QNAP TS410 The Real Drobo Killer.

Posted on 30. Dec, 2009 by nikbutler in Technology, blog

Earlier this month I had the chance to play with the  QNAP TS-410 out of the box this device does what the Drobo should have delivered on a long time ago.

  • Built in Network Connectors , two of them at 1Gbit each.
    Meaning it plugs into my network and bonds those two connections into one BIG connection.
  • A Media Server.
    All my music, photos and videos were visible to my PS3 and my XBOX and thanks to the above connection I could stream content and upload content and the box didnt skip a beat.
  • Rsync duplication.
    I can back up this device to another rsync service either locally or via the internet.
  • Bit Torrent Client.
    A web interface where I can pass .torrent files to have them downloaded and available to the mediaserver.
  • File Sharing.
    With Users, Groups, Shared Directories etc etc.
  • iSCSI Targets
    Making backing up and managing  disk images of other Macs and Windwows PCs a doddle.
  • Virtual Slices
    Allowing multiple QNAP devices to be aggregated into one large disk.
  • iTunes Library sharing
    Creating a shared library for all my iTunes libraries.
  • expandable RAID storage ( in multiple configurations )
    Pulling the same trick as the Drobo I can upgrade the storage in my RAID as I grow my needs.

The TS-xxx range from QNAP has ended my interest in Drobo and I must thank the wonderfully helpful people of Ultimate Storage for their help in getting me a review device. You can follow Ultimate Storage on Twitter as StorageExperts

Thanks for reading.

Popularity: 3% [?]

3 Mobile Wifi Device – More Road Worrier than Warrior.

Posted on 15. Oct, 2009 by nikbutler in Technology, blog

Thanks to the wonderful people at 1000Heads and 3MobileBuzz I have had a chance to play with the 3Mobile MiFi device. It is a wireless access point that uses a mobile phone sim to provide access to Internet via 3s’ data service.

The  advantage to using a Mobile Wifi (Mifi) Device over a traditional dongle is that battery power from your laptop is spared the effort of driving the USB dongle radio and modem. From experience the device has provided me 3 hours of work time vs the previous 1hr 10 minutes. Surfing speeds are  faster since the networking and usb processing are not being carried out on the laptop.

Its a great product , so why the worry ?

First out of the bag, it is not very intuitive. Now I might be being overtly technical here but I would expect some sort of webinterface that lets me know I am connected and whats going on.  To connect the device to your laptop and again to the internet requires several button presses and frankly these are not the easiest things to see negotiate.

The flashing leds on the cover are not on by default ( yes its saving energy but its makes me think its not actually working) and when they are lit the colours are not consistent to an positive experience . Where I expect green for good, red for bad I find blue for connected and red for “its working” but I dont know why.

Taking the above into consideration ( because I hate the phrase “that being said” ) I would at a pinch use this device for the sake that I have no other device to compare it against.

I would hope that future releases take on board some of these criticisms and apply them.

The device is  available as Contract or Pay As You Go from all good stockists , etc.

Thanks for reading.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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