HomeSync is basically a home server, and it has 1TB of storage, which is plenty to store all store all sorts of media that you can access on the go. Although, rather than being an actual cloud storage service, the storage is in your home rather than somewhere in a server farm.

The system allows content thats played on a TV to be viewed by the GALAXY S 4 in full 1080p if the video file is rocking it. The big kicker here, though, is the NFC capability. All you have to do is tap the device on the home box and content appears on the S 4. It’s a pretty nifty system, and quite a unique one at that.

As for Knox, it’s essentially a service that allows for enterprise-level security on the phone, as well as the ability to store all of your personal content, which is very similar to BlackBerry Balance. Knox keeps all of your business files and personal files separate, that way you don’t mix the two accidentally.

The 5big Thunderbolt supports RAID 0, 1, and JBOD across its five hot-swappable bays; however, it’s also possible to mix and match those RAID setups, so for instance you could have a three-disk array in RAID 0 for performance, and then leave the remaining two disks in RAID 1 for backup redundancy.Two Thunderbolt ports are included, and up to six devices can be daisy-chained. LaCie reckons the 5big is good for up to 785MB/s when used with the five 7,200rpm/74MB cache drives in the standard RAID 0 configuration.

As for the 5big NAS Pro, that ditches Thunderbolt in favor of dual gigabit ethernet (with link aggregation support); LaCie also throws in a pair of USB 2.0 ports, a further pair of USB 3.0, and a VGA port for hooking up a display for management. Inside there’s a dualcore 2.13GHz Atom 64-bit processor and 4GB of RAM, plus a choice of RAID 5, 5+spare, 1, or 0 setup.

LaCie will offer the 5big NAS Pro in barebones, 10TB, and 20TB capacities, priced from $549. The 5big Thunderbolt is priced from $1,199 for 10TB, with a 20TB option.

Like the Drobo 5D, the new 5N can take either 3.5- or 2.5-inch hard-drives, slotting into five bays accessed at the front of the machine. Data is automatically spread across those drives using Drobo’s own BeyondRAID technology, which promises a boost in data accessing speed as well as redundancy should one or two drives fail. Up to 20TB is supported in a single unit, assuming five 4TB 3.5-inch drives.

However, the 5N also has the new “Drobo Accelerator Bay” for an optional mSATA drive. That’s used for caching commonly-accessed files, meaning they’re more readily accessible and there’s less lag involved in opening them up. Of course, users could also swap out traditional HDDs in the five bays for SSDs instead, but that would likely be considerably more expensive than just using a single, smaller mSATA drive.

As for connectivity, there’s one gigabit ethernet port on the back, and storage pool support for up to ten users. Drobo is targeting the 5N at creative professionals who need flexible and safe storage, as well as small businesses looking for shared data and backup; however, you don’t get the USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt connectivity of the Drobo Mini or Drobo 5D.

What you do get is the internal, non-user-accessible battery of the earlier models. Intended for safe shutdown in the event of a power cut, this automatically-recharging power pack is designed to protect all of the data in the 5N’s cache, and make sure it gets safely transferred to the drives.

The Drobo 5N is priced from $599 as the chassis-only, and the company throws a 6ft ethernet cable into the box too.

Hardware

Upon picking up the px2-300d, the first thing you notice is that it feels durable; so durable, in fact, I imagine it could take a swift kick and come out of the attack unaffected. The body is constructed from sheet metal, while the faceplate and hard-drive cover are constructed from matte plastic. The back of the unit is solid metal, as is the bottom, which is adorned with four large rubber feet. Overall, the px2 feels like a battle tank of a device, more than durable enough to handle being placed in a potentially precarious location, such as under a desk or atop a busy work surface.

The unit measures 8.91-inches x 4.97-inches x 8.18-inches, and weighs in at almost 9lbs with both hard-drives in place. The NAS is a two-bay unit, with both hot swappable hard-drives housed behind a grated door. You can lock the door, but you cannot lock the individual drives in place; this is rather disappointing, as the door is flimsy, and offers little protection from someone with a sturdy prying tool and ill intent. The hard-drives are server class, while the drive carrier supports both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives.

The LCD is large enough to display a decent amount of information, but not so large as to be bothersome; you can place the px2 in an entertainment system setup between the DVR and Blu-ray players, for example, and its display won’t stand out obtrusively among the other devices’ displays. There are two buttons to the right of the LCD that allow for toggling through the various screens and options. When left alone, the display casually alternates between displaying the network IP address, used/available capacity, and the date and time.

The px2 runs an Intel D525 Atom dual-core 1.8GHz processor with 2GB of RAM, which gives it a combination of decent power and low energy consumption. You have access to one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, as well as two gigabit ethernet ports. There is both IEEE 802.3 and IEEE 802.3u LAN standard support, along with RAID 0, 1, and a rotational vibration sensor. Helping make the px2 an all-around accessible device is a VGA port, allowing the device to be used with an external monitor via the MindTree software. There’s a USB port conveniently located on the front of the device, as well.

Setup

Setup is simple and fast; the time from when you plug the device in and turn it on to when you’ve transferred your first file is about five minutes. For the px2 itself, it has an exceptionally long power adapter and includes an ethernet cable, which you’ll plug into your router or modem. The device connected to the network almost instantaneously, displaying the IP address on its LCD. From there, users can access the drive via their browser by going to “http://px2-300d,” where they can configure the device, install apps, and more. The device supports multiple network file protocols, including NFS (Unix/Linux), AFP/Bonjour (Apple), SMB/Rally/CIFS (Microsoft), FTP, TFTP, and SFTP.

Software

Users will need to install the Iomega Storage Manager application, which can be done via the installation CD included with the drive or by downloading the application from the company’s website. Once installed, the application found the px2-300d immediately. A variety of categories are provided under “Shares,” including Backups, Documents, etc. Each category is assigned its own drive letter. You can transfer files via the Storage Manager or directly via Windows Explorer. Either way, transferring a 300MB file took only a few seconds.

Configuring the device is done via a Web browser by going to “http://px2-300d.” It’s from here you can install various applications to the device via Application Manager and access the different features. One of the first things I installed was McAfee, a process as simple as clicking on the McAfee icon and verifying that I wanted to install it. Once installed, users can configure system events and schedule tasks, among other things; this provides real-time McAfee VirusScan Enterprise protection, and, according to Iomega, is the only NAS in its class that does so.

Users can set up the px2-300d to function as a cloud storage solution using the Iomega Personal Cloud, which allows individuals to remote access the NAS via the Web from wherever they are located. Included is a variety of other cloud solutions, including Amazon S3, Mozy Pro, EMC Avamar data duplication, and EMC Atmos. Apple users will be pleased with the ease at which Time Machine integration can be set up.

One particularly nice feature is the complete implementation of social networking tools. With the px2, users can parse their various files into folders that are tied to social networking accounts, such as Facebook, where the files will then be automatically uploaded. As with the ix2-200 and other Iomega NAS devices, the px2 has UPnP DLNA for media streaming. The unit is compatible with virtualization environments, as well, including VMware and XenServer.

While the software options are plentiful, perhaps one of the top features is the integration of SecureMind Surveillance Manager. With this application, the NAS can be used as part of a rather sophisticated surveillance system, supporting up to 16 cameras (the ix4-300d only supports 8 cameras). Via the SecureMind software, users can live monitor multiple channels, record videos, and quickly playback a recorded video. Included with the px2-300d is a single camera license to get you started. Combining it all together, the px2 makes a nice, cohesive, and easy-to-use surveillance base upon which a business (or private user) can setup their security system.

Issues

While the px2-300d ran very well, it did have this particular habit of restructuring data protection seemingly every time the device was powered off, then turned on again. If you remove one of the drives while the unit is running, you’ll get an error (obviously), followed by restructured data protection once you reinsert the drive. This is fine. However, multiple times upon leaving the drives in place and shutting the unit down properly, it stated that it was restructuring data protection upon turning the device back on. Fortunately, this can be skipped manually by pressing the top button on the button panel, because total restructuring time averaged three hours. This isn’t much of an issue, considering that the NAS device will be up and running most of the time.

Wrap-up

There are many cloud storage options aimed at every level of need. While the 4TB px2’s price ($999) will be prohibitive for many users who need a storage solution on the personal level, the benefits of using a NAS unit rather than cloud storage are relevant. Aside from the obvious issues of security and being in possession of the physical hardware harboring your data, you get faster transfer speeds and the ability to easily make data available to users on your network. Businesses will find the px2-300d particularly appealing because, as far as the level of features go, the price is rather modest, and the unit does what it claims to do, and it does it well. For the prosumer, the px2 offers a host of features that make it more than some network-accessible hard drives.

Overall, the px2-300d is an all-around excellent storage device. It runs relatively quiet when not crunching away at data, looks nice intermingled in with other hardware, and, most importantly, offers many different features that cover a broad enough spectrum to make this NAS an ideal choice for a variety of different users. The small business looking for a way to store files and run surveillance, the medium-sized business that needs a way for a subset of workers to access files via the cloud, and the prosumer who wants a personal server that covers all the bases of home-network storage needs will find the Iomega px2-300d suitable.

The diskless model is priced at $499.99; it is also available in 2TB ($699.99), 4TB ($999.99), and 6TB ($1,199.99) varieties.

The Drobo 5N “leverages all of the cool new architecture and capabilities under the hood in the new Drobo 5D and Mini, including SSD support” Buiocchi explains, “with an Ethernet port to connect to your network rather than Thunderbolt and USB.” The executive also suggests that it will use the same speed technologies as the 5D and Mini, which suggests the Drobo Accelerator bay will be included.

That bay accepts an mSATA solid-state drive, which although too small to play a dedicated role in the redundancy array, is used as a caching drive to speed up accessing of commonly-required files. That’s only part of the speed improvements over the previous generation, Drobo claims, however.

Exact release times haven’t been confirmed, though “I certainly wouldn’t buy another networked storage device in the next few weeks if I were you” Buiocchi suggests. However, the Drobo 5D is priced at $849 for a point of reference, with Drobo offering a 60GB mSATA SSD for the Drobo Accelerator bay at $169.

The latter, Iomega suggests, could be handy for small businesses wanting to keep customers up to date with what’s going on: drop a handful of files into a preconfigured folder, and they’re automatically uploaded to your selected social network. However, it could also be great for home users wanting to quickly upload a holiday’s-worth of snapshots to their choice of online gallery.

The StorCenter px2-300d is the cheaper of the two, with two drive bays for up to 6TB of storage. It has front-mounted USB, hot-swappable caddies, and will be sold as either a diskless, empty chassis ($499.99), or with a pair of 1TB ($699.99), 2TB ($999.99), or 3TB ($1,199.99) 7,200rpm enterprise-grade drives installed.

As for the StorCenter ix4-300d, it can handle up to 12TB of storage, and “more than doubles” the performance from the previous-gen model. It comes diskless ($599.99) or in a 4TB configuration for $749.99, 8TB for $949.99, or 12TB for $1,299.99. Iomega is currently working on certifying 4TB drives for expansion.

