Advantages: Flexibility, Smartsync Software
Disadvantages: Simultaneous access to Mac and PC

...allows you to schedule folders locally to sychronize with folders on your network storage. Very handy and again very user friendly. Altogether a very cool piece of kit. I'm glad i got it.... Read review

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Advantages: Solid, feature packed, easy to use
Disadvantages: Not as fast as direct attached storage, plus a little noisy.

...I have been using my Buffalo (called 'Bertie'!) for over 4 months now, and it has worked very well indeed. Bertie is connected to my gigabit switch and is accessed by 4 other computers, and it also hosts a file sharing site too. The drive sits in a Windows environment, and is very easy to connect up. After a 15 second boot process, you access the features of the drive through a browser. All the usual tools for network drives are there, plus some seriously useful user permissions, and trashcan tools. It has hot swappable drives too (I bought a spare just in case), but this sold beast I feel will never breakdown. It's not the quietest drive in the world, but this is a minor annoyance. The actual data transfer over the network is not as fast as directly attached storage, but the benefits of using a network far out weigh this. When I need... Read review

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Advantages: All in one unit, compact
Disadvantages: Can get noisey when hot

...I must admit, I was a bit cautious about buying this, specially with the price and what it does. But got it home and I was amazed with all the features it acctually has! Got mine from zomp.net. Really good price, and delivery was the next day! Features: Built-in 160gb HDD - speaks for itself really, loads of storage for all you PC's to access, with the option to set up user profiles, so you all have your own part of tha HDD password protected. Plus you can limit the amount of HDD space each user uses. FTP Server - now this was my favorite. Able to access you documens from anywhere that has internet. You just need you username & password that you set up! And 'bobs you uncle' you can pull your files off to show friends. Or set up a guest account for anyone to access the files. Web Server - Not explored this yet, but it seems a very... Read review

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Advantages: Simple, dual speed, small size
Disadvantages: Only 5 ports (?)

...), and being the same size as my Office Connct wireless access point, looks great too, with LED status indicators on the front show power, port status/activity & duplex-ing. The Ciao picture's not quite right, I think, as the switch doesn't have a curved back to it... It would be a shame if something I bought for a pound did not meet my expectations, and there's certainly no dissapointment here ! If you need to connect more stuff to your network - more PC's, network storage, print server etc - then this is a great option. I hope this helps.... Read review

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Advantages: Free, easy, fast and reliable
Disadvantages: Complicated install and many configuration options

...Before i start i apologize for the technical language in this review but im assuming if your reading this review you have some knowledge of computers and an interest in geekyness !!. What is FreeNAS FreeNAS is exactly what the title says, its a Linux based operating system IE the software that tells a computer to run . FreeNAS stands for free network attached storage. To use this OS you have to download it from the website in the form of an ISO which then needs to be burnt to a CD, once that's done the complicated stuff is over, pop the cd into any spare computer you have and FreeNAS takes over, the installer runs and then you configure the network and disks following the comprehensive user manual. The computer reboots and you can access the web based configuration site over the network, and view the hard drives as network shares... Read review

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Advantages: external, fast, networked
Disadvantages: noisy fan

...If you need extra storage and you have a router then buy this - don't hesitate. I needed extra hard drive space particularly for back up and archiving a huge collection of photos (about 250,000 of them). The joy of this system is that you plug it into your router, although it will also work with usb if you don't use a router, and just map a drive in Windows Explorer. you install a small bit of software (if needed) to find it then just access it as normal. You can set up directories, sharing permissions and everything else via web browser. The added benefit is that anybody on your network can have access to shared files and private files. Only one thing I can say against it. The fan is quite noisy when it runs although most of the time it sits quietly in stanby mode. The noise is actually greater than the cooling fans running inside... Read review

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Advantages: 20 GB of storage, sleek design
Disadvantages: Navigating your way around the menus

...I bought the MP3 player in early '05 and it has not failed me to date. It's smart with a hell of a lot of storage, I have over 50 albums on the player, which has not faultered since the start. The only problem is that when scrolling around for your favourite songs, you only have artist, album, genre type and what is known as a group folder. You can customize this folder in whatever way you want. Sonic Stage offers excellent interface for you to transfer songs easily, there is no hassle and you can toggle with different types of settings to maintain space on your HD player. There is a sound lock on European models, which can be easily hacked into. Taking care of the MP3 player will give you a lasting performance, battery performance is excellent too. Compared with other MP3 players, this is a must buy mainly for the huge storage... Read review

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Advantages: 750GB, 7200rpm, Hi-Speed USB, Very reliable & Easy To Use
Disadvantages: None

...The Buffalo Drive Station Turbo USB HD-HS750U2 750 GB is a very useful external hard drive. I have networked computers so use it for back up and storage, which makes it easy for the networked computers to access the same data from one unit. The unit itself is well designed and looks good, its basically just going to sit next to your computer and is just a shell for the hard drive inside and for that it looks quite cool. The dimensions of the unit is 1.8" (w), 6.4" (d), 7.9" (h) and it weighs around 1.5kg. The external hard drive lets you back up and easily access various stored files and folders without taking up room on your PC's main hard drive. This is based on the SATA hard drive technology which is for larger capacity and with turbo USB technology, The hard drives transfer rate is much more than those of standard USB hard drives... Read review

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Advantages: Portable (almost). fast and reliable.
Disadvantages: Expensive drives and disks, will not be compatible with any other drive, requires extra power source

...I would assume, given the imcompatability issues and the cheapness of other, higher capacity, storage devices, that most people are put off buying into iomega's well known but almost archaic technology, the zip drive. When looking into storage devices a couple of years ago i was tempted but the £120 price tag for a 100mb parralel port device was too much money for not enough storage or speed so instead I opted for a cheap cd-rw drive which although incredibly slow at burning CD's has served me well. On moving to university I found that almost all of the networked PC's in the IT centres, at Sheffield Uni, had zip drives, and considering the incredible download speeds achievable on the university network, the though of a zip drive reentered my mind. Priced at around £60UK I was still a bit wary, but mangaed to get a Zip100 USb device... Read review

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Advantages: Great colour screen WiFi, infrared & great application support
Disadvantages: none really

...The Palm Tungston C has a 400Mhz Processor, making it faster than a lot of others on the market, especially for this size device. Also the fact it runs PalmOS and not Windows makes it run faster than most Pocket PCs and other variants. It comes with a rechargable battery, which chages each time you sit it in the cradle. I've regularly got 7-9 hours out of the battery, although using networking will reduce this down to 3-4hours. The inbuild 64Mb of RAM is also pretty impressive, allowing you download plenty of applications and store lots of files, without the usual need to remove files everytime you want to create something new. As I mentioned the Tungsten C comes with 802.11b networking support, running at 11Mbps. The receiver and transmitter are fantastic and signal strength is comparable to any other wireless device. External... Read review

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