Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2
- Connects USB 1.1 or 2.0 hard drives and flash drives directly to your network
- Share music, video, or data files with managed access by user name or group
- Integrated file server--access your files from the Internet
- Built-in disk utilities--format, backup, and scandisk
- Connects directly to a 10/100 Ethernet network for throughput up to 200 Mbps
Product Description
Easily Add Storage Space to Your Network Now you can quickly and easily add gigabytes of storage space onto your network with the Network Storage Link from Linksys. This tiny network appliance connects USB 2.0 hard drives directly to your Ethernet network. You can connect up to two stand-alone USB disk drives of any size, and access them from anywhere on your network. You can even plug a USB flash disk into the Network Storage Link, for a convenient way of acces... More >>
Hitachi SimpleNET NAS Head USB 2.0 Portable Dongle SNET
- Extremely small dongle form factor
- 2x USB 2.0 host ports (powered)
- 1x 100Mbps Ethernet port
- One LED for power and status
- Reset button
Product Description
SimpleNET is the easiest way to make your existing USB drive even more valuable! Share its contents across your network, quickly and easily! SimpleNET is a small network adapter that enables you to share and access existing USB hard drives over a network. Simply plug a USB hard drive into SimpleNET and then plug SimpleNet into an Ethernet network. The drive then appears as a network drive on the network. Easy to install, easy to use! ... More >>
Western Digital My Book World Edition 2 TB Network Attached Storage WDH1NC20000N
- Automatic and continuous backup for all the computers on your network
- Centralize all your family¿s digital content
- Best-in-class performance ¿ cutting-edge technologies to deliver high performance read and write speeds ideal for the most demanding users.
- Built-in media server for streaming music, photos and movies to any DLNA certified multimedia device such as Playstation 3, Xbox 360, wireless digital picture frames, and connected audio receivers. DLNA 1.5 & UPnP certified.
- iTunes server support ¿ Centralize your music collection and stream to a Mac or Windows PC using iTunes software.
Product Description
Simplified set up and best-in-class performance make My Book World Edition Home Network Storage the easy choice for centralizing data and backing up your home computers. Connect the drive to your network router and you¿re up and running in minutes. Use the included back up software to protect your family¿s PCs with automatic and continuous backup plans. Store all your digital media in one central location so everyone in the family can have access to it. Compatible... More >>
Netgear ReadyNAS Duo 2-Bay 1 TB Desktop Network Attached Storage RND2110
- Network attached storage device offers 1 TB of storage with GigaBit Ethernet for fast data transfer
- Stream music, photos and video to network media players without a computer
- Access files from anywhere via Internet connection; host your personal Web page to share with friends and family
- Support for extra hard drive, allowing X-RAID data protection
- Measures 4.0 x 5.6 x 8.7 inches (WxHxD); 5-year warranty
Product Description
RND2110 ReadyNAS Duo(1 x 1000GB) Network Attached Storage Device -- Directly streams music, photos and video to existing network media players without a computer. Creates a personal webpage to easily share photos with friends and family. Insert optional "spare" hard drive for automatic file protection and back-up.Amazon.com Product Description
The NETGEAR ReadyNAS Duo is an ideal Network Attached Storage device for use in homes with more than one computer.... More >>
Western Digital My Book World Edition II – 2 TB
- Offers 2 TB storage capacity in an elegant, small footprint design
- Easy access allows you to open the case and replace a drive
- UPnP enabled, makes network configuration easy and convenient
- 2TB = 2000GB Hard Drive Capacity
- Configurable to RAID 1 (Mirrored)
Product Description
Western Digital presents the WD My Book World II 2TB Network Hard Drive Storage Device - WDG2NC20000N, a superior STORAGE product. Designed for home users, creative professionals, workgroups, and anyone looking for shared storage, WD's My Book World Edition II offers a surprisingly simple and secure way to access and share your data, presentations, and photos at home, in the office and anywhere in the world, even when your local computer is turned off. The dualdrive... More >>
Iomega Home Media 1 TB Network Attached Storage 34337
- Simple to use: Three step set-up ¿ simply plug into your router, power on, and install the software CD. Friendly web screens for easy management
- Sharing: Access files from any networked Windows PC or Apple computer for easy file sharing
- UPnP AV Media Server: Compatible with DLNA certified media players, able to stream photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices like game consoles, audio bridges, DMAs (digital media adapters), picture frames and more
- Torrent Download: Torrent is the new standard in peer-to-peer file sharing. Direct file transfer to your StorCenter is easier, faster and more reliable - especially with large media files
- Remote Access: Access and manage your data from anywhere in the world via remote browser access
Product Description
Enjoy your digital life! Easily share and access files, photos, videos, and music between all your computers, with friends and with family using the Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive. Powerful and fast, the three-step set-up is very simple, even if you've never used a network drive before. Ideal for centrally storing and sharing all your media files, the Home Media Network Hard Drive has a built in UPnP AV Media Server (DLNA certified) and iTunes Server so that... More >>
How Do NAS Drives Work?