The best part about this new feature is that it’s all software-based, so there’s no need to go out and buy an additional set of iTwin USB dongles if you already have some — they’ll work with the SecureBox update. All you do is plug the dongle in and link it to your Dropbox account. You’re all set from there on out.

Once everything is in place, the SecureBox software generates a unique key that’s stored on both halves of the iTwin dongle. A window will pop up into which you can dump sensitive files, and they will become encrypted automatically with the option to add a password for added security. Once that’s done, the files will be put safely in your Dropbox volume.

After the initial setup process, the two halves of the USB dongle can be separated and act independently. So, you’ll be able to send encrypted files to your Dropbox account from two different locations if need be. Obviously, this in itself poses as a security risk, since either of the dongles could become lost, so just practice extreme caution and always remember where your iTwin dongles are at all times. For more info on iTwin itself, read our full review.

[via Engadget]

Hardware

Synology hardware is generally subtle and solid, and the DS213air is no different. 165 x 100 x 225.5 mm of glossy white plastic standing on four black rubber feet, it’s discrete if relatively uninspiring. Sticker price is $299.99, though Synology’s choice of plastics seems a little cheaper than some of its more expensive models. Not so bad as to leave us worried as to its durability, however.

The lower cost also likely explains the absence of slick drive caddies, with Synology instead requiring users open up the casing in order to access the two internal bays. The two halves of the NAS slide apart, leaving plenty of room to access the SATA II slots (which will accommodate either 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives, of up to 4TB apiece); you can optionally secure it together with included screws.

In addition to the internal bays, there are two USB 3.0 ports for hooking up external drives or printers for network sharing. There’s also a gigabit ethernet port, while inside there’s a WiFi b/g/n radio, though only with support for the 2.4GHz band, not the often-faster 5GHz band. It would’ve been nice to have seen WiFi ac support too, though that’s yet to be ratified and probably at odds with the DS213air’s budget tag; the first breed of WiFi ac routers generally cost two-thirds of the NAS alone, for instance.

At the back, there’s a 92mm fan which, even when the DS213air was under load, was generally quiet though spins with a noticeably higher-pitched tone when under load. You could have the NAS in your lounge and probably not notice it with the TV on. Up front there are LEDs to show status, WiFi activity, drive activity for each HDD, and a power light integrated into the power button. Unlike other models in Synology’s line-up, there’s no front USB port and quick-sync button, for quickly offloading photos from a digital camera.

Software

Synology’s well-esteemed DSM 4.1 OS makes its expected appearance, running on a 1.6GHz processor with 256MB of RAM. It’s one of the best platforms for network devices, resembling a blend of Windows and OS X, and organizing the DS213air’s dozens of features into an approachable layout.

First step is setting up your drives, which can be done in various levels of RAID. There’s the choice of creating one big volume spanning both – though without any data redundancy, so if one drive dies you lose the whole volume – as well as mirroring data, which gets you the storage of a single drive but the security of having a second copy should one unexpectedly expire. Synology’s Hybrid RAID is offered as the default, as well as more traditional Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, and RAID 1 options, though with only two bays there’s less room for some of the more creative arrays of the company’s larger models.

If you’ve a network cable to hand, then plugging in as a wired connection is straightforward. Alternatively, the DS213air can scan for WiFi networks and connect that way. Even if you don’t use the WiFi to get the NAS online, it can be turned on as a hotspot to open up wireless internet access, useful if you’ve a deadspot in your house or office. Alternatively, the DS213air can be used as a full wireless router, complete with a NAT firewall for security.

Beyond that, the NAS world is pretty much your oyster. The DS213air supports PC and Mac backup (including native Apple Time Machine support) with the option of different user accounts, multiple volumes, and per-account storage limits. You can drop your photos, videos, and music onto the drive, and have them shared out via DLNA/UPnP to your laptop, tablet, Xbox 360, PS3, or other device; Synology also offers iOS, Android, and Windows Phone apps for streaming media, as well as accessing files remotely. You can share two printers – using Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, or regular old Windows printer sharing – and set up remote access for files or even host your email server or website.

Synology also allows for third-party functionality to be installed, including Logitech Media Server, hosting a WordPress blog, running a Plex Media Server, Asterix virtual PBX, and more. If you want cloud-based reassurance for your data, there’s support for HiDrive mirroring too, along with Symform cloud backup. You can even use the DS213air to monitor and record IP webcams as an impromptu security station.

That could get intimidating, if it wasn’t for the relative simplicity of DSM 4.1. If you can navigate through your PC or Mac, you can figure your way through Synology’s system; the more complex features stay out of your way unless you actively want to use them.

Performance

We slotted in a pair of 1TB Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 7,200rpm 3.5-inch drives and ran through Synology’s default setup, which creates a single volume with one drive failure tolerance under the company’s own Hybrid RAID (SHR) system. The whole setup process took around 10 minutes to reach the DSM 4.1 desktop – at which point we could begin setting up user accounts and other settings – with the RAID taking a further 8 minutes to establish (and then running a background verification check, during which we were able to copy data to the drive, albeit at slightly reduced speeds). After formatting we had 912.12GB of space: roughly the equivalent of a single drive.

Synology suggests the DS213air is capable of 108.07 MB/sec read speeds with a RAID 1 array, and 58.66 MB/sec write speeds, based on transferring a single 5GB file over a wireless network. In a real-world environment, performance unsurprisingly takes a hit

Over a wired gigabit ethernet connection, we saw 83.08 MB/sec read rates and 32.4 MB/sec write rates. Switching to wireless, meanwhile, with a direct link between the DS213air and our test computer, those figures dropped to 9.82 MB/sec read and 8.34 MB/sec write.

More concerning, the DiskStation’s range proved a significant factor in speed drop-off. We achieved those wireless rates with DS213air and computer in the same room; with two walls between them, speeds fell to roughly a quarter of what we’d been seeing. Experiments with locking the NAS into 802.11n-only mode and switching channels had little effect, and there’s no 5GHz support.

Wrap-Up

Convenience comes at a cost. As a standalone NAS with a traditional wired connection to your home or small office network, the DS213air performs much as we’ve come to expect from the budget end of Synology’s range. Wired speeds are solid though not outstanding, certainly sufficient for small scale backup and media streaming purposes, and the twin-drive capacity offers a balance between performance, redundancy and price.

Wireless, however, is a more mixed bag. Placing the DS213air is made significantly easier – all you need is power, rather than an ethernet cable – but there’s a cost in performance. Accessing the odd file or streaming music is fine, but it’s a painful experience if you’re doing large backups over WiFi. Synology could’ve addressed this, in part at least, if it had opted for a dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz radio, as the 5GHz band is generally less congested, but that would have presumably added to the price of the NAS.

Being able to repurpose a NAS as a wireless router is useful, though those looking for the greatest flexibility in where they store their backup system are likely to find better results with a Powerline adapter rather than WiFi. The Synology DiskStation DS213air is capable for an affordable NAS, but WiFi is still not the panacea to cable-phobia.

Until now, Pogoplug has relied on creating what it refers to as a “personal cloud” created from one of its network-attached storage bridges and one or more USB drives. Hooked up to a network, these can be addressed locally as well as remotely accessed via Pogoplug’s site.

The cloud backup element pairs that with a 100GB chunk of Amazon Glacier storage, synchronizing what’s on the “cloud accelerator” with what’s hosted online. Regular use relies on the local copy, with the cloud version saved for extra security.

Pogoplug Family in the UK kicks off at £19.99 per year, including a free Pogoplug device, though you’ll need to supply your own drives. Various tiers of plan are available, for home users with 3 or more computers, and for business teams.

Designate a folder for ReadyDROP, Netgear’s senior marketing manager of storage products Matthew Pahnke explained to us, and the NAS will replicate that folder across each linked device. Any files added are automatically saved to the NAS itself, and pushed out to each device so that an up-to-date copy is available no matter which you’re using.

ReadyDROP uses impromptu VPN connections – complete with encryption – to do that, and since the capacity of the synchronized folder is limited only by the capacity of your NAS itself, it’s potentially a lot cheaper than cloud-hosted storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive. There’s also access from Netgear’s iOS and Android apps.

As for remote Time Machine support, Macs will be able to designate a ReadyNAS drive as the target for Apple’s native backup app, but that drive will be accessible both locally – when on the same network – and remotely, across the internet. The system requires no extra software, Pahnke explained, and will automatically choose between a direct connection across the local network (when available) or a secure VPN connection back to the ReadyNAS (when you’re on the move).

Firmware v5.3.6 also works with updates to the Mobile ReadyDLNA apps for iOS and Android, streaming media directly to smartphones and tablets, and polishes the third-party app and add-on support for the NAS themselves. There’s now a new Genie Apps section for one-click installation, and Netgear expects various developers to jump onboard now that there’s support for paid and subscription-based options.

Those apps could include integration with third-party cloud services such as Amazon’s or Google’s (though Netgear already offers its own ReadyNAS Vault service) for those wanting an actual cloud backup too. One the first, Pahnke revealed, would be crowdsourced backup sharing service Symform, which allows users to share space on their local NAS in return for access to capacity on the remote drives of others.

If you have another ReadyNAS unit elsewhere, however, you’ll also be able to use the freshly integrated ReadyNAS Replicate feature. Previously a pro add-on, the system allows one or more NAS units to copy their data between the group, ensuring offsite backups.

Firmware v5.3.6 will be available for the ReadyNAS DUO v2 and ReadyNAS NV+ v2 from today. No word on when – or if – other models might see ReadyDROP and the other functionality added, though we would be very surprised if it wasn’t on Netgear’s roadmap.

The combination wasn’t necessarily an easy one to engineer, Pogoplug tells us. The magic is in how the company has managed to work around Glacier’s usual retrieval time delay – normally 3-5 hours – and instead deliver content instantly and make it shareable as soon as you want it to be.

That’s because you have a local version, which is served up from your own choice of drives, for the fastest access, along with Amazon’s hosted version for extra data security.

The new system works with both Pogoplug Family and Pogoplug Team accounts, so whether you’re using it at home or in the office you’ll be able to add in a cloud storage option too. Family plans kick off at $29/year for 100GB of offsite cloud storage, with 300GB for $49 and 1TB for $99. All new sign-ups to Family plans will get a free Pogoplug storage device, as a limited-time promotion, too.

You’ll be working with hardware assist with the DS213+ so that you’ll have improved performance over pervious models while using 256-bit AES encryption. You’ll also be able to work with USB 3.0 for improved restore times and backup when you need it. Both models (as it is with all Synology DiskStations) come with DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system, made for intuitive everyday usage and business-friendly features galore.

Model DS213 comes with a standard SD card slot as well as 2 USB 3.0 slots, while the DS213+ brings on dual-core and floating-point for acceleration in decoding and encoding. Both units are going to be working with The Cloud Station package, including the ability for users to keep files in sync both “on the go” and in the office. This system gives you the ability to keep your files in sync without the need for 3rd party servers or port forwarding.

