ultimate; Mac OS X 10.2.7 and higher; and several flavors of Linux, including Redhat 9, Mandrake 10, Debian 3.0, Gentoo, and FedoraCore 3.
All three products are available immediately. The 1TB version sells for $389, the 750GB version for $359, and the 500GB version for $269.
(Credit:
Linksys)
At the CES 2007 Pepcom event tonight, Linksys announced its entry-level NAS (network-attached storage) unit, the descriptively yet boringly named Network Storage System with 2 Bays (NAS200). The SOHO-oriented device offers up two empty drive bays in which you can install one or two 3.5-inch SATA drives of your choice. You can treat the two drives as one large drive, as two individual drives, or set them up for mirroring or striping. Additionally, it sports two USB ports to connect additional drives for increased capacity or for backup. Once you've installed the drive(s), you can connect the device to a LAN port on your router and access it from any PC on your network. You can also setup the drive for remote access over the Internet via Web browser or FTP.
The NAS200 comes with a built-in download manager that lets you initiate FTP or HTTP downloads. Once the download is initiated, you can even power down your PC and the drive will continue the download until complete. For backup tasks, you can schedule automatic backups or use the onboard one-touch backup button to initiate a backup task. Unfortunately, the device supports only Windows PCs.
Linksys expects it to ship in the first quarter for $180.
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