Lacie’s 1TB ‘Network Space’ Is Almost Perfect

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If you have a computer, it’s likely that it is a laptop. A handy, take-anywhere, do-anything computer that has one shortcoming: storage. You can of course stick in a bigger hard drive, but that doesn’t help if you have a ton of movies, and it certainly makes backing up trickier. This is where Lacie’s new Network Space comes in. The sleek block of black is designed to make hooking up easy, even without wires.

To show how convoluted laptop management can get, let’s look at my own (admittedly rather paranoid) setup. My MacBook has a 500GB hard drive inside. At the desk, I hook into a USB hub to which is connected a 500GB external drive and used by Time Machine. In addition, I have a bunch of movies and TV shows on another 500GB drive, and every few days I make a bootable backup to a smaller 320GB, bus-powered hard drive using the excellent Super Duper, from Shirt Pocket software. Finally, I use Backblaze for off-site backup ($5 per month, or the price of two bottles of beer in my local bar).

That’s a lot of cables and a lot of mental overhead trying to remember to do it all. And that’s why the Network Space looks so attractive. NAS (Network Attached Storage) isn’t new, but this Lacie gets a lot right. First, it’s $160 for a terabyte, almost $100 less than Apple’s Time Capsule. It has a sleep mode, can be woken over the network and the USB port means you can hook up another drive to it. There is even an option to control the glowing light, and it will work as an iTunes server, and serve files to Macs, Windows machines and games consoles.

Perfect, right? You can just throw this in a closet with a power supply and forget about it. Sadly, no. You need to run a cable to your router as the Network Space is Ethernet-only, with no Wi-Fi. So close, Lacie, so close. You almost made the perfect solution. Maybe I should buy that Time Capsule after all.

Product page [Lacie. Thanks, Kim!]


Iomega Ix2-200 NAS Review: It Does All This?

Iomega’s Ix2-200 NAS shows that you don’t need to run Microsoft’s Windows Home Server to take care of everything a home, or even a small business, needs for its network storage. It’s just surprising that it’s this cheap.

The Price:

1TB for $270, 2TB for $370 and 4TB for $700

The Verdict:

It does a lot, and it does it pretty well, for not a lot of cash.

Here’s a list of the exciting bits on the Ix2-200’s feature list:

• Automated backup and restore: Full Time Machine support for Macs as well as Retrospect, a different backup scheme, for PCs and Macs.
• Automated copy jobs, which can automatically and incrementally copy (either with Windows file sharing or rsync) files off of network shares and dump it onto its own storage, or the other way around. Perfect for backing up other network shares for double data security
• RAID1
• DLNA, iTunes Servers
• Quiet running
• SMB features like email notifications, event logs, iSCSI, automated video surveillance (provided you have a compatible camera) and USB printer support
• A load of networking support, like Apple File Sharing, Bluetooth, FTP, NFS, Rsync, SNMP and standard Windows File Sharing (CIFS)
• Torrent downloading
• Remote access

Instead of building a Windows Home Server, like so many others have done, Iomega decided to build their own system from their own technology, and came out pretty feature-rich because of it.

The setup process is slightly finicky—you install the Iomega Solutions CD and wait while it searches your network for the server. This can actually take a few hours (we thought the Mac version was malfunctioning until it completed its setup and discovery process), but once you’re up, you’re up.

You control the server with a web interface, which works with a local app to provide integration into your file system. It’s pretty simple to use, and there aren’t too many tabs or options to confuse users with.

Backup and file storage

Time Machine works as well as if you were just shoving in a USB hard drive, and there’s little difference compared to running your backups over the network as if it were a Time Capsule. Iomega tells us that they’ve learned from HP’s first Windows Home Servers, the ones who weren’t able to run a complete Time Machine restore in the event of a total drive failure, so Mac users shouldn’t need to worry.

Retrospect, another backup software, can also configure backup plans on a schedule and automatically execute them without any input from you. Just choose which drives and folders you want to back up—it even backs up your network folders—and pick your schedule. If you don’t have a Windows Home Server on your network to handle your Windows backups, this is a pretty good substitute. And of course you can use Retrospect to restore your backups to your machine, in case of data failure.

Automated copy jobs is another feature that’s especially sweet for me, since I have a lot of network storage and I always worry about what would happen if one fails. This way, the Ix2-200 can maintain up-to-date copies of whatever’s sitting on other network drives, and act as the schoolmarm for all your data.

Networking and other features

Some of the other features are pretty much evaluated on a yes/no basis in terms of whether or not they work. The fan is very quiet even when transferring a mass load of files—although the hard drive is not, so that’s kind of moot—but is virtually silent otherwise. RAID1 works, and comes set up by default. The DLNA and iTunes streaming works in their respective clients, and Xbox 360/PS3 has no problem streaming files off of the server.