Both models have support for backups for both Windows and Mac OS X clients as well as centralized file sharing with common network protocols – simplicity, essentially. You’ll be working with ACL support for granular, file-level control as well as ADS for support of up to 100,000 users and groups. This system allows granular notifications via SMS, email, and even push – and there’s an Antivirus package if you’d like as well.

Find out all the information you need about this set of systems – if you don’t already have enough – in our original reveal of the DS213+ earlier this month. Otherwise you can pick both the DS213 and the DS213+ up immediately if not soon – DS213 will be up for $299 USD and the DS213+ will be available for $369 USD – check em out!

The interface for Visual Sharing allows the user to set up a contact list and after locating files they want share, the user can then drag-and-drop those files on to the contacts to share the file. Another key new feature is Facebook integration. The Facebook integration allows the user to link a Facebook account to IDriveSync. Once the Facebook account is linked, the user can access their friends list as contacts and share photos or videos with Facebook friends via private messages and wall posts.

Using the Facebook integration photos can be uploaded once to the IDriveSync account and be available to post on Facebook and for other uses. IDriveSync offers 5 GB free storage space with 150 GB costing $4.95 monthly for $49.50 annually. Users needing more space can get 500 GB for $14.95 a month or $149.50 annually. Each account supports an unlimited number of connected devices that share the same sync space. The service added support for Macs back in 2010.

Hardware

While consumer NAS units usually try to throw some curves into the mix so as to make the drive arrays more home office friendly, QNAP’s no-nonsense approach means the TS-669 Pro is a battleship of a device. Measuring 6.89 x 10.12 x 9.25 inches and constructed from sheet metal and dense plastic, it’s sturdy enough that we’d consider putting it under a desk as long as it was reasonably out of the reach of idly-swinging feet.

Up front there are six individual drive bays, each hot-swappable and with a security lock, topped with a two-line LCD to show status and settings; a pair of buttons alongside allow you to navigate through the simple menu structure. Each bay gets status LEDs, and there’s a front USB 2.0 port with an instant-copy button for quickly offloading content from an attached drive or memory card (in a USB reader).

On the back, meanwhile, QNAP gives you more than the average number of ports for a NAS. There are a further four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 and two eSATA, along with a VGA port that’s reserved for maintenance use; two gigabit ethernet ports handle networking duties. You also get a total of three fans, one dedicated to the power supply and the other two 90mm fans for keeping the drives from overheating. In use, there’s a noticeable whirr but not a tremendously intrusive one, though it’s more suite to the home office, study or workplace than the living room.

Inside, there’s a 2.13GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor with 1GB of RAM preinstalled; a single spare SO-DIMM RAM slot will take either 1GB or 2GB chips to take the total to 3GB. That runs QNAP’s custom Linux OS, which supports just about every drive spanning and redundancy format you could hope for (Single Disk, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 + Hot Spare, 6, 6 + Hot Spare, 10, 10 + Hot Spare, along with online RAID expansion and use of external drives hanging off the USB and eSATA ports) and is managed through the usual browser-based interface.

QNAP positions the TS-669 Pro as a NAS suitable for small and home businesses, but there are plenty of media features ideal for home users. Like Synology systems we’ve reviewed, there’s the ability to set it up as a file or FTP server, a backup server for Apple Time Machine or various third-party Windows clients, a webserver, or a standalone BitTorrent downloader. It can also collect video from up to four IP cameras simultaneously, or share up to three USB printers to network clients.

Meanwhile, it will work as an iTunes server or a generic UPnP media server, streaming to mobile devices, smart TVs and other hardware, and if you plug in a USB soundcard or speakers you can use the TS-669 Pro as a standalone music jukebox. It will serve up photo galleries and sync them to Facebook, Blogger and other sites, as well as stream them remotely to the iOS and Android QMobile apps. It’s also open to official and third-party extensions, which will turn the NAS into anything from a SqueezeBox server for home media streaming, an Asterisk VoIP system, or a WordPress host.

Performance

All of that functionality would be for nothing if the TS-669 Pro couldn’t keep up with network traffic. We used six 1TB Western Digital Black 7200rpm 1TB drives with SATA 6 Gb/s interfaces and 64MB of cache, set up in a RAID 10 array. The QNAP was connected to a 1Gbps ethernet switch; we tested with a Windows 7 PC using SAMBA, also with a gigabit ethernet connection, and then with an OS X Lion Mac, using FTP (since SAMBA is not natively supported in OS X).

On the PC, using 4GB files, we saw read speeds of 178 MB/sec and write speeds of 138 MB/sec. On the Mac, again using 4GB files, we managed 211 MB/sec read speeds and 206 MB/sec writes. Those numbers, under OS X at least, are impressively close to QNAP’s own figures, and were certainly sufficient to run backups (either using Apple’s own Time Machine or the supplied copy of QNAP NetBak Replicator for Windows) in the background in short-order.

As for the remote access apps, we tried QNAP’s software for iPhone and Android, and were quickly accessing files and media stored on the TS-669 Pro. Obviously the experience depended significantly on the speed of our mobile connection and the upload speed available to the QNAP itself.

Wrap-Up

With street prices hovering around the $1,000 mark, the TS-669 Pro TurboNAS isn’t cheap, and you’ll need to factor in the cost of drives, too. It would certainly pay for a whole lot of cloud storage, if sheer terabytes are your primary concern. What most cloud storage doesn’t give you, however, is the flexibility that the QNAP offers.

For home users, there’s a huge breadth of media options, everything from simply using the TS-669 Pro as a hub for your photos, music and video, to DLNA streaming to an Xbox or PlayStation, phone or tablet, or as the centerpiece of a Sonos or Squeezebox multi-room audio setup. The Android and iOS apps are neatly designed and functional, and with none of the time consuming uploading of music and video that cloud locker services demand, we were up and running in no time at all.

For businesses, meanwhile, there’s the promise of speed and the convenience of a huge amount of flexibility in what the TS-669 Pro can be for you. Need a solid backup box with redundancy? With six 1TB drives we had a 3TB RAID10 array with high levels of both redundancy and performance. Need an FTP server, or an email server, or a printer server, or a VPN server? The QNAP will do it all, simultaneously, as well as monitor your IP webcams and more.

Flexibility costs, as does knowing exactly what drives are being used to maintain your backup. The convenience of the cloud is great, but if you want a pro-level data storage and sharing system and you take backup seriously, the QNAP TS-669 Pro TurboNAS should be on your shortlist.

On the back there are two Thunderbolt ports, the second for daisy-chaining devices together, along with a USB 3.0 port, making the Drobo Mini the ideal partner to the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air line-up. Drobo even throws in the necessary cables, and the usual BeyondRAID drive redundancy and auto-repopulation is onboard.

As for the Drobo 5D, that has five 3.5-inch hard-drive bays, two Thunderbolt ports (again, the second for daisy-chaining) and a USB 3.0 port, and comes with all the necessary cables. It too gets an mSATA SSD bay for boosting performance, and Drobo says the unit runs quieter than the previous-gen version.

Drobo isn’t talking release dates or confirming pricing at this stage, promising exact details  in July. However the Drobo Mini will be under $650 and the Drobo 5D under $850.

When you open your iTwin for the first time, you’ve only to plug it in once to each of the (Mac or PC) computers you want to connect and install the software that comes on the stick (which also works as a storage solution JUST for these files). Once the software is installed, you’ll get a code that allows you to remotely shut down each individual stick if you lose it. Upon installation, you’ll just stick one end of the stick in one computer, pull out the other end, head over to your second computer, and plug it in there.

With one piece of iTwin plugged into each of your two computers, you’ve got a wireless connection between the two in two folders. There’s one folder which exists on one computer, and another folder which exists on the other. Both folders are visible by each computer. If you want to transfer a file from one computer to another, you can place that file in the Remote folder. If you want to allow one computer to see a set of files on the other computer, you’ve only to place those files in the Local folder.

These USB sticks connect via the internet connection that your computer is accessing, and can pair up no matter how far away from one another they are in the physical world – as it’s a combination of the web connection and the key the USB stick has that allows a computer to use it. Security on the iTwin is fabulous, using this odd combination of elements to its advantage with its two halves generating a shared random 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) key each time they are paired.

In addition to AES, you’ve also got a Smart Crypto key using HTTPS (RSA 1024-bit, 128-bit RC4) protocols as well as a password encrypting data flowing between the two halves of your iTwin. This device is able to self-configure its way around firewalls as well as Network Address Translators and utilizes Amazon EC2-based servers to relay all data. If your file cannot be transferred, it will not move – this is done instead of some services opting-in for buffering. If you’re actively transferring a file from one computer to the other, you’ll still be relying on the internet speed with which you’re connected to the web – but the iTwin certainly wont be limiting you from there.

There’s nothing so great in the world of technology as something that just works – and the iTwin just works. It does exactly as it says it will do, and it does it perfectly well. You can purchase an iTwin at iTwin.com’s online shop for $99 USD, and you’ll be able to pick up a whole iTwin or just a half (if you’ve lost the other half). For those of you wishing to connect multiple computers, the “iTwin Multi” software update will allow you do so with the same iTwin hardware you already own! Grab a bunch today!

We took a quick peek at the 4-bay model at Computex, which features support for four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a single USB 3.0 port, and curiously an HDMI port. Presumably any media content that is stored on the NAS can be streamed out via the HDMI port to a TV. There’s also a single USB 3.0 port on the front of the device.

The series will be powered by an Intel dual-core Atom processor and 1GB of RAM that can be upgraded up to 3GB. The line will feature cross-platform sharing support for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and feature support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10. Several models will be made available, ranging from 2-bays up to 8-bays. Once again, there’s no word on pricing or availability just yet.

Because it’s running on the company’s own servers, local data accessing from the home network is as fast as the LAN can deliver it. However, businesses also get Pogoplug’s various mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android, as well as automatic backup of their mobile device to the Pogoplug cloud.

Everything can be reskinned to suit the business itself, leaving the Pogoplug functionality but making it look like an in-house tool. Installation is apparently straightforward, with no modifications required to file types or folder structures. There’s also control over user permissions and sharing options, and the ability to add files to the cloud simply by emailing them in.

Pogoplug Team is available now, priced at $15 per user, per year, with a minimum of three users per account. If you’re a business using an existing Pogoplug product, you can also upgrade it to Team.

I’ve been a vocal advocate of HTCSense.com in the past, and an equally vocal critic. The cloud service should’ve been the jewel in the company’s crown, a potent value-add to lure in new customers and a compelling reason to upgrade to another HTC handset for existing owners. Instead, after a loud inception and a long fallow period, Sense online shudders to a halt with hardly a whimper.

HTC insiders have been telling me that the company was planning a change to HTCSense.com for some time now. My mentioning the service has become a sort of refrain at every device briefing and product launch: “when will you be doing something with Sense online?” has been my refrain, and their “officially, no comment; unofficially, there are changes afoot” the inevitable answer.

Well, here are the changes, and who would’ve guessed yanking the plug was the best option. With the rise of Apple’s iCloud and HTC’s own struggles to differentiate on hardware alone against the comprehensive component options of, say, Samsung, a decent cloud sync service seems like an obvious thing to have. In fact it’s an advantage we’ve highlighted again and again, but it’s one that HTC has obviously decided it can do without.

