Showing posts with label iomega. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iomega. Show all posts

Monday, June 11, 2012

Buffalo Technology TeraStation III 8.0 TB (4 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage TS-X8.0TL/R5 Review

Buffalo Technology TeraStation III 8.0 TB (4 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage TS-X8.0TL/R5
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
This is the first time I've ever taken the time to write a review, but I'm here to buy yet another one of these units, and I felt compelled to respond to a couple of the negative reviews here.
First off, this is the Terastation III, not the Pro as referenced in another review. Additionally, I own a medium sized video and animation facility, with up to 7 artists accessing one of our three Terastation IIIs at all times for video, animation, and rendering, and this unit IS compatible with Apple OS. Configuration is done via a web browser, not a PC. We're cross platform here, and PC vs. Mac has nothing to do with this unit. As for Mac, since it doesn't use drive lettering, you do have to know how to set it up as a server, by IP address, in MAC OS. PC is much easier in terms of mapping the drive, but either way it works fine regardless of platform.
These drives are fast, particularly if you set up port trunking, which is a very high end feature for a NAS in this price range. By using port trunking (which uses 2 network ports to effectively double the network connection speed), we have been able to eliminate several of our NAS units in favor of just a few Terastation IIIs. Multiple users can access the drive simultaneously with no problems.
As for reliability, we did have one DOA unit, which Amazon promptly replaced at no cost (not even shipping). Other than that, we've had absolutely no problems. Having said that, we ALWAYS back up nightly (that's an easy thing to set up in the web browser based config panel), and there's no substitute for that no matter what kind of NAS you buy.
As for Buffalo in general, we have used several different models of Terastations and Linkstations, some of which ran continuously for 4 and 5 years without failing before we removed them from service. In fact, the only Terastation that has failed on us, wasn't even the unit itself; it was one of the drives. 5 years isn't an unusual life span for a hard drive that runs day and night.
So I give this 5 stars, and Buffalo tech support is pretty much the best I've experienced. When you call, the phone is answered by a real person at Buffalo's service center (in Texas, I believe), and they always know pretty much everything about their products without having to read it from a computer screen. Hold times vary, but support is top notch.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Buffalo Technology TeraStation III 8.0 TB (4 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage TS-X8.0TL/R5

Buffalo's TeraStation III Series is the ideal choice for businesses or demanding users looking to implement a RAID based Network Attached Storage solution. As Buffalo’s flagship NAS product the TeraStation III includes all firmware features presently found in the Buffalo lineup of NAS products. Especially, business oriented features, such Active Directory support, DFS support, disk quota support, a share level replication feature and port trunking make the TeraStation III a top choice for small to medium sized businesses. Hardware features like hot swap and dual Ethernet ports add to the list of new features. Reliability and performance are again the key design criteria for the TeraStaion III. A heavy-duty power supply and oversized cooling system, as well as vastly improved CPU speed guarantee excellent and reliable performance. It is the clear choice for those users who desire maximum reliability and robust features.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Iomega 1 TB Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition 34763 (Gray) Review

Iomega 1 TB Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition 34763 (Gray)
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I bought the 2 TB version. It's great having our photos and music online so we can use our Sony Bravia and Blu Ray player to browse photos or play music through our sound system. And my Grace Digital internet radio now has access to 4000 tracks on our local network. So, I like it. But...
I hooked it up as instructed to our network and installed the Iomega management software. The manager could not discover the drive as it was supposed to. I logged onto our router to find the IP address and added the device manually. That did it. Minor inconvenience. Then I noticed that the NAS device advertised its capacity as 1.8 TB, not 2 TB. OK, 1.8 TB is still a whale of a lot of storage, but it's not 2 TB. Now that I've got 8000 photos and 4000 audio tracks on the drive, there's still 1.78 TB of free space. So, not a big deal.
All the folders on the NAS showed up in my Windows Explorer folder list so I figured I could just copy all music and photos directly to the mapped drives. It seemed to work with the music - never mind that it took 15 hours to copy 18 GB - but the photos didn't copy well at all. Some files were just missing and most of the others were corrupt. I tried recopying them with a direct wired network connection instead of a wireless connection, but still no joy. What finally did work was to enable the FTP server on the NAS and use a FTP client (Filezilla in my case) to upload the photos. Not only did it work with no corrupt files, it took a fraction of the time that the file copy took. It worked so well that I deleted all the music and uploaded it a second time using FTP. Why take chances? It took 2 hours instead of 15. Nowhere could I find in the user's manual any tips on adding content to the drive. That would have been useful.
I tried enabling the personal cloud function. The NAS is supposed to configure the router automatically but it failed to do so. I was unable to figure out how to configure the port forwarding function on the router to make this work, trying every combination of IP address and port suggested. Now, my router is about 6 years old, which is 2 centuries in router years, so I bought a new router. It was less than $40 and I haven't tried it yet, but I'll let you know.
Still all minor inconveniences, right? But what I can't abide is the darn thing seems to take itself offline from time to time. I can't get to it with the manager or it's web page. I have to reboot it to get it to work, and it take seven forevers to reboot.
Summary: great concept, great result when it works, but in a world where nothing is easy anymore, what gets me excited is a product that does what it's supposed to without sucking up hours of my time. This one's not quite there yet.
UPDATE:
The new router wasn't by itself sufficient to enable my personal cloud, but once I enabled the UPnP function on the router, the NAS was able to configure its ports. STILL no joy. I chatted up Iomega's tech support and they led me through their checklist, most of which I had already tried, but when they're running out of ROM you don't push the interrupt button. Everything at my end seemed copacetic so my next call was to my ISP, CenturyLink. I've called CenturyLink's tech support before and they are AWESOME. Dave the Tech Support Guy suggested that I needed to "bridge my modem" and took me through the process step by step. In two minutes it was done and the NAS synched up and made the connection. Yay! But I'm, still trying to figure out the personal cloud and it seems to be hit or miss when I try to connect. It's always something.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Iomega 1 TB Home Media Network Hard Drive Cloud Edition 34763 (Gray)