Long ago, if you wanted to share files, you copied it to a floppy and gave it to whoever needed it. Simple, effective, but inefficient. How would you share those files with 10 people? Well you'd create 10 floppies. You can see how this isn't any fun once you try to share with a large number of people.
Enter the network. The network allowed PC's, printers, and other devices to "talk" to one another. Along with the network came the concept of the "file share". One PC or server would share it's files with other PC's connected to the network. I'm sure you can see how this is much more efficient than the "sneakernet" described in the first paragraph.
Today's PC's and networks are tens or hundreds of times more powerful than those of 10 years ago. This older technology that worked just fine not long ago is being used in the NAS drives of today.
Today's inexpensive NAS drives are a computer dedicated to sharing files. The CPU's aren't as fast as modern PC's but it's good enough for the sole purpose of sharing files. The small NAS drive computer runs a version of the Linux or FreeBSD operating system using the Windows compatible Samba file sharing system.
With old parts and hard drives you may have laying around your house, you could build your own NAS device using something like FreeNAS as the operating system. It would be a fun little project for those inclined to take up that challenge.
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NAS Drives and iTunes
Which NAS Drives are iTunes compatible?
In some ways, they all are. Putting all your MP3's on a disk and then accessing it via iTunes is no big deal.
Some NAS Drives actually have a built in iTunes server. This works just like sharing your iTunes library over your LAN.
Take a look at the Buffalo Linkstation Live if you want a NAS drive that's truly iTunes compatible.
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NAS Drives and Windows Backup
Can you use Windows Backup with a NAS? Yes!
What are the problems? The problems are with using the scheduler. When you want to do a backup that runs at a regular interval, that backup must run as a particular user on that machine.
The problem with that approach is that the backup runs as a whole new background session without any cached password information. In other words, it doesn't know how to log into your NAS. Of course if you don't use authentication then this isn't a problem.
I solved this problem for a client using Cobian Backup. This program is free and it's a pretty nice backup program. It saves in a standard zip format so you can use Cobain or your favorite unzip program to restore your data. If your NAS supports FTP you can use that protocol to do backups with Cobian. All in all it's a better solution than Windows Backup and it's free.
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NAS Drives and Windows Vista
One of the features NAS manufacturers mention is "Windows Vista Compatible" Why? It's just Windows, right?
Windows Vista uses an authentication scheme called NTLM2 where as most NAS devices using Samba support NTLM but not NTLM2.
There's 2 ways around this. One is to get a drive that specifically mentions Vista support. The other is to turn authentication off. Most drives can be run with no security so there's no need for password exchange which is where NTLM and NTLM2 are needed.
Turning off security can be a deal breaker. On a home network it can be no big deal to run an unsecured NAS. If you want or need even a little security then you would need a Vista capable device.
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