Even the way HTC is handling the shutdown rankles. Yes, there’s a download of user-data, but frankly that’s the bare minimum it should be doing. It’s the complete hand-washing of service responsibility that is gobsmackingly awful. “If you would like phone location or backup services for your device,” the open letter to users reads, “please visit Google Play (formerly Android Market) and download an application that best meets your needs.”

That’s it. No suggestions, no “why not try these links” or guidance to safe app choices. No prompted downloads from the on-device HTC appstore, something the company has previous championed as a great way for hand-picked developers to get extra attention. Did HTC decide there was no way it could pick between the range of apps out there or, more likely perhaps, did it simply give up without even searching the Play Market for location and backup services?

HTC promises new “services and value” in the pipeline, but exactly what they are is a poorly-handled mystery. Look at, for instance, the way Apple handled the MobileMe to iCloud transition: it didn’t spend time telling users about what was being taken away, but built enthusiasm about what was going to be added. HTC should’ve taken this opportunity to shout about its new, exciting functionality – especially on the eve of the One X and One S releases – but instead it merely told its loyal supporters that they were losing something.

Perhaps there’s magic ahead. Perhaps HTC has finally decided to do something Loudly Brilliant with OnLive, and Beats Audio, and HTC Watch. Perhaps there’s a MOG-powered cloud jukebox service coming, and user-created multimedia sharing, and more. We wouldn’t know, though, because HTC decided it was better to pull the plug on HTCSense.com before telling us how it was doing something so much better.

The new firmware – and the apps – changes that; a new WiFi icon has been added to the GoFlex Satellite apps and the browser-based interface, which allows you to have both connections active. Meanwhile there’s also an increase on the number of simultaneously-connected users, now up to eight at a time (or five if encryption is enabled). The GoFlex Satellite can stream up to three HD-quality videos simultaneously.

Battery life is also improved, thanks to some pre-emptive caching that automatically downloads the current file to whatever device you’re watching it on; Seagate previously quoted up to 5hrs of runtime on a single charge. That can be toggled off, however, if space is at a premium.

There’s also now DLNA streaming support, allowing you to access the multimedia content on the Satellite drive from a smart TV or other device. The new firmware is available here, and the apps for iOS and Android are available in the App Store and Play Market respectively.

The sharing happens within Dropbox, via a new tool that allows users to authenticate their Facebook account and then use in-line auto-complete to select the name of the person or people that users want to share their files with. This is the latest push from Dropbox to stay relevant and on the bleeding edge of a market that it helped create. It was on the launching pad but the question is whether or not it can stay at the top of the game.

In a world where iCloud is becoming increasingly relevant, Amazon offers a convenient cloud storage solution, and Google is planning on launching a huge cloud drive initiative, Dropbox is at a point where it needs to bring new stuff to the table. The online service updated its Automator platform last month, increasing connectivity with Google+. This latest announcement shows a trend, revealing that Dropbox feels social integration is the way to stay relevant in the increasingly muddled cloud.

[via VentureBeat]

If that sounds scary, then Space Monkey is quick to point out that it uses a combination of AES-128 and RSA-4096 encryption to secure what are only partial chunks of your files on each unit, while the benefits of the distributed storage are low cost and easy access. 1TB of storage costs $10 per month – in contrast, DropBox currently charges $19.99 for 100GB – and when you access your data from a browser or one of the mobile apps, it’s shuttled to you from the nearest Space Monkey drives rather than from your home drive, so as to be quicker.

“When the device is plugged into the home network or small office, it gives the user a local cache for fast uploads and downloads. In the background, the device quietly makes a privately encrypted copy of your data, breaks that encrypted file into many little pieces and then distributes them out to the Space Monkey storage network for safe keeping” Space Monkey

There’s the expected sharing and collaborative tools, and the benefit is that if your internet connection goes down you have a local copy of data too.

Space Monkey expects the service to launch in the next few months, and you can sign up for more details at the company’s site. There’s also a beta program, giving ownership of the Space Monkey box itself – normally leased as part of the monthly fee – together with two years of service for $240.

[via CNET]

This first statistic comes from a report from DeepField Networks called File Sharing in the Post MegaUpload Era. This same study had MegaUpload downloads representing no less than 30-40% of all file sharing on the internet. As MegaUpload’s own MegaVideo and the other biggest sharer of files after that, Filesonic, both shuttered their doors effectively on January 18th, their percentages (34.1% for Mega and 19.1% for Filesonic, if you’d like to know) were distributed amongst the rest of the next biggest hosts. According again to DeepField, “MegaUpload sprawled over more than 1000 servers and 25 petabytes of data in Carpathia facilities.” That’s an intense amount of copies of Skyrim, that’s for sure.

On the 19th of January it was Putlocker up top with nearly 30% of all the file sharing on the web with several services next in line like MediaFire and NovaMov. Both the graphics you see above and below come from DeepField.

What we’re seeing here is the spread of the wealth to many disparate sites rather than one titanic monster in MegaUpload. This hasn’t been a pretty site though, as TorrentFreak reports not just a few sites shutting down in the wake of MegaUpload: Filesonic and Fileserve banned third party downloads, Uploadbox.com and X7.to have shut down entirely, VideoBB and VideoZer have changed their programs drastically.

According to Sandvine, Megaupload accounted for roughly 1% of total traffic to fixed access networks in North America, and that does not include the rest of the affiliate sites MegaVideo, MegaPix, MegaLive, and MegaBox. What’s happening now instead of that massive bulk of traffic coming out of servers here in the USA, the shift is going towards groups like Putlocker, NovaMov and MediaFire, each of these with data based in Europe for the most part. So though file sharing may have taken a hit when MegaUpload was knocked out, the sharing remains – it’s just coming from over the ocean.

[via ITWorld]

Meanwhile, the company has announced new figures on Pogoplug Cloud adoption. Over one million “personal clouds” – that is, Pogoplug hardware devices, or computers running the Pogoplug app - are now in operation. More than 150 petabytes of end-user data is now entrusted to a Pogoplug product.

The Pogoplug Series 4 is priced at $99.99 and sits at the top of the company’s range. It offers two USB 3.0 ports, SD, one USB 2.0, and a 2.5-inch SATA/USM/Seagate GoFlex ultra-portable drive input for hooking up your choice of storage.

As for the Pogoplug Mobile, it has a USB 2.0 port and an SD card slot, and is $79.95. The Pogoplug Cloud app is a free download with 5GB of storage, and can be upgraded to as much as 1TB of capacity.

This solution works with Iomega’s QuikProtect software, this working with a built-in iTunes server, the ability to work with your files through Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. In addition, you can work instantly with your new mac’s Time Machine feature to do instant storage with no effort at all. Torrent support is included as well, this for your soon to be gigantic collection of downloads that are, again, available to access from any of your home-based machines.

The Iomega EZ Media & Backup Center comes DLNA certified for you to be streaming video, audio, and photos across your network. You can stream to multimedia players, digital picture frames, game consoles, and of course mobile devices and your desktop and laptop machines. The models this device will be coming in will be 1TB will cost SRP $219.99, 2TB will be $299.99, and the 3TB will cost $399.99, and all of this should be available in February of 2012. Sound like the solution for you?

Hardware

Pogoplug used to be known for its bright pink “internet devices”; now the company has matured into a far subtler black box with a discrete blue logo that doubles as an indicator light. It’s considerably smaller than the original design, though you pay for that in connectivity: just one USB 2.0 port instead of five. You still get a gigabit ethernet port, but whereas the AC adapter was integrated previously there’s now a wall-wart plug instead.

What you do get differently is a full-sized SD card slot on the side, meaning digital photographers can instantly get their pictures and videos onto the network. Those who have more external drives can step up to the Pogoplug Series 4, $20 more than the $79.95 Pogoplug Mobile, which adds a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a SATA/USM connection. The original Pogoplug v2 – now known as the Classic – remains on sale at $49.95.

Setup is indecently straightforward: plug in the power, hook the Pogoplug Mobile to your router via the included ethernet cable, and then open up the company’s site to register a free account. That also gets you 5GB of free online storage, which is handy for offsite backups of your most important files. Pogoplug reckon you can do it all in sixty seconds, and as long as you’ve got a spare ethernet port on your router and a spare mains socket nearby, they’re probably not too far off.

After that, it’s simply a case of choosing what storage you’d like to use and plugging it in. Any USB drive should work, with mobile drives being powered from the port as usual, and you can have both a drive and an SD card connected simultaneously.

Software

Pogoplug Mobile is most easily accessed through the browser interface, either across your home network or remotely. You can, however, mount the volumes as drives in OS X and Windows for more straightforward drag/drop use. The internet-based UI offers access to files, as usual, and various multimedia sections, but Pogoplug has also released the Pogoplug Browser app for PC and Mac. That too shows files and folders, as well as gallery, jukebox and cinema sections that automatically pull out all the multimedia files on your storage and present them in a simple manner.

Files to be added to the Pogoplug can be dragged and dropped straight to the Pogoplug Browser app, and there’s sharing support as well to make firing off photos or other content via email or other routes easy. You can also set up an auto-sync folder that automatically copies any files saved to it over to a dedicated folder on the Pogoplug storage.

It’s the mobile apps that the company is really pushing with this new model, however. Versions for iPhone/iPod touch, iPad and Android are available, each a free download, with generally the same remote access options as the desktop software. You can browse through files/folders, stream photos, music and video, or download multimedia directly to the local storage on your handset. Conversely, you can set the apps to automatically upload photos and videos taken by the phone to your Pogoplug Mobile storage, meaning they’re ready and waiting when you get home. It’s a little like Apple’s iCloud, only with cross-platform support for both iOS and Android devices.

Performance

The bottleneck of the Pogoplug Mobile’s data-transferring abilities will inevitably be the USB 2.0 connection; factor in the inherent shortcomings of even 802.11n wireless networks and it’s inevitable that for most users access speeds will be significantly curtailed in comparison to a directly-connected drive. Still, we were able to watch an HD video stored on a USB 2.0 drive and streaming over an 802.11n WiFi connection to our laptop.

On the move, the mobile apps are very much dependent on your connection – both the download speed of your mobile network and the upload speed of the broadband connection the Pogoplug Mobile itself is connected to. Whereas you can generally rely on a commercially-hosted cloud storage service having a fat upload pipe, most domestic upload speeds are a fraction of the download speed.

That’s not so great an issue for accessing the odd file, browsing a photo gallery or even streaming music, but video could be a trickier issue. The mobile apps offer a choice of watching the original format clip – as long as you have a suitable playback app to handle the codec – as well as an “optimized” version that the Pogoplug Mobile converts into a more mobile-friendly format. The downside to that is the time and space required to actually do that transcoding; you can set it to automatically convert all video or do so on demand, the former obviously occupying space on your hard-drive, and the latter generally proving too slow when handling 720p/1080p original files to watch the clips when we actually wanted to.

