Snap Appliance storage fan kit

Advantages: Good points. Easy to install and use. Nice web browser interface.
Disadvantages: Bad points. Very expensive for what is essentially a pc with a lot of hard disk space. No virus protection. No room for upgrading.

...on desktop PCs or remote PCs can automatically back up data from their local hard disks across the network to the HP SureStore AutoBackup appliance. The box itself is very much in the style of most HP PCs. The front panel has a LCD display showing the status of the device but only seems to give minimal information about what it is doing or what is going wrong about it. The power button and CD writer are hidden behind a door, which easy to pull off completely when only trying to open it out. The machine itself runs on an embedded version of Windows NT called Windows for Express Networks. We are told Linux versions of the appliance are in the pipeline. This software is mirrored, so if one version corrupts we are told that a back up version starts up in its place. Total storage on our test machine comes in at about 66GB. This should roughly have... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average off topic

Advantages: capability, performance and colourful
Disadvantages: not enough PCI slots

...This is a great not too expensive mid-range N-Force 4 motherboard with SATA and SATA raid capability, PCI express graphics, dual channel DDR memory, Gigabit LAN and FireWire "Industry's first IEEE1394b motherboard - the new generation IEEE1394b interface further enhances PC connectivity with consumer electronics audio/video (A/V) appliances, and storage peripherals" This board supports AMD 64 CPUs (socket 939) which are great chips, I have a 3200+ winchester core, but after using windows x64 the 64 bit edition I wish I had gone for a P4 or pentiumD and not thought that I had to upgrade to 64 bit so soon - it's really not that good where driver support is concerned. From the Gigabyte homepage, www.gigabyte.com.tw you can download the latest drivers, software and utilities such as bios flashing / updating and an application... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Fast & Versatile
Disadvantages: Slightly large

...Everyone seems to have a tiny pocket USB drive these days, however they suffer from limited capacity and can be quite slow (especially the older USB1 type). Belkin realise there's a good market to be tapped here... via their USB2 hard drive caddy. I can't remember the last time I was this impressed with a piece of kit. Thanks to a £20 voucher from Powergen, I picked this drive bay up for £29.99 from PC world. In went an old fujitsu 10MB drive and now it's a fantastic portable (just) storage solution. The bay itself can accomodate both 3.5 and 5.25 inch drives to give you an idea of how big it is. Power is supplied via a normal 6A mains lead (supplied) which is identical to your computer power lead (so no problem replacing if you lose it). The drive connector inside is a standard 40-pin IDE ribbon and there's also an analog audio... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful