02-13-2009, 12:54 AM
/well I found this review on Amazon and it would appear that this thing is useless except for anything except windows box....
"These are not NAS devices, as some of the documentation might lead you to believe. A NAS device (network attached storage) typically offers clients the ability to connect to the device, using it's native fileshare method. CIFS for Windows, NFS for Linux/Unix, etc. These devices offer none of that.
* Device is available to Windows clients on the network only. If that's not bad enough, check the following gripe.
* Every PC that wants to access the device needs to have the software CD installed. Usually a NAS device will offer a shared filesystem that can be mounted in the OS's native method. With this box, all the PCs need to have a driver installed in order to see the device.
* DHCP only. There is no option to have a static IP address on the device. It is DHCP only.
* On first install, lamely worded error message hindered the install. After installing the device and the driver, it kept failing with the error "Unable to enumerate drive". The help file was useless. After an hour of messing with it and finally deleting all of my mapped drives, the installation suceeded and I was able to use the device.
* You MUST use the included software. Although the device seems to be listening on port 80, there is no web interface to configure it. The included software, running on Windows is the only way.
* Non-Windows systems are out of luck. This is a Windows only device. Do not try to connect to it with Mac OSX or Linux (both of which I have). The device can be connected and re-shared by a Windows PC, allowing Macs and Linux to get to it, but this has proved painstakingly slow.
* Painstakingly slow. I connected the device to an older Windows PC and the best sustained data transfer I could get (read or write) was around 3MB/s. Hardly a speed demon. My linux fileserver on the same network can easily sustain 10MB/s. I am going to connect the device to a faster Xeon based system and see how speedy it is then.
* Simple security. I saw no method of creating usernames or any kind of security on the device other than the single password that can be setup to access the device. Probably because this is designed for the home where there are not a bunch of users and passwords to manage. "
"These are not NAS devices, as some of the documentation might lead you to believe. A NAS device (network attached storage) typically offers clients the ability to connect to the device, using it's native fileshare method. CIFS for Windows, NFS for Linux/Unix, etc. These devices offer none of that.
* Device is available to Windows clients on the network only. If that's not bad enough, check the following gripe.
* Every PC that wants to access the device needs to have the software CD installed. Usually a NAS device will offer a shared filesystem that can be mounted in the OS's native method. With this box, all the PCs need to have a driver installed in order to see the device.
* DHCP only. There is no option to have a static IP address on the device. It is DHCP only.
* On first install, lamely worded error message hindered the install. After installing the device and the driver, it kept failing with the error "Unable to enumerate drive". The help file was useless. After an hour of messing with it and finally deleting all of my mapped drives, the installation suceeded and I was able to use the device.
* You MUST use the included software. Although the device seems to be listening on port 80, there is no web interface to configure it. The included software, running on Windows is the only way.
* Non-Windows systems are out of luck. This is a Windows only device. Do not try to connect to it with Mac OSX or Linux (both of which I have). The device can be connected and re-shared by a Windows PC, allowing Macs and Linux to get to it, but this has proved painstakingly slow.
* Painstakingly slow. I connected the device to an older Windows PC and the best sustained data transfer I could get (read or write) was around 3MB/s. Hardly a speed demon. My linux fileserver on the same network can easily sustain 10MB/s. I am going to connect the device to a faster Xeon based system and see how speedy it is then.
* Simple security. I saw no method of creating usernames or any kind of security on the device other than the single password that can be setup to access the device. Probably because this is designed for the home where there are not a bunch of users and passwords to manage. "