Wrap-Up

Compared to regular cloud-storage services, the Pogoplug Mobile costs more upfront – the $79.95 unit itself, and then whatever storage you choose to plug in – but, with no subscription fees, less over time. If you’ve already got a USB drive you’re halfway there; alternatively, there are dual-HDD USB drives that you could plug in if you want some hardware redundancy. Since the Pogoplug Mobile itself is fanless, if you opt for an SD card then you’d have a silent, cool-running storage device that’s easily hidden away.

Alternatively, rely on USB drives for regular storage and then SD cards for when you want to quickly review the photos you’ve just taken on a tablet or phone which lacks a full-sized memory card slot (in other words most of them). It’s certainly convenient, as is dumping all your photos, music and video onto a single drive and streaming them around the home, rather than maintaining copies on each computer and gadget.

Those who can put up with a little noise and who aren’t bothered by SD compatibility might choose to grab the Pogoplug Classic, saving money and getting some extra USB ports in the process. For most mainstream users, though, the Pogoplug Mobile ticks most of the important boxes: ease of setup, ease of use and low cost of ownership.

Pogoplug charges $9.95 per month for 50GB of cloud storage or $19.95 per month for 100GB. Alternatively, pick up a Pogoplug or Pogoplug Mobile - for $79 or $99 respectively – and plug in your own choice of hard-drive, and you can host a companion cloud from the home or office that sits alongside the one on Pogoplug’s servers.

“To get 2 terabytes of storage in the cloud with other companies costs hundreds or thousands of dollars” Pogoplug points out. “With Pogoplug, you can buy a $99 device and an $80 2TB HDD and you’re set. Expansion is basically unlimited, and the various Pogoplug products all work together and talk to each other based on your email address.”

Alternatively, if you don’t mind leaving your computer on, you can use the Pogoplug Software and turn your PC or Mac into another Pogoplug drive. You can sign up for a free 5GB account here.

Backup Basics

Drives fail: it’s a fact of life. Many people upgrade their PC or laptop more frequently than the average HDD/SSD lifespan, but there’s always the possibility of a spontaneous hardware failure to really put a dampener on your day. Then there are accidents – dropping your laptop, spilling coffee into it, having it stolen or simply losing it – and user errors, such as inadvertently deleting files that subsequently turn out to be vital. With many media collections being entirely digital these days, it’s important to have a second copy just in case the worst should happen.

There are several ways to make that second copy, some local and some remote. The “cloud” – or basically somebody else’s servers that you access through the internet – is a fashionable option today, though can grow expensive the more space you take up, and can be slow depending on the speed of your broadband connection.

More common is local backup: some sort of secondary drive that you use to store a copy of your primary data. A few years back you could squeeze most of your important files onto a DVD or a Blu-ray; now, with ever-growing quantities of digital content, optical media is generally insufficient. Instead a second drive (or a number of drives) come into play, the simplest setup being a USB/eSATA/FireWire/Thunderbolt/etc external HDD directly connected to a single computer, or else network-attached storage (NAS) which hooks into your local network and performs backups from one or more computers over ethernet or WiFi.

The benefit of a NAS is that it’s readily shared between several computers: with enough storage, you can replicate the contents of a number of drives with a single unit. They’re also more likely to feature drive redundancy, where two or more HDD/SSDs are used to keep mirrored copies of your data. If a backup drive subsequently fails, the entire backup isn’t lost. That’s where the DS411slim comes in.

Hardware

The DS411slim may be – at 120 x 105 x 142 mm and 660g – smaller and lighter than most of the company’s other NAS, but it doesn’t stint on power. Inside the black plastic chassis there’s a 1.6GHz processor with 256MB of RAM, while in addition to the four 2.5-inch HDD bays you get a pair of USB 2.0 ports (one upfront with a dedicated copy button to instantly backup a USB drive) and an eSATA port to add storage or share USB printers across your network. A single gigabit ethernet port gets the NAS online.

Opting for notebook drives keeps the DS411slim small; Synology is also keen to point out that HDDs intended for laptops are usually quieter and cooler, suffer less vibration, can have increased MTBF (mean time before failure) and are more resilient to bumps than desktop drives. On the flip side, they’re more expensive per gigabyte than 3.5-inch drives and offer a reduced maximum capacity: most models top out at 1TB, versus the 3TB of the physically larger versions.

Of course, since the DS411slim has four bays, that’s a maximum of 4TB supported. Each drive screws into a snap-in plastic tray and slots into the NAS itself. They’re cooled by a 60mm fan that, in general, proved so quiet as to be unobtrusive: even under load, it was only when we got up close to the Synology that we could really hear it.

Software

Like other Synology products we’ve reviewed, the DS411slim runs the company’s DSM 3.2 software, and it’s one of the SlashGear team’s favorites for NAS management. Laid out across a Windows/OS X style desktop, each aspect of DSM’s functionality – and there are plenty – lives in its own draggable, multitasking window. Out of the box there’s support for multiple user accounts (with optional usage limits), site and mail server hosting, DLNA/UPnP media streaming to your PS3, Xbox 360, computer or PMP, standalone downloads (including BitTorrents), printer sharing (for up to two printers) and FTP support.

Optionally, the DS411slim can be turned into a VPN server, a Squeezebox or iTunes media server, various types of enterprise-focused drive, or – with various free iOS and Android apps – offer up its content to your phone or tablet.

DSM 3.2 supports regular RAID – including Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10 – but we opted for Synology’s own Hybrid RAID system. This can create a redundant array across multiple drives of different sizes, and automatically adapts if a new drive is added: that means you can start off with two HDDs and then, as you need more space, add more as necessary, without having to start your RAID array again from scratch.

Setting up the NAS to work with Time Machine on OS X was straightforward. By creating backup-specific user accounts – one for each computer – with individual limits on how much HDD space they could take up, we stopped Time Machine from running amok and consuming the entire array. Incremental backups happen automatically, and even over a WiFi 802.11n connection were not too intrusive to other network use. Windows users, meanwhile, get a copy of Synology Data Replicator 3 on the bundled DVD, allowing PCs to do the same thing.

Performance

We installed two 1TB Toshiba 5,400rpm hard-drives, and let the DS411slim set up a Hybrid RAID array: we ended up with 912.45GB of available space. Should one of the drives fail, our data would still be safe on the other, and after installing a new drive the NAS would automatically rebuild its array. It’s worth noting that the drive bays aren’t hot-swappable, so you need to shut down the DS411slim in order to swap out or add in disks.

Over a gigabit ethernet connection, the DS411slim managed 43.2 MB/s write speeds and 59.6 MB/s read speeds. You’ll get faster speeds if you set the NAS up as a RAID 1 array, but no drive redundancy. It’s worth noting that the bottleneck for most users is unlikely to be the core drive speed itself, but the network: with more and more home users relying on WiFi, sheer network throughput is going to have the biggest impact on things like backup times.

Wrap-Up

There’s a price/performance/convenience balance to be made with the DiskStation DS411slim. The barebones RRP of $319.99/£232.99 compares well to other four-drive NAS, but you’ll spend more on drives and get less maximum capacity too. On the flip side, your backup system will likely be quieter and smaller than most of those rivals.

In the end, while business users and those with a taste for HD video may want to look to a NAS that accommodates 3.5-inch drives, the DS411slim holds plenty of appeal for the regular consumer. Backup support for multiple PCs and Macs, a wealth of media sharing features and DSM’s software flexibility to turn the DiskStation into a mini server, webhost, ‘Torrent station or jukebox add up to a system with broad appeal and flexibility. Factor in the straightforward UI and compact footprint and you can see why the Synology DiskStation DS411slim comes highly recommended.

Each accepts 3.5-inch desktop hard-drives, and comes with a front USB 2.0 port (with a dedicated copy button) along with two USB 3.0 ports on the rear for adding extra external storage. Although most home users are unlikely to have the network bandwidth to take advantage of USB 3.0 versus USB 2.0 data rates, Netgear tells us the new NAS should be its entry-level options for at least 12-18 months, and expects home networking speeds to catch up somewhat in that period. A single gigabit ethernet port hooks the ReadyNAS to your router.

Netgear has refreshed its setup wizard and browser-based UI, RAIDiator 5, and now claims it’s less than eight steps from plugging in to being up and running. Up to 96 MBps read rates and 60 MBps write rates are claimed – for real-world performance testing, check out our ReadyNAS Duo v2 review – with hot-swappable drive bays allowing you to replace a faulty drive or add a new one without powering down the NAS. The X-RAID2 software can automatically expand your RAID volume if a new drive is added, with no downtime.

Netgear is particularly keen on its ReadyNAS Photos II app, which basically allows you to turn your “personal cloud” into a private Flickr or Picasa. Custom URLs can be created, to invite friends and family to view certain galleries, or you can throw open the door to public access. Because you’re hosting it, not somebody else’s servers, you can offer full resolution pictures – something many sites demand subscription fees for – though, as ReadyNAS senior product marketing manager Matt Pahnke explained to us, what viewers actually see will depend on their device and connection.

“Photos II automatically optimizes resolution based on the network speed of the consuming device” Pahnke told us. “The goal here is to provide all users with an efficient way to enjoy the photos stored on the ReadyNAS without having to endure lengthy download times. If a user with a sub-optimal connection would like to view the photos at a higher resolution, they do have the option of overriding the optimization.”

There’s also a Remote Access app, available for Windows, OS X, Android and iOS, allowing for browsing and downloading over a secure VPN connection to your ReadyNAS at home. In the future, Pahnke confirmed, Netgear intends to add support for its Netgear Vault cloud storage service (already available for the company’s more advanced NAS) so that ReadyNAS owners will be able to mirror some or all of their content in true cloud backup.

The ReadyNAS Duo v2 will be priced at $199 as a diskless drive, or at $269 pre-fitted with a single 1TB drive. A version with a single 2TB drive will be $299. As for the ReadyNAS NV+ v2, that will be $399 diskless, $499 for a 2TB version and $599 for a 4TB version. Netgear says that, while the cost of hard-drives may rise as supplies grow temporarily scarce, it has secured storage to cater for estimated demand this quarter and will only be passing on its own increased costs, nothing more (the diskless models will remain the same price). They’re all available from today.

There’s a new central set of controls made specifically for IT administrators, and Dropbox is now offering phone support as well as centralized billing to cover all users on the Team. The initial cost of nearly $800 will cover a full year for five users, while each additional user will tac on another $125. That $795 basic plan includes one full terabyte of shared storage between all users, while each user added beyond the first five in the group adds on another 200 gigabytes (GB) of space. Sound like enough room for all your event photos?

Dropbox is also pushing their security features this week with a note on how all files are stored and encrypted with Amazon’s S3 service in secure data centers. Amazon S3, for those of you that don’t know, is Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, designed “to make web-scale computing easier for developers.” Basically its a dedicated and secure place for data trusted by thousands of already-satisfied customers, if you know what I mean. In addition to this, as with all Dropbox accounts, you’ve got the option of backing up all your files on a Dropbox folder that can sit on your own computer’s desktop.

Sound like the deal for you? Get droppin!