Get high-capacity, reliable home network storage with the Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive, Cloud Edition. Easily share and access files, photos, videos, and music between computers and with friends and family. It's powerful and fast, plus the three-step set-up is very simple, even if you're never used a network drive before. This feature-rich drive has a built-in UPnP AV Media Server (DLNA certified) and iTunes Server so content can easily be shared between computers and any other digital media adapters such as game consoles, digital picture frames, or networked TVs. Plus, automatically post files to your Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr accounts. Availalbe in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB capacities.

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - 2 TB Network Attached Storage 34481 (Black) Review

Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - 2 TB Network Attached Storage 34481 (Black)
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I have been waiting for this for a long time. This NAS works period!. It works with Apple Time machine. It works with Ubuntu 9.10 (SimpleBackup) and it works with windowsXP (Windows Backup Program).
I wanted a RAID1 NAS storage. RAID standard dictates how hard disks are used. In RAID1 both the hard discs contain the same data. So if one fries the other one will save your day till you replace the broken one with a new disk. I wanted Iomega to act as the backup repository for all my systems which include a macbook (Leopard), ubuntu Linux (9.10) and WindowsXP Pro.
Pros
----
+ For 200+ bucks this offers you RAID1. Which is lot better than over prized Apple Time capsule which has only one hard disk.
+ Works seamlessly with Apple Time machine software
+ Supports FTP Server, UPNP (for media streaming) and SMTP (to send you an emails about diagnostics errors etc)
+ Supports Good Security. Remember once you connect any device to network you should enable user accounts passwords etc.
+ Very Very simple configuration.
+ You can connect external USB storage devices and they are available to all users in your home network. Makes regular usb printers network printers how cool is that ?
+ Very reliable. So far I have transferred 100 Gigs of data over the network and not even once did the network connection drop.
+ Compact and easy to service (in case the hard disk fries).
Cons
None so far
Help Instructions
For Apple Users
Once you install the supplied software the provided TimeMachine folder on the drive is visible to your time machine software as a backup drive. Configuration just involves opening up your time machine preferences and pointing to the NAS timemachine folder. Done! its that simple. I have tried creating a backup and restoring from it and it worked seamlessly.
For Ubuntu
I used the macbook to configure the NAS. Open the admin page in your browser and go to Settings->NetworkServices and Enable NFS. Once you do this the drive will turn on SMB protocol automatically (something that linux and unix worlds love). Now you can either create an additional folder on the drive (like i did or use the existing Backup Folder). Once you decided which folder to use, click on the small "Configure" Spanner icon next to it. This would open up the configuration page. Give a proper name and click next. In this page the software would ask you if you want NFS enabled for the folder. Check the box and give a name. For instance UbuntuBackup. Click ok. Now start your ubuntu computer-> places->Network and the explorer would show you the UbuntuBackup. To let Simple backup store backups here open the System->Administration->SimpleBackup Config-> in destination folder check the second option (SSH or FTP) and enter the following smb://EnterUserName@IOMEGANASNAME/UbuntuBackup (note you have to use username and password only if you have enabled security as i did. Your are done. Do a test backup and restore
Windows
Map the NAS as a drive (assigning a drive letter) and make the backup program use the mapped drive as the destination

Click Here to see more reviews about: Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - 2 TB Network Attached Storage 34481 (Black)

The Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 Network Storage offers content sharing with advanced security, and is ideal for small and remote offices, workgroups or home networks. Based on enterprise-class EMC storage technology, the StorCenter ix2-200 provides easy file sharing, iSCSI block access, and multiple RAID configurations for optimized data protection. Business users will appreciate the robust data protection features such as UPS support, print serving, folder quotas, rsync device-to-device replication, and user replaceable drives for business continuity and disaster recovery. The easy-to-use interface provides no-hassle management. Active Directory support and remote access round out the comprehensive business features. The StorCenter ix2-200 supports up to five Axis IP security cameras for basic video surveillance. Home users benefit from the advanced media features such as DLNA certified UPnP AV Media Server, PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol), torrent download compatibility, Bluetooth upload, and Cooliris slide show plug-in. Award-winning EMC Retrospect Express backup software and RSA BSAFE encryption for protected installs and upgrades. Supports PC, Mac, and Linux clients and is VMware certified for NFS and iSCSI. Available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities.

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