Hasta La Gadget!

Netgear 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:

• Cloud Engines PogoPlug Review
  

Photo: Netgear

Hard to believe this is Seagate’s first consumer NAS offering (keyword being “consumer“), but sure enough, the FreeAgent DockStar is the company’s first major effort to get its own line of FreeAgent Go hard drives onto your network. Without getting into too much detail, this simple dock is essentially a Pogoplug with a built-in cradle for one’s FreeAgent Go USB (read: not FireWire) HDD. Thankfully, a trifecta of USB 2.0 sockets are littered about the edges, ensuring that at least three standard USB drives can also be connected and accessed over the web. We’ve yet to have a chance to put this bugger through its paces, but since we know all about the underlying technology, you can probably learn everything you need to know from our Pogoplug review. For those who’d rather opt for a Seagate’d version of an already available product, this DockStar is shipping today for $99.99. Oh, and we should mention that it comes with a year of the Pogoplug service, but after that, you’ll be shelling out $29.99 per year for unlimited sharing and remote access.

In related news, Seagate is also introducing three new capacities for its FreeAgent Go family. In addition to the 250GB, 320GB, 500GB and 640GB versions already out there, the range will now include a 750GB, 880GB and 1TB version. Too bad no pricing or release details are available on those, but we’ll be keeping an eye out.

Continue reading Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar: hands-on

Filed under: Storage, Networking

Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar: hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Western Digital’s My Passport portable hard drives have long hit the sweet spot in the price/size/looks triumvirate. Cheap, small, and plain but good-looking, I have a few around as backups and for general storage.

With the latest update, WD has managed not only to squeeze in more bytes (one whole terabyte) to the USB-powered enclosure, it has actually managed to shrink the box and at the same time smooth off some of the sharper corners. This has been achieved by tossing the SATA to USB interface and just hooking the drive right into USB.

Another bonus, one increasingly useful with these portable drives, is hardware encryption, which will still keep things safe if the drive is pulled and put into a different box. The 1TB Passport Essential SE will cost $250 when it makes it into stores, and the basic 320GB My Passport Essential will be $100.

Product page [Western Digital]

Monkey see, monkey do — ain’t that right? Whatever the case, we’re stoked to see one more player in the 2.5-inch 640GB game, with Seagate, Samsung and Toshiba recently introducing versions of their own. Western Digital’s iteration — the Scorpio Blue 640 — sports a luscious standard 9.5mm-height package, which should fit just fine within pretty much any laptop out there. WD also claims that this HDD consumes some 30 percent less power than the previous generation Scorpio Blue, though the 5400RPM spindle speed certainly won’t impress the performance junkies in the crowd. Look for it to slide into your next portable for $149.

[Via HotHardware]

Filed under: Storage

WD ships 2.5-inch 640GB standard 9.5mm-height laptop drive originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been a while since we’ve seen a TeraStation from Buffalo, and in the meantime the company has been really going wild with the lilliputian memory devices, so it’s nice to see something substantial in this space for a change. The latest TeraStation NAS integrates with Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 for up to 4TB storage. Of course, this particular Windows release has been available since late 2006, so we’re not too terribly impressed — but the company seems to think that it’s important for you to know all about it. In addition, this bad boy has support for Raid 5/0/1 and VSS, and rocks four hot-swappable drive bays. The WS-Q2.0TL/R5 (2TB) is available for ¥158,000 ($1,658), while the WS-Q4.0TL/R5 (4TB) will set you back ¥198,000 ($2,077). And no, it won’t fit in your pocket.

[Via Akihabara News]

Filed under: Storage

Buffalo intros 4TB TeraStation NAS originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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