Three of the USB ports are on the back of the LaPlug, and the fourth is up front for easily connecting a memory stick or portable drive. If you want to use it as a centralized backup station, LaCie bundles PC backup software and the box is compatible with Apple’s Time Machine on OS X. FAT32, NTFS, HFS and HFS+ (both journaled and non-journaled) drive formats are supported. It’s worth noting that the LaPlug’s WiFi only supports client mode, so you can’t use it as a router or, presumably, for direct connections between your computer and the drives.

With the demise of the Pogoplug Pro, Pogoplug’s WiFi-enabled model, LaCie finds itself offering something relatively rare given the wireless support in the LaPlug. If you’re sharing and accessing large files then you’ll probably want to use gigabit ethernet anyway, but at $74.99 with both WiFi and wired options, you can’t really knock the LaPlug.

Backup Basics

Generally speaking, there’s local backup and remote backup. Local, as the word suggests, is on-site: anything from burning a DVD of important files and keeping it in your desk drawer, to a USB (or eSATA, or FireWire, or some other connection) hard-drive you plug in directly, or a network-attached storage (NAS) device that serves one or more computers on your local wired or wireless network. Remote backup could be as simple as leaving a copy of your home DVD or HDD files at work or with a friend, or – more commonly now – online in some sort of “cloud” repository.

Redundancy is another key part of backup: basically, how resilient the backup system itself is to hardware failure (and other issues, like theft or damage). Burning two DVDs rather than one is redundancy, but more common is using a so-called array of drives (either directly-connected or NAS) that each carry a copy of your data. If one drive dies, the data is safe on the second (or third, or fourth, etc.) and can be repopulated on the new drive you slot in to replace it.

Increasingly popular is a hybrid of local and remote backup, and that’s where the LaCie CloudBox comes in. It consists of both a local NAS drive and a companion online cloud store, automatically copying anything placed onto the drive up into the cloud.

Hardware

LaCie’s favorite designer, Neil Poulton, does the honors with the CloudBox, though the external drive itself is probably more a case of what was left out than what’s been included. A compact 4.6 x 4.6 x 1.5 inch black plastic box, the only real elements of interest are the recessed status LED in a notch under the leading edge (which flickers blue with varying degrees of frequency while active, and red when frustrated) along with a gigabit ethernet port, power input and button on the back, the latter the only physical control and used to turn the CloudBox on or off.

Inside is a 100GB 2.5-inch hard-drive, non-user-accessible. That sounds small and, indeed, it is. Even the most humble of netbooks of recent years have offered more storage, and with some desktop-replacement laptops packing 1TB+ the CloudBox seems hopelessly naive at first glance.

LaCie’s intention, though, is seemingly to force a sense of perspective on the would-be user. Local storage can be capacious and swift; cloud storage is generally more expensive and, being limited by the narrow-bore upload pipe of most home internet connections, time-consuming to shuttle files up to ‘net-based safety. There’s no choice as to which files get replicated online: everything placed onto the local drive is copied to the cloud. Sure, you could dump all of your video files onto the CloudBox, but it’s really more for vital documents: your email backup, your tax returns and all those Word files you’d be distraught to lose; your final year project or your latest work report.

Noise levels from the box, even when the hard-drive is active, are very low. There’s no warning on heat levels, beyond the on-device logs, though the CloudBox will email you notifications when space is running low.

Software and Performance

As you’d hope from a product with simplicity as its watchword, setup of the CloudBox is straightforward. Physically, it’s a case of plugging it into a spare ethernet port on your router with the bundled cable, plugging in the power supply and then waiting for the light to steady on blue.

A bundled CD offers LaCie’s Network Assistant tool, basically a CloudBox-seeker which lives in the system tray of your PC or Mac and works as a shortcut to the browser-based setup page. More adept users will bypass it altogether and surf to either http://cloudbox or its IP address (assigned and revealed by your router). First up there’s the Setup Wizard, used to establish an administrator username and password as well as punch in the contract number for the complimentary 12-month subscription to the cloud storage service.

From that point on, anything more complex is optional. You can simply begin dropping files onto the CloudBox – mounting it as a network drive in your OS of choice makes this easier – and relax in the knowledge that they’re being funneled up into the cloud shortly after. By pairing local and remote storage, your computer needn’t be on while the time-consuming upload process takes place: the CloudBox itself handles all that. We whipped out the power cable during the initial upload, then turned the NAS back on and it automatically picked up where it had left off. Obviously, had we taken an axe to the local drive before it had finished uploading, our data would be in so many unrecoverable slices, but simple power failures needn’t be a headache.

There are plenty more settings to be tinkered with in the LaCie CloudBox dashboard, however, including a simple counter showing how many out of the 100GB have been done, and when the most recent cloud upload took place. Some network information, details on user accounts – you can set up multiple users, each having access to their own files but nobody else’s, and optionally with a set quota of the total storage that they can use – together with log records, a countdown to when your cloud backup plan expires and the option to manually set upload and download speed limits so as not to saturate your broadband connection are also easily accessed.

Then there are the restore buttons, either to selectively restore certain files from the cloud to your computer, or to fully restore everything in the cloud to the CloudBox. The latter is useful if the hard-drive in the local NAS dies, and you want to repopulate its replacement (your user settings are also restored). The cloud storage keeps the last ten complete backups, so you can step back through previous versions of files: handy if you discover a file was recently corrupted and that the most recent backup has preserved that corrupted file.

What you can’t do, however, is log into the cloud store and access files remotely. Unlike most cloud-based backup systems, LaCie makes no provision for grabbing files while on the move, either using a browser-based interface or a smartphone app of some sort. The cloud, instead, is resolutely intended as another layer of redundancy; 128-bit AES encryption is applied as standard by the CloudBox itself – before the files ever leave your home or office network – and only your username and password can unlock them.

Pricing and Value

At $199 (in the US; £179.90 in the UK) for 100GB, the CloudBox is hardly the cheapest external drive we’ve ever seen. For the same amount, or less, you could have a 2TB+ NAS with drive redundancy, though obviously you’d then lack the cloud element of the LaCie option. It’s worth bearing in mind that many NAS drives support online backup too, though you’ll have to set up – and pay for – a cloud backup account; it’s all less straightforward than the CloudBox makes things.

That, then, is what you’re really paying for: simplicity. The CloudBox forces a conscious decision about which files are really important, locks them up with AES encryption automatically, and mirrors up to ten versions online, all after a few minutes setup. A further 12 months of cloud rental is priced at €99 in Europe.

Wrap-Up

Most users with any amount of network proficiency would probably be able to piece together a cheaper, more flexible local/cloud backup system than the CloudBox. That’s not to say LaCie’s drive misses the mark, however. Whereas a regular NAS might be a weekend’s frustration for basic users – arguably the most likely to avoid backing-up altogether – the CloudBox’s convenience makes it a plug & play option in which the “plug” aspect doesn’t demand a degree in computer science to complete. You could reasonably mail your tech-naive family or friends a CloudBox and expect them to have their essential files secured with minor effort.

What is true is that the CloudBox will most likely only work as one part of a backup solution. 100GB is insufficient for most individual users to fully backup their entire digital lives; share that out with several people, as LaCie makes easy, and that’s an even smaller proportion of each hard-drive covered. Dollar for gigabyte, it’s a wasteful way of preserving all but the rarest of digital music and video collections. A workable system might include the CloudBox for securing documents, precious digital photo originals and email backups, while cheaper external drives (either directly connected or networked) handle space-hungry multimedia. Yes, there’s an extra element of risk, but then that’s the implicit balance you find with any backup strategy.

The drives are hot-swappable, and the DS24+ supports Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10, as well as Synology’s own Hybrid RAID system. The company reckons you’ll see 165 MB/sec write and 195 MB/sec read speeds on average, and the impressively comprehensive DSM 3.1 software supports Apple Time Machine and other backup systems, along with various server options, control of network cameras, network printing and UPnP streaming.

Power consumption is listed as 38.5W in hibernation and 104.5W when active, though that’s perhaps no surprise given all those drive bays. It’s shipping now, priced at $1,699.99 for the disk-free DS2411+, while the DX1211 expansion module is around $1,299.99.

Background

Pogoplug started off with a basic Marvell Plug Computer design back in 2009, offering a simple way to share a USB hard-drive over the internet. The second-gen model boosted the number of ports to four, and subsequent updates threw in cloud printing support, WiFi and a sober business version dressed all in black.

The company’s premise was straightforward: a sixty second setup experience, made ultra-streamlined with automatic network discovery, sensible default sharing options and a convenient web interface. Mobile apps for iOS and Android meant you could access files and multimedia from home rather than store them locally.

In fact, the only real hurdle was the price: $99 for the magic box itself. Now, with Pogoplug Software, the company is taking on Dropbox and others with a hybrid of the web-accessible cloud model, using local storage and a browser/app-based interface.

Setup and Usability

Rather than plugging in a physical Pogoplug box there’s an app to be downloaded instead, available for both PC (roughly 36MB) and Mac (roughly 16MB). That walks you through setting up a new (free) Pogoplug account or logging into your existing one; multiple Pogoplug boxes and app installs can be linked to the same account. Next there’s the option to share various preset folders – for instance Movies, Pictures, Desktop and Documents on OS X – and then a quick seven pane tour of the main features.

Finally, there’s a link to the my.pogoplug.com site, which pops up in your browser already logged in and showing what folders you’ve shared from your computer. As well as the software client, Pogoplug has updated the web interface and it’s much cleaner than before. Any Pogoplug connections – hardware or software – show up in the left hand column, with tabs for basic file manager view, a Jukebox of music files, Gallery for images, Cinema for video, Sharing for any files or folders you’ve enabled third-party access to, and Backup for automatically copying folders between drives.

Active Copy isn’t new to Pogoplug – the company has offered it on its hardware devices before now – but it gets a whole lot more affordable with the software app. Previously, you’d need a separate Pogoplug device if, say, you wanted to keep an offsite backup of certain files on your computer; now, all you need is the free Pogoplug app.

You don’t have to access files via the website; the Pogoplug app also adds a folder to your computer through which you can easily see any files that have been shared with you. Sharing was one of the easier elements of the Pogoplug experience, and that’s carried forward with the new software. Hit the share button, choose the folder(s) you want to grant access to and then enter one or more email addresses and, optionally, a personal message.

The recipient of a sharing email can, depending on how you’ve set up the invite, be prompted to create a (free) Pogoplug account or, alternatively, access the files simply by clicking on the link. It’s all browser-based, and galleries are automatically animated into neat, parent-friendly slideshows.

You can also automatically add a link to the folder on your Facebook friends’ walls, by logging in with your account details and then choosing their names. Alternatively, you can publish a public link to Twitter or MySpace, or indeed open up the folder completely and even create an RSS feed so that people can keep up to date in their reader app.

There are plenty of neat touches. “One View” automatically hides duplicated files from your various Pogoplug drives (physical or software) to make browsing more straightforward, while you can also share folders by simply right-clicking on them, as long as the local settings app is running. That app also allows you to turn on and off remote access, add folders to Pogoplug, choose to share locally-attached printers, manage the Active Copy backup, and set other Pogoplug units to show up as local drives on your current computer.

