SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
- Store and share files over a network
- Easy to set-up (no network experience needed)
- Expand storage capacity with additional USB drives
- FREE and unlimited technical support
- Share a USB printer over a network
SimpleShare 500GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
Rating: 
(out of 55 reviews)
List Price: $ 274.99
Price:
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Review by Dr. Seuss for SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
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All in all, the drive works great. As with any browser based setup, you need to adjust to the interface, but once you have things set up, it works without a hitch. We will see what kind of life expectancy we have; I cannot testify as to longevity.
I have a hardware VPN set up, and give the SimpleShare a static IP address. I can read and write to the drive all day long. Very nice.
Review by T. Garrison for SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
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This is a very simple device, with less features than many other NAS systems, but what could be expected for a price so low?
I have a few gripes:
1) The help refers to a different version of the software that isn’t loaded on the device, and features that don’t exist.
2) All the folks getting error 53 on Windows (and cannot connect via the MAC) need to format (by erasing) their drives and reboot the system–the services won’t start until there is a filesystem on the disk. Of course there is nothing in the help about this.
3) NFS doesn’t work correctly, the daemon is enabled but security not configured–so you cannot mount via NFS on Mac or Linux.
4) The vendor website is a joke. I hope I never need their help. All the links to their website on the device lead to missing pages, likewise with the documentation.
5) The software version is listed as a release candidate from 2006, and the downloads on the website are an even earlier version. I get the feeling this is an abandoned software project.
Why did I still rate the drive four stars? Well, despite all the shortcomings the thing works, and has a few features I like:
External drive support, and the power saving features–some of the NAS devices don’t allow you to park the drives when not in use.
The main reason I bought this was to save money. I have been storing all my files on an old computer running Linux. I bought a kill-a-watt and measured the power usage and discovered that it was using 150 watts!
At 9 cents a kilowatt hour that comes out to $118.26 a year to keep my file server turned on. Replacing the file server with this device will save me roughly $100/year. It will pay for itself very quickly. I haven’t measured this device yet, but it is rated for a maximum usage of 36 watts (actual usage should be much lower after initial startup) and with the power saving features it should only use a couple of watts while not being actively used.
Review by serious driver for SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
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For a good price, I got a large-capacity shared storage at home. Set-up from Windows XP PC was pretty straightforward and easy, and network drive was assigned to the PC almost automatically as far as I can remember.
Once set up, it can be accessed from all computers at home, but the access from Mac was a bit tricky (going to Finder menu, “connect to server”, select workgroup, etc., etc.), so I decided to run the setup CD on Intel-based iMac to have a shortcut installed.
Here’s the only glitch that I’ve found so far. The setup is apparently written in Javascript so the setup program is a local file in HTML. Safari, the standard web browser for Mac OS X, seems to be case sensitive when referring to other files. So the setup did NOT run off of the CD supplied, saying “error in finding file *&*&.htm” or somesuch, whereas *&*&.HTM is indeed on the CD. I copied the content of the CD to HDD, and changed the filenames to lowercase, which seemed to be the way they refer each other. In fact, all it took was to change “*.HTM” to “*.htm”.
After starting the setup from the HDD, the setup ran on Mac without a problem. Now the shortcut is installed on the desktop of the Mac for convenient access.
One thing to remember… 100Base-TX.
While it is fast enough for everyday use for most people, can be painful for transferring large amount of data.
When I first installed, I copied ~170GB of data from the PC.
It was before I realized that 100Mbits/s gives 30~40GBytes/hr.
It took a long time to complete the move of data, but it had been done when I woke up in the morning. (Therefore I was not able to measure the average throughput.)
I can play .mpg movies smoothly from both PC and Mac, so the transfer rate is not my complaint, but if you are planning on many tens of GB of transfer daily, consider one with faster network port. (and make sure your PC has one.)
My box did not come with the “User’s Guide”, although the QuickGuide mentions it to be included. The User’s Guide can be downloaded from the mfr’s site anyway, so I’m ok with it.
Review by J. McNelis for SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
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You can’t beat 500GB for less than $200. It was fairly easy to setup. I’ve got a couple of Linux machines on my home network and I can browse the SimpleShare easily thru the web interface (you just have to pick the IP address out of the instructional diagrams). Setting up my Linux machines to view the SimpleShare directories via NFS was a bit of a chore though. That could be made simpler.
The user guide has instructions for Windows and Mac but nothing for Linux. Which is surprising because internally, the SimpleShare’s firmware is Linux! So hey guys, there’s more and more of us Linux PC users out here and we wouldn’t mind being catered to. Someday, maybe.
Ok, back on topic. The iShare remote file-sharing feature is easy enough to setup. iShare’s web GUI interface could use some improvements though (directory links on every page would help). But it’s free which really helps (Western Digital external drives run their remote file-sharing thru Mionet, which charges a fee).
To get the iShare feature to work, I had to put my SimpleShare machine in the DMZ of my wireless router (i.e. no router firewall protection) so I’m a little uneasy about what protections and security features are built into the SimpleShare device (beyond simple user name passwords). This is not explained or detailed in the user manual.
A feature that is not there and I hope that they add sometime is encrypted file transfer. Especially for remote file sharing.
All in all, this a quality product at a great value.
Review by S. Gibson for SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access
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The unit powers up but the drive never spins up. I assume that either the drive is defective or the controller card. Online help is useless. I called SimpleTech support and no one answers… their “after hours” message says that they are open from 6:30 AM but they are still not open for calls 2 hours later. Maybe their clocks are also broken? Interestingly the sales department also does not answer even 1 hour after their business hours begin (after 7:30 AM).
Don’t buy this — they have no support at all.