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

...tempting feature. As it says, is to obviously host your own website, on the HDD. You will of course have to regester a domain name, but you can pick up tose cheaply now-a-days. Mail Server - easy to set up mail server means you can set up office e-mailing systems. Again a feature i don't use as I don't need it. VPN - Make a 'virtual' network over the internet Port fowarding - for when you have download clients like Azureus, which needs to have ports opened, you can set access to a specific PC in the network. Shared Folders - Set up certain folders on the HDD for everyone on the network to share files in, ie. music, movies, setup files Print Server - connect a USB printer to one of the four USB ports and you can share printers on the network. No need to transfer files inbetween PC's to print. You can even connect USB flash drives and card... 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: speed, storage, share directories
Disadvantages: Permission loss, network lockouts

...This product has it's ups and downs. At my company we have been using three of these over the past few years. The over-all shelf-life is great but the product itself has a few probems. The Good File storage - Storing files on these devices is easy and simple. You can easily create shares through their web interface and change each folders' permissions with ease. Speed - The overall transfer speed is really good. You can send various amounts of data throughout your network with no hassle. The Bad Permission Issues - Sometimes these devices like to forget the permissions that have been assigned to them which can cause users to be unable to view or edit the work they have done. Network Lockouts - Today I have experienced a new problem where al of our internal staff can connect to these drives but anyone logging in via vpn... Read review

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Advantages: Well styled, solidly built
Disadvantages: Little over priced for spec

...here! Storage The laptop has no floppy drive, if you need a floppy drive then you’ll need an external floppy drive which plugs into a USB port. The laptop has a DVD and CD Writer combo drive, I’m not sure exactly what speed the drive is but it wrote a CD in just a few minutes. The laptop contains a 60gb hard drive which is more than enough storage for most people (I think the hard drive was an optional upgrade - I think it comes with a 40gb drive as standard). Battery Life Battery life is excellent, I’ve had around 4.5 hours of general usage from the laptop without needing to plug it in. I wasn’t using the DVD drive during this time, doing so would probably cut the battery life quite a bit. Screen My particular model has only a 14” screen which is very clear and sharp and capable of a resolution of 1024 x 768 (XGA). However, Dell do... Read review

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Advantages: Large capacity, quiet when not in use
Disadvantages: Can in noisy when in use

...I bought this about 6 months ago, as my internal 80gb hard drive was getting full and I needed something to back up my MP3 files and documents. I also planned on transferring the family camcorder videos to DVD, so I needed some extra storage. I’ve always wanted a Network Attached Storage device (NAS) but they seemed expensive. A NAS is a small box that connects to your computer via a network, using your router, and has a hard drive built in. After looking at a range of external storage devices, I decided on this external USB hard drive. There were several sizes but 320gb seemed right based on the price. Setting it up was very easy, just plugged in the power and connected it to the computer via the supplied USB cable. It was already pre-formatted with FAT32 but I prefer NTFS, as it includes compression, so it may increase the size... 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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