Streaming and Apps

Although Pogoplug allows you to access files in any folder, it can also stream directly to a mobile device. The company offers an iPad app, an iPhone/iPod touch app and an Android app, from which you can browse your folders as normal or stream photos, music and video without having to store them on your phone or tablet.

Photo streaming is included in the free package, but there’s a one-time, $29 fee if you want to stream music and video. That’s per Pogoplug account, not per computer, so you can feasibly install the app on multiple PCs and Macs and only pay the fee once. Physical Pogoplug units include music and video streaming in the purchase price, incidentally.

It has to be said, the iOS apps show more polish than the Android app. The latter is very list-based, and we had a couple of forced-closes during testing. In contrast, the iOS app looks great and makes it very easy to navigate through files and streaming media. There’s the choice to share files directly from the app itself, and thumbnails are loaded progressively so as not to slow the whole experience down unnecessarily.

Usability and Security

Pogoplug’s usefulness has always been constrained by the size of your pipe. That is, the upload speed your home or office connection has, since you’re basically hosting your own cloud. It’s fine for documents and photos, but videos and music and be a stretch. Streaming quality it automatically adjusted depending on what upload and download speeds are available, but you definitely won’t get the same 1080p experience remotely accessing Full HD video files as if they were stored locally. Similarly, opening up several folders for sharing can, if multiple people take you up on the invite, clog up your connection.

The recent DropBox security debacle has left many wary of cloud-based storage and who might inadvertently gain access to their files. While Pogoplug leaves all your content stored locally, rather than putting it into the cloud, the web-based login does mean that it’s potentially vulnerable to hacks and similar. Still, if the worst happens, you can always deauthorize your computer with a single click.

Wrap-Up

Back when we reviewed the second-gen Pogoplug, we praised its ease of use but bemoaned the speed bottlenecks of home network connections and USB 2.0 drives. The new Pogoplug Software carried forward that easy setup and remote access, and while the network limitations are still present, the external drive speed issue isn’t necessarily a problem any more.

The obvious competitor is Dropbox, and each service has its compromises. With Dropbox, once you’ve uploaded files any subsequent downloads are reliant on the service’s own fat internet pipe; however, you’re also either stuck with a relatively small amount of free space, or paying a monthly fee for a bigger virtual drive. The Pogoplug app gives you as much space as you have local drives, but the limit shifts to being your broadband upload speeds.

Both offer free starter options, though, and as such there’s nothing stopping you from using each of them as the situation demands. If you’re looking for a straightforward way to remotely access your files and don’t want the cloud in-between, then the Pogoplug software is a great way of doing it. Just make sure you have the upload bandwidth before you pay for the $29 audio and video streaming upgrade.

Want to save $29 and get a free premium upgrade? Pogoplug has offered 200 SlashGear readers a free upgrade: click this link for more details. Be quick, though – once they’re gone, they’re gone! Update: All of the free upgrades have been snapped up, but Pogoplug is offering a $10 discount for SlashGear readers. Click the link to get premium service for just $19!

They each have a gigabit WAN port, too, for hooking up to your cable or DSL modem, along with three gigabit ethernet ports for wired computers. A USB port allows you to hook up external storage or a printer, and share it across the network.

Other specifications are broadly in-line with the first-gen Time Capsule. You get native Time Machine support for backing up your Macs, along with MAC address filtering, NAS firewall, and WEP/WPA/WP2 wireless encryption. There’s also support for time-based access control, to allow guests temporary access to your network.

So, no integrated iCloud functionality, unless Apple has some surprises up its sleeve when iSO 5 arrives. Pricing is yet to be confirmed for the new models.

Update: Ouch. The 2TB model is $299, while the 3TB model is a whopping $499. Both ship within 24hrs.

Once connected, you can browse movies, pictures, music and documents stored on the GoFlex Satellite from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android smartphone or laptop. Currently Seagate only has an iOS-specific app, GoFlex Media; Android phones and tablets, and any other devices, have to access shared media through a web interface. The company tells us an Android version is in the works, however, and should arrive later in the summer. Up to three devices can connect simultaneously, either viewing the same content – so three iPad users can watch a film together in the car – or accessing different media.

Seagate predicts GoFlex Satellite users will see five hours of active video streaming out of a full charge, or up to 25hrs standby. The iOS GoFlex Media app actually caches the video you’re watching on the device itself, so that the drive can go into standby. There’s some intelligent content management, too: dump all your videos, photos, music and documents onto the drive however you want, using the bundled Media Sync app for Windows or Mac, and it will automatically index them into categories for the app or web interfaces. The drive is visible to third-party apps, too, so if you have DivX video you want to watch on your iPad, you’ll be able to play it using VLC for iOS or an alternative app.

Right now, the biggest issue is that the drive demands a direct WiFi connection, which means that you can’t, say, hook your iPad up to it and simultaneously have the tablet connect to your WiFi router or mobile hotspot. However, Seagate is promising a firmware update in the near future that will allow the GoFlex Satellite to connect to a WiFi router itself and – since it actually has twin wireless radios inside – bridge that connection to whatever gadgets are accessing its storage.

The Seagate GoFlex Satellite will go on sale in the US in July 2011, priced at $199.99. Global availability should be later this summer.

Press Release:

SEAGATE DEBUTS FIRST MOBILE WIRELESS STORAGE FOR iOS AND OTHER MOBILE DEVICES

GoFlex Satellite™ Mobile Wireless Storage Expands the Media Capacity
Without Wires or the Web

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. — May 16, 2011 —Seagate (NASDAQ: STX), today announced GoFlex Satellite™ mobile wireless storage, the first battery-powered external hard drive to wirelessly extend the storage capacity of any Wi-Fi enabled mobile device. With 500GB and Wi-Fi access over 802.11 b/g/n and a rechargeable battery, this latest member of the GoFlex® family provides the ability to carry an entire library of video, music, pictures and documents with you. Devices are wirelessly connected directly to the GoFlex Satellite drive by use of the free GoFlex Media™ app—available now on iTunes and the Apple App Store—or a web browser. GoFlex Satellite is available immediately for preorder from Seagate.com, Amazon and BestBuy.com for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $199.99, and is scheduled to arrive in Best Buy stores in July 2011. Global availability is planned for later this summer.

“With the growth of the tablet and iPad markets and the larger volumes of high-quality media now being consumed, there is a clear need for access to content that is not plagued with the challenges of streamed video over the Internet,” said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Seagate’s retail group. “The unfortunate fact is that these popular new mobile devices are hampered by their limited storage capacity while one of their primary functions is that of media consumption.

“With the GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage, we wished to create an elegant solution that provides real value to the multitude of iPad users out there by delivering a seamless connection to local storage. No longer will a consumer feel as though it is a compromise to purchase a lower capacity tablet or iPad. With GoFlex Satellite, people will be able to carry their entire media library with them without the need for wires or the web at a fraction of the cost of adding 3G or purchasing or a higher capacity tablet.”

Streaming over the Internet has enabled video access for tablet owners, but the quality is at the mercy of the Internet connection, be it over Wi-Fi or 3G/4G. With more connected devices per hotspot, it’s often difficult to watch video without choppiness or pixilation. Rather than rely on a buffered stream from a distant provider, GoFlex Satellite mobile storage wirelessly serves up media content as a local attached storage for up to three devices at the same time. With a stand-by battery life of up to 25 hours, the powerful lithium polymer battery delivers up to 5 hours of continuously streaming video. To help with extending battery life, the free GoFlex Media™ app provides a progressive download feature, which temporarily loads the video on to the iOS device it is being streamed to, allowing the drive to go into stand-by mode.

GoFlex Media™ App

Initially available for Apple iOS devices, such as: iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; the GoFlex Media app provides a seamless way to connect the mobile wireless storage to your iPad or iPhone. The Android app is expected to be available by this summer. Those that currently use an Android smartphone or tablet can access content on a GoFlex Satellite device through its browser.

Media Sync software

The easy-to-use Media Sync software, also included free with purchase, makes grabbing media from a Windows® PC or Mac® OS X computer a breeze. Wherever the files are stored, whether that is a file structure of your own creation or in an iTunes library, the Media Sync software will load all of your desired music, videos, photos and documents on to the GoFlex Satellite drive. Media Sync is easily configured to only place files on the drive that are compatible with your iOS device. Even music and videos purchased through iTunes can be loaded to the GoFlex Satellite drive and will play on all authorized devices.

Loading Media

For rapid loading of media content, the wireless mobile storage comes equipped with the superfast USB 3.0 cable to get files from your computer to the GoFlex Satellite drive. The USB 3.0 cable will also continue to work with USB 2.0 ports and is easily removed for portability. In addition to the USB 3.0 cable, the GoFlex Satellite drive comes complete with a car charger and a compact wall charger.

The DNS-320 – which was actually announced for the UK market all the way back in December 2010 – has an 800MHz processor and 128MB of RAM. As for the DNS-325, that has a 1.2GHz processor and 256MB of RAM.

Both have standalone P2P functionality, internet photo sharing, FTP, various forms of RAID support and more. Pricing is $109.99 for the DNS-320 and $199.99 for the DNS-325, drive-free, while 1TB pre-configs will be $199.99 for the DSN-320-110 and $279.99 for the DNS-325-110 following on in May 2011.

Press Release:

D-Link® ShareCenter® Solutions Offer Easy Backup, File Sharing, Media Streaming, and Remote Access for Today’s Digital Home

New 2-Bay Network Storage Solutions with Superior Performance, Re-designed Interface and Enhanced Media Functionality for Home Users Now Shipping

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. – April 6, 2011 – D-Link today announced the availability of its ShareCenter® 2-Bay Network Storage devices, the DNS-320 and DNS-325. With shared storage serving as an essential element in today’s digital home, these network-attached storage (NAS) solutions feature an upgraded hardware platform and intuitive user interface, enabling consumers to easily share documents, files and digital media with everyone on a home network[i].

The next generation of the award-winning DNS-321 and DNS-323, the new DNS-320 and DNS-325 provide users with centralized storage to help protect, manage, share, stream and remotely access data. Both products feature two SATA HD bays for 3.5-inch drives of either 1TB or 2TB capacities, ensuring plenty of storage for today’s home users. Whether streaming movies, sharing files, or storing video from a network camera, D-Link® ShareCenter storage solutions are designed to let consumers work, play, and share from any room in the home or from a remote location, over the Internet. A complementary piece to D-Link’s digital home solutions, consumers can utilize ShareCenter products for a number of applications – whether it’s connecting directly to the wireless router, storing video from mydlink-enabled IP cameras, or streaming video to your TV using the Boxee Box by D-Link.

“From music for your iPod to photos from your digital SLR to videos for streaming, the need for centralized storage has increased dramatically in today’s connected households,” said Daniel Kelley, associate vice president of consumer marketing, D-Link North America. “Our new ShareCenter products enable users to easily backup their digital lives with added capabilities and advanced technology to get the most out of their home networks.”

