Review Sleek aluminium housings are all the rage with hard disk manufacturers, and Freecom’s Network Media Centre is no exception. Available in capacities from 1TB to 2TB, this single-disk Nas box promises to be your ultimate home media server thanks to the inclusion of UPNP/DLNA streaming support, an FTP server, a BitTorrent client and customisable multi-user work areas.
Freecom’s Network Media Centre: aesthetically unexciting
Aesthetically, the Network Media Centre isn’t overly exciting. Instead, it’s pleasantly simple with a smooth brushed-aluminium finish and glossy black faceplate framing a single status LED. Designed to sit horizontally, it’s inherently stable, with a reasonable footprint of 155 x 148mm and a height of only 43mm. Read the rest of this entry »
Reviewing the RNDX400E was difficult from start to finish, not least because we were sent the RNDX4210 instead first. It’s an easy mistake to make though, since both the RNDX400 and RNDX4000 (notice the extra zero) series share pretty much identical hardware.
The former (reviewed here) is Netgear’s new ‘Pioneer Edition’ Nas, which is essentially the same as the 4000 series but without hard drives and without Windows Active Directory, snapshot, iSCSI, NIC teaming/failover, SNMP and secure rsync features. Removing all those features make it inappropriate for many business environments, but there are still plenty of areas where the RNDX400E is extremely competent.
Once we had the right Nas in our hands, we were presented with a “corrupt root” message and no access to its configuration pages. Our first check was to see whether the Ram was dislodged, which can happen in transit. This is an easy check as Netgear exposes the Ram just behind the top panel. However, the Ram was fine and it turned out that pre-formatted hard drives were the culprit. Read the rest of this entry »
Review The Seagate Barracuda XT is the latest 2TB hard drive to land on our test bench, following on from the WD Caviar Black and Green and the Hitachi Ultrastar. It’s the largest capacity Seagate we have seen since the 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 so you may think that Seagate was as keen as mustard to scatter review samples to the waiting world.
Seagate’s Barracuda XT: Sata 3.0 supported
In fact, our Barracuda XT came from an unusual source. It was sent to us by Gigabyte, the manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards. The explanation for this unusual state of affairs is that the Barracuda XT is the first hard drive that supports 6Gb/s Sata 3.0.
Sata initially had a nominal bandwidth of 1.5Gb/s which was increased to 3.0Gb/s with Sata 2.0. Now we have Sata 3.0 and a further doubling of bandwidth. There’s potential for confusion as Sata encodes eight bits of data as a ten-bit symbol so the ‘true’ bandwidths for those SATA standards are 150MB/s, 300MB/s and 600MB/s, respectively.
Naturally enough, you need a suitable controller to support the new Sata standard and this is where Gigabyte enters the equation. There is no system-logic chipset at present that natively supports Sata 3.0 and we don’t expect to see native support until 2011. In the meantime, we have to rely on motherboards from the likes of Gigabyte that have been updated with a discrete Sata 3.0 controller. Read the rest of this entry »
Review As the world swings inexorably away from Desktop PCs towards notebooks, netbooks and PMPs, the PC has to adapt or die. One way to go, as Packard Bell would have it, is the touchscreen media PC. It follows the iMac paradigm that the whole thing should be built into the back of a large-format LCD screen.
A nice touch? PackBell’s oneTwo M includes a Freeview tuner
The concept of a media PC, for use in a living room or study/bedroom isn’t new and integrated computers built into LCD screens have been around a while now, but Packard Bell’s oneTwo machines have two extras to set them apart, namely, a touchscreen with support for Microsoft Surface apps, and a built-in Freeview DVB-T tuner.
There are two oneTwo models: M for the Medium 20in screen dual core CPU and L for Large 23in model with a quad core chip. The L version supports a full 1080i HD resolution, but the M, reviewed here, has to make do with a 1600 by 900 widescreen. Both models include wireless keyboard, mouse and remote, so they can be used as conventional large-screen desktops, as well as media centres.
The case of the oneTwo M is all gloss black plastic, apart from an insert of clear acrylic between the two case halves, which extends down to form the front feet of the device. On the back panel are sockets for Ethernet, TV tuner and line out, as well as four USBs, and there are a further two USBs on the left-hand edge. The right-hand edge offers a multi-format DVD rewriter, a 5-in-1 card reader, plus mic and headphone 3.5mm sockets. Read the rest of this entry »
Offered either as a shell or in capacities up to 2TB and designed with small businesses in mind, Iocell Networks utilises Network Direct Attached Storage (NDAS) to pitch its drives above and beyond other comparable single-disk Nas solutions. With claims of ultra-tight security, Raid configurability with multiple drives and blazing fast transfer speeds, can the NetDisk 351UNE really live up to its billing?
Fast and flexible: Iocell’s NetDisk 351UNE
Measuring up at 161.3 x 213.5 x 48mm and weighing in at 567.5g the NetDisk is light, but sturdy. The case features some intriguing orange vents and two simple LEDs, one for power, the other for disk activity. It should be noted that there are no fans or heat sinks, so the device does run warm, but not hot by any means. If that makes you a tad nervous, Iocell does offer a two-year warranty as standard in the UK.
The NetDisk features Ethernet, USB and eSata interfacing. The implementations of USB and eSATA are standard, with the exception in that the drive appears to the host as being internally mounted rather than as a removable disk. This feature Iocell refers to as ‘File System Tolerance’. LAN connectivity is another story. Read the rest of this entry »