BitTorrent download works, but the server gets confused if you give it a URL to download a .torrent file from, so to play it safe you should just go ahead and download the .torrent yourself and feed that instead. Download speeds are decent, and you can configure what the maximum upload/download speeds are so as to not saturate your internet connection. You should also change your default port as well, since ISPS throttle that 6881 port hard.

All the networking stuff works as expected, as do the email notifications and event logs. The rest of the higher end stuff, like video surveillance integration and iSCSI we didn’t test, so we can’t say if there are any issues with them or not. It’s more than likely that they do work, but we don’t know if there are any quirks you should watch out for.

It’s a pretty good deal

Iomega’s aiming this at both the prosumer and the SMB market, which means that for most people, it’s going to have a lot of features that they don’t need. But that doesn’t matter! The Ix2-200 is so packed with stuff that it should satisfy the needs of just about any user who’s hurting for a network storage solution. And at a starting price of only $270 for the 1TB version, it’s a cheaper alternative than Windows Home Servers, and can do just about all the same things. Plus with its user-replaceable drives and three USB ports, you can easily upgrade the storage yourself and expand your storage after the fact. [Iomega]

Great backup options including Time Machine and Retrospect


Small, quiet and fast


Feature loaded


Fairly cheap for what you get


Setup process isn’t as easy as it could be

Apple quietly updates AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule, promises improved performance

Just as it did in March, Apple has subtly updated both the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule, this time improving performance on both. According to new testing between today’s model and yesterday’s edition, the AE Base Station (which ships within three days for $179) can hum along at up to 25 percent faster thanks to undisclosed tweaks to the antenna design, while the Time Capsule’s improved antenna promises the same. Just as before, both of these devices support dual-band 2.4GHz / 5GHz transmissions, though we can’t seem to find an “802.11n draft” phrase anywhere on either page. Apple hasn’t gone out of its way to say that both of these are certified with the final specification, but it’s certainly a possibility. Finally, the new Time Capsule promises Time Machine backups in Snow Leopard that are some 60 percent faster than before; we’re not sure whether to celebrate with new buyers or weep with existing ones, but it should ship within three days for $299 (1TB) / $499 (2TB).

Read – Updated AirPort Extreme
Read – Updated Time Capsule

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Apple quietly updates AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule, promises improved performance originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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QNAP’s NAS lineup sacrifices another bay, creates TS-110

QNAP's NAS lineup sacrifices another bay, creates TS-110

For many, four bays is a bit excessive. Two bays? Nice and cozy. One bay? Maybe a bit too snug for some, but QNAP is hoping its mono-bay TS-110 will be just right for others. It features the same 800MHz Marvell processor and 256MB of DDR2 RAM on the TS-410 and TS-210, with the discretely vanilla styling of the latter but at roughly half the girth. It keeps the same DLNA, FTP, file serving, and MySQL support of the other two, all configured through a fancy AJAXy web interface. No word on price yet, but we’ll find out soon enough as it’s set to ship by the end of the month. Meanwhile, we eagerly await the TS-010 announcement, which should rely entirely on theoretical storage.

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QNAP’s NAS lineup sacrifices another bay, creates TS-110 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Clickfree adds hassle-free migration, other features to C2 backup drive (video)

Quite a lot has happened in the world of Clickfree since it went a little crazy at CES, but we’re pretty jazzed about its latest effort. The predictably titled C2 is little more than a tweaked and refreshed version of the original backup-inclined external hard drive, but the boost in features makes this one worth considering. Available with a built-in USB cable and an even easier backup interface, the C2 can now handle automatic iPod music / playlist imports, direct-to-DVD burning, improved media sharing and a lovely migration feature that makes the arduous process of moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 a lesson in simplicity. The drive will be available in 250GB (C2 227; $139.00), 500GB (C2 527; $199.99) and 350GB sizes, with the latter to be made available in January 2010. So, are you finally done pushing aside the need to back your digital life up? Has Apple’s increasingly lackadaisical software team taught us anything? Bizzare promo video is after the break.

Continue reading Clickfree adds hassle-free migration, other features to C2 backup drive (video)

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Clickfree adds hassle-free migration, other features to C2 backup drive (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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QNAP brightens up its NAS offerings with new TS-210 model

What’s this? A QNAP NAS that doesn’t stick to the company’s traditional dark industrial look? Amazing but true, and yet another sign that the company is increasingly looking to bring the NAS out of the office and into the home — a move that could only be further bolstered by a certain celebrity endorsement. Effectively replacing the company’s previous TS-209 model, this one sticks to the same two-bay setup (for up to 4TB of storage), but steps things up to an 800MHz Marvell processor, along with 256MB of DDR2 memory, 3 USB ports, and all the usual UPnP / DLNA support you’d expect. No word on a price just yet, but we’d presume it’ll be less than the $449 QNAP is asking for its four-bay TS-410 model.