Installation of ShareCenter devices is simple, and if more storage is needed, easy expansion allows consumers to add additional hard drives without using tools or attaching any cables. Both solutions include Farstone’s Total Recovery Pro Backup software to manage scheduled and incremental network backups, enabling users to backup all the computers in their home without having to hassle with physically connecting each device to a USB drive. In addition to content back-up and RAID support for data protection, the DNS-320 and DNS-325 also feature remote access to files through a built-in web file server app and FTP server. With the included remote backup application, users can easily backup content to a second storage device at another location to protect against data loss in the event of a catastrophe. And, using the USB port in each device, users can share a single printer among all of the computers in a household over the network. Additionally, users can automatically download content from the web without powering on a PC with the integrated Peer-to-Peer Downloader or access their files at top speeds without bottlenecking with the Gigabit Ethernet port.

The DNS-320 includes its own internal 800 MHz processor, a simplified interface and software for finding and managing files. The DNS-325 features increased speeds due to its upgraded 1.2 GHz processor. Its rugged, compact design makes for easy desktop placement. It also includes applications, such as a photo gallery, an audio streamer and a Blog application that allows users to host their own blogs directly from the device, making the DNS-325 an ideal solution for not only storage, but also for streaming media over a home network. It can also support additional add-on applications as they are developed. Both products also feature AFP and Time Machine support for Mac users.

The DNLA-certified DNS-320 and DNS-325 both feature an upgraded warranty of three years, compared with the one year warranty of prior ShareCenter products.

Availability and Pricing
The DNS-320 and DNS-325 are currently available throughout the D-Link network of retail and e-tail outlets in North America, including Fry’s Electronics, Micro Center, J&R, Amazon, Tiger Direct, NewEgg, Buy.com, and at the company’s online store, http://www.dlinkshop.com. Street prices for the DNS-320 and DNS-325 are $109.99 and $199.99, respectively. In addition, D-Link will also launch the DSN-320-110 and DNS-325-110 (pre-configured with a 1TB disk drive) in May 2011 for $199.99 and $279.99, respectively.

About D-Link
D-Link is the global leader in connectivity for home, small business, mid- to large-sized enterprise environments, and service providers. An award-winning designer, developer, and manufacturer, D-Link implements and supports unified network solutions that integrate capabilities in switching, wireless, broadband, storage, IP Surveillance, and cloud-based network management. For more information visit www.dlink.com or connect with D-Link on Facebook (www.facebook/dlink) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/dlink).

The Pogoplug Video automatically transcodes video streaming on-the-fly so that no matter what device you’re using to remotely access the content, you should be able to play it. It’ll also support the usual multiple USB hard-drives – in Pogoplug’s unusually-shaped, but this time black chassis – for file and multimedia access.

As for the Buffalo CloudStor, that will be available as the 1TB CloudStor (CS-WX1.0TL) for $149.99, the 2TB CloudStor (CS-WX2.0TL) for $209.99 and the 2TB CloudStor Pro (CS-WV2.0TL) for $249.99. It pairs internal storage, a gigabit ethernet port, a USB port (for adding external storage) and a spare internal drive bay (for adding internal storage and optionally setting up a RAID array) with the same cloud-access as on the Pogoplug Video.

More details on Pogoplug in our review.

Press Release:

BUFFALO SHIPS THE REVOLUTIONARY CLOUDSTOR

Seamlessly Access and Share Content with Anyone, Anywhere with No Fees

AUSTIN, TX – April 4, 2011 – Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced the highly anticipated, revolutionary Buffalo CloudStor™ personal storage solution is now shipping. First revealed at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, CloudStor goes beyond simple storage, creating a portal to freely access and share photos, videos, music and much more with anyone, anywhere through the cloud. Unlike online storage services, CloudStor has no capacity or service fees. Just plug it in, turn it on and create your free account at mycloudstor.com. CloudStor comes with everything you need to get started. You just have to be free to share.

“Digital content consumption has moved beyond traditional channels along with how it is stored and accessed,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “Bringing CloudStor to market delivers on Buffalo’s promise of simplifying data mobility, allowing you to access and share your content freely, with anyone, anywhere.”

At the center of every CloudStor is the Pogoplug® cloud service. The popular service connects users to their storage and allows them to freely access and share their storage anywhere in the world. CloudStor is the first and only Pogoplug device with integrated storage. Files are securely shared between people and there is no need for user setup; just email a link to your family and friends. Consumers’ digital content always resides on CloudStor and the online service is only used to connect users and guests to specified files on the device.

In addition, CloudStor offers many traditional consumer network attached storage features including private share support for LAN based network sharing and pairing with the popular µTorrent™ client, allowing users to offload the task of downloading torrent files from computers to CloudStor. Buffalo CloudStor can also stream to popular media devices, including Sony PlayStation® 3 and Xbox 360®. Plus, CloudStor has an integrated Time Machine® backup system that allows Mac® users to use Time Machine to backup their systems to CloudStor when at home.

Pricing and Availability

The Buffalo CloudStor is backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 US based technical support. CloudStor is now available at an estimated street price of $149.99 for the 1 TB CloudStor (CS-WX1.0TL), $209.99 for the 2 TB CloudStor (CS-WX2.0TL) and $249.99 for the 2 TB CloudStor Pro (CS-WV2.0TL). Buffalo products can be purchased through distribution, online resellers and Buffalo’s ecommerce website. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit the company’s web site at www.buffalotech.com

The TS-112 is the baby of the range, a single-drive box which can be expanded via USB or eSATA, and works as a home file server, DLNA/UPnP streamer, USB printer sharer – for up to three printers – and SqueezeServer functionality. There’s also optional standalone wireless use, with a USB WiFi dongle, together with a gigabit ethernet port.

The TS-212 does much the same as the TS-112 but accommodates two drives with data protection. It has the same feature set as the one-drive version, including Full HD 1080p movie streaming. Finally, the TS-412 packs a full four drive bays and offers a choice of Single Disk, JBOD, RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 6/ 5 + hot spare setups. No word on pricing at this stage, but all three will go on sale in February 2011.

Press Release:

QNAP Debuts New Affordable High Performance Turbo NAS Server Family for Emerging HOME, SOHO, and Prosumer Users

New TS-x12 Lineup Includes 1, 2, and 4-drive Models Featuring Embedded Marvell 1.2GHz CPU and 256MB of DDRII RAM, Delivering Great All-around Performance, Low Power Consumption, and a Wealth of Applications for Home Networks.

Taipei, Taiwan, January, 2011 – QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players today announced the TS-x12 lineup of affordable high performance Turbo NAS servers intended for the fast-growing home and SOHO market segment. The new models utilize the latest Marvell 1.2GHz processor and include 256MB of DDRII memory and Gigabit LAN ports, offering up to 8TB of networked storage with a unique blend of solid performance, high reliability, and advanced features at very affordable price points. The TS-x12 series includes the 1-drive TS-112, 2-drive TS-212, and 4-drive TS-412.

NAS is becoming a popular addition to home networks as they solve the problem of how to centrally store and share digital content among computers in the home – especially in mixed Windows/Mac networks. QNAP’s new TS-x12 models are easy to attach to existing networks and provides easy file sharing within the network, centralized backup of all networked computers, website hosting, printer sharing, even recording of surveillance video from IP cameras.

“The new TS-x12 series Turbo NAS servers offer affordable high performance coupled with ultra-low power consumption and virtually noise-free operation,” said Tony Lu, Product Manager from QNAP. “Home users no longer need to sacrifice performance for lower cost NAS; and the new TS-x12 series offers advanced features like RAID and iSCSI support, making them an incredible value for the money.”

The new TS-x12 models also improve the multimedia experience and capabilities for home users. The built-in UPnP media server (TwonkyMedia) feature of the TS-x12 series supports numerous UPnP-compliant media players such as the Sony® PS3 and Microsoft® Xbox 360 gaming consoles. Users can even use their iPhone and Android phone to stream music and video or view digital photos stored on the NAS in real-time from anywhere they have a Wi-Fi or 3G connection.

Availability
The TS-x12 series will be available starting in February through popular commercial distributors, resellers, and retailers globally.

Each of the drive bays are hot-swappable, and there are twin gigabit LAN ports for hooking up to your network. Keeping things churning are a 1.8GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM (3GB supported), and there are four USB 2.0 ports and two eSATA for hooking up external drives or using the DS1511+ for printer sharing duties.

Despite the storage potential, Synology reckons the DS1511+ only gobbles down 68W in use, and since it runs the same great software as we reviewed on the Synology DiskStation DS211, you can set it up as everything from a basic network drive to a media server, mail server, FTP store, IP camera station and more. It’s available now, priced at around $870 for the drive-free DS1511+ unit itself, or in various pre-configured forms.

Press Release:

Synology® Unveils High-Performance DiskStation DS1511+ with Greater Scalability and Full-Featured NAS Solution for SMB Users

Taipei, Taiwan—Dec 21, 2010—Synology® Inc. today unveiled DiskStation DS1511+, a high-performance NAS server that offers greater scalability, significant storage capacity and full-featured business NAS solutions for SMB users.

As information data increases exponentially by the minute, the performance of data transmission becomes a predominant requirement for setting up a centralized file server in a business environment. “With link aggregation, the DS1511+ surpasses its predecessor to deliver an astonishing 197 MB/sec in reading speed under RAID 5 configuration in a Windows® environment, and 165 MB/sec in writing,” said Chad Chiang, the product manager of Synology Inc. The 2 LAN structure with failover support coupled with hot-swappable drives thus ensure high data availability.

The DS1511+ provides space for five hard drives – with a single drive reaching a 3TB capacity – that can be scaled up to a total of 15 drives for a maximum of 45TB by connecting with two Synology DX510 expansion units. The default 1GB RAM can also be upgraded to 3GB to enhance work process performance. Running on a 1.8GHz dual-core processor, the DS1511+ only consumes 68 watts of power during operation, while the multiples scheduled on/off, wake on LAN/WAN and hard drive hibernation facilitate energy saving and low operating cost. The reliability of DS1511+ is solidified by Synology’s 3-year limited warranty.

Blessed by the Synology DiskStation Manager 3.0 (DSM 3.0) operation system, the DS1511+ can fit to a business environment easily. Windows ACL support allows for customized privilege setup on files and folders through existing Windows user interface. Moreover, user account can be managed more efficiently and productively by utilizing the Windows ADS integration to reduce burden of IT administration.

For anyone seeking an alternative of Storage-Area-Network (SAN), the affordable and cost-effective iSCSI support in DSM 3.0 allows SMB users to consolidate storage into data center storage arrays while providing hosts with the illusion of locally-attached disks. The DS1511+ also serves as a seamless storage solution for virtualization servers, such as VMware® vSphereTM, Microsoft Hyper-VTM, and Citrix® XenServerTM.

The Synology DS1511+ has many features that enhance the effectiveness of resource sharing. The comprehensive network protocol support assures seamless file sharing across Windows, Mac® and Linux platforms, while file access on the Internet is simplified by the encrypted FTP server and the web-based file browser. In terms of security protection, the presence of HTTPS, firewall, IP auto-block and AES 256-bit encryption engine provides users with a peace-of-mind during file sharing.

Availability

The Synology DS1511+ is now shipping globally.