The constant swapping of USB memory sticks and optical drives is one way to totally frustrate users, of course sharing PC drives over a network isn’t exactly energy friendly either. There is of course the simple solution.

Synology’s DiskStation DS210j Network Attached Storage allows you to serve up files on your network and should be at a low enough price point where most anyone can jump into the NAS game. Testseek Labs has the review:

There are also the options to make updates of the software, reset to factory defaults, install external modules like an e-mail server, web statistics server and there’s even a small phpMyAdmin module which means you can install MySql and run this unit as a small web server with a database.

Extending it beyond mere file serving is sure to excite the tweakers out there.

So you’ve got yourself an ever expanding network of computers each with important documents or precious memories you want to back up yet doing the external storage swap is more of a hassle than it’s worth. There is of course the simple solution, that shiney little NAS you’ve been pondering for a while now can make all of your file hosting and back up issues vanish.

CCE Reviews has a look at the QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS which supports a pair of internal drives and has eSATA ports for two more making it a flexible machine:

The front end provides access to the two hot-swappable drive cages as well as the power button, copy button, one extra USB port and a series of LEDs to indicate the device’s status. On the back end we have a single 70mm cooling fan as well as 2 eSATA ports, 2 additional USB ports, a gigabit LAN port, a reset button, the K-Lock Security Slot and the 12DV power port.

Impressive feature set which will let you grow its storage capacity at your own pace through its added USB and eSATA ports.

The usual formula for a network attached storage enclosure has your drives safely cradled away in an oversized metal box with a rahter large fan in the back to pull all of the heat out. Effective? Yes, but not exactly nifty looking in your workspace.

Guru3D has a look at the Patriot Corza NAS which sports two hotswappable SATA drive bays all in a sleek little enclosure you’ll proudly show off on your desk…not that we’d do that sort of thing. Here’s a peek:

This model comes with two hot swappable bays, pop in 2x 2TB drives .. and you just added 4 TB of data storage over a 1000 Mbit/s network connection. Downright handy. Especially when you consider this little NAS unit consumes roughly only 25 Watt with two drives installed.

Small, speedy, and inexpensive compared to the majority of other NAS devices out there, getting into the network storage game has never been easier.

Getting some form of storage attached to your network, which is conveniently called Network Attached Storage, allows you to easily backup your files and share them with any other computer on your network. Getting that done in the past meant a steep monetary investment.

Fittingly Synology’s Disk Station DS409slim offers up four SATA ports, which you’ll have to populate with your own drives, and a slew of nifty options in order to get your spiffy new NAS on to your Gigabit LAN. Big Bruin has a look:

The button on the bottom, with the green capital C icon, is used to copy data from the front USB port to a specified folder on the NAS. The LED above the button will turn steady green when ready to copy. It will start copying the whole USB drive when you hold the button for about 1 second. When the copy is complete, the light turns off indicating that you can remove the flash drive.

A nice option for dumping USB key contents into quickly and easily.

Integrated network chips have eased the cost of networking your computers…so why would you want to buy an addon card for your gaming rig? Well your favorite operating system, namely Windows, usually has the system’s CPU take care of the incoming packets which can degrade performance a bit.

The EVGA Killer Xeno Pro hopes to minimize the impact of network transfers as the NIC is capable of handling the data being streamed in leaving your system’s processor to take care of other things. AnandTech has a look:

Let’s start by saying that this isn’t going to be
a network card for someone hanging on to a 7 Series NVIDIA card or a
Radeon 1k part from ATI in a single core CPU system. When upgrading,
spending the $120 cost of the Killer Xeno Pro on a better graphics card
will net you a great deal more performance. Even putting that money
into the CPU is likely to get you more for your money in general. This
is a card that should be targeted at the online gamer with a good
system who wants to make sure every possible advantage is covered.

An interesting device with plenty of potential but you’ll want an insanely high-end machine to match its price tag.

Cramming all of your information and easily accessing it over your network can be quite troublesome. You could go the dedicated computer server route but that would mean a large case, an operating system to support, and a RAID card to handle it all, or you could got the NAS route.

Thecus’ N7700 network attached storage device can hold up to 7 SATA drive internally (and an extra eSATA drive) with your choice of RAID modes that offer up performance, reliability, or both. TweakTown has a look at the device:

The N7700 is a nice progression from the N5200 Pro, but the benchmarks show that there is still room for performance improvements. Thecus is really in a catch 22; add a faster processor and more memory and the cost of the build goes up, plus they would also need to improve cooling to cope with the added MHz. As it sits right now, the N7700 is silent from 6 feet away in my computer room and to be honest I would prefer a silent solution over a 10% improvement in transfer speeds. Even as it sits right now, the N7700 is the fastest NAS server we have tested to date.

It is a speedy unit but it’s not exactly cheap, the relatively hands-off maintenance might just make up for it though.