[Via Electronista]

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QNAP brightens up its NAS offerings with new TS-210 model originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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QNAP debuts ‘low cost’ TS-410 Turbo NAS for home use

QNAP’s various NAS devices may not do much to distinguish themselves from one another based on appearances, but the company’s apparently hoping that’s its new TS-410 model will attract a bit more interest nonetheless, and its aiming it squarely at home and home office users. Helping it in that respect is its relatively low-cost price tag, “just” $449 (sans hard drives), which still gets you plenty of NAS-ness, even if it may be just slightly behind the latest and greatest. That includes a less powerful 800MHz Marvell processor instead of the increasingly common Atom, and a mere 256MB of DDR2 RAM, which is a good deal short of the 1GB or 2GB offered in some of QNAP’s higher-end options. Of course, you will still get support for up to four 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hard drives, a full range of RAID options, and four USB ports and 2 e-SATA ports for further expansion. Sound good enough? Then you can pick this one up right now.

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QNAP debuts ‘low cost’ TS-410 Turbo NAS for home use originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netgear Offers Networked Storage for Consumers

netgear-storaNetgear has announced a network-attached storage device, Stora, that will allow consumers to bring their hard drives online and access files, photos, music and other information from anywhere.

The cube-shaped Stora lets consumers share photos and videos with friends without having to upload them to websites or transfer them over email, says the company.

Stora is similar in functionality to the $100 Pogoplug, a small, consumer friendly device that was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. Where it differs is that, unlike the Pogoplug, Stora comes with a one TeraByte storage and one extra drive bay.

Pogoplug does not offer any storage of its own and only has a USB port for attaching external drives. Earlier this month, Pogoplug licensed its technology to Seagate to be included in the latter’s USB-based DockStar line of products.

Netgear’s Stora is compatible with Mac, PC and Linux systems. Stora can also serve content to other networked devices such as photo frames, XBox 360, PlayStation 3,  iPhone and the Blackberry.  The device also comes with automatic backup utilities for PCs and Macs.

The Stora, which is available currently in North America, will cost  $230. Integration for services such as Flickr and mobile phones is optional and will cost users $20 a year.

See Also:

Photo: Netgear


Netgear delves into consumer NAS market with $229 1TB Stora

Clearly autumn is a time for change, and with Seagate diving cautiously into the consumer NAS market just last week, it follows logic to think that rival Netgear would do likewise. The company has had a few years of experience with professional and business-minded NAS units, but the now-available Stora is the first dumbed-down version meant to cater to the masses (and the strapped-for-cash). Essentially, it’s targeting users who want to make their media catalog available over the internet, and there’s even a MyStora.com location that lets users easily access files remotely when an FTP client just feels far too intimidating.

It’s compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows platforms, it can double as an iTunes or DLNA server and it ships in a two-bay configuration that is automatically setup to mirror data. Oddly enough, the $229 MS2110 model includes only a single 1TB drive, though we definitely prefer this setup over having twin 500GB HDDs; after all, any shopper worth their salt can snap up an extra 1TB unit for a lot less than Netgear would sell it to ’em.Oh, and we’re told that an “optional yearly premium service to support additional remote access and third-party service integration such as Flickr and mobile phones is available for $19.99 after an initial 30-day trial period,” but frankly, that doesn’t sound appealing at all.

Continue reading Netgear delves into consumer NAS market with $229 1TB Stora

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Netgear delves into consumer NAS market with $229 1TB Stora originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seagate Launches FreeAgent Network Adapter, 1-TB Drives

Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar.jpgSeagate launched a new FreeAgent DockStar Network Adapter on Wednesday, a device that connects to the company’s FreeAgent drives and adds both NAS and online backup functionality.

The $99.99 DockStar network adapter will be complemented by an expanded lineup of FreeAgent drives, now available in 750-Gbyte, 880-GB, and 1-terabyte capacities. Seagate did not release pricing for the new drives, which currently ship at capacity points from 250 to 640 Gbytes.

EDIT 9:06 AM PDT: The new 750-Gbyte hard drive is priced at $199.99, while the 880-GB and 1-TB drives are $209.99 and $249.99, respectively, according to a Seagate spokeswoman.

On the surface, the FreeAgent Network Adapter seems similar to the Hitachi SimpleNet NAS adapter the company announced this past summer. However, Seagate’s offering is also combined with technology from PogoPlug, which backs up the data into the cloud. The first year of the backup solution is free; after that, however, PogoPlug will charge $29.99 per year for unlimited sharing and remote access.