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.

You have to hand it to Intel, their Light Peak fiber optic connection technology has caught the attention of many people due to its insanely high speed capabilities and the possibility of making those future-chic optical cable runs a dream come true.

CNET has a writeup on the technology and why it may become USB’s replacement in the future:

But do we really need to go all the way to optical now? High-speed electrical communications is hard–wires can cause electromagnetic interference, for example, and USB 3 cables can only be 3 meters long compared to 5 meters for USB 2. But technology for transferring data over copper wires, like technology for shrinking computer chips, has defied predictions that it will run out of gas.

Here’s hoping they figure out a way to pipe power along side those fragile pieces of fiber.

You’d think putting together an external storage solution would be simple right? Well considering the amount of heat a hard drive throws off and the general lack of cooling most enclosures provide you might be facing some premature drive failure down the road.

Hardware Bistro has some thoughts on the Sunbeam Airbox eSATA/USB hard drive enclosure and its rather immense cooling solution which should keep even a Western Digital Raptor’s heat levels in check. A gander if you will:

Something unique about Sunbeam Airbox when compares with other external HDD enclosures is the active cooling fan which is always forgotten by other external HDD enclosure makers. This active cooling fan is a 80mm blue LED fan where its blue LED lightning can be switched on & off as not everyone will like this lightning all the time; a very caring consideration.

Don’t expect SATA 2.0 speeds out of this thing but if you’re looking to maintain an appropriate temperature for your external storage it’s as good choice.

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.

Taking your data with you wherever you go gives you a great amount of freedom, of course the danger of losing or damaging that information comes along with that freedom. How exactly do you protect your storage when you’re constantly on the go?

The Tech Report has a look at the In Win Ammo ruggedized hard drive enclosure which sports the added benefit of built-in encryption. Interesting stuff for sure:

Rather than gating access to a drive’s contents with a password, fingerprint scanner, or old-school combination lock, the Ammo comes with two RFID keys that can be used to lock and unlock the drive. One of these keys is a faux dog tag that fits the Ammo’s theme perfectly, but isn’t something most folks would want to wear. Fortunately, the other key is a discrete little bit of red plastic that’ll easily fit on a keychain.

Some protection from rough handling and plenty of protection from theft or loss, a must have if your information is at all valuable.

As you can probably aready tell by the above picture, Cambrionix’s 49-port USB hub is meant for professional (or extreme hobbyist) use.  It’s got a price to match too, at £399 (~$650 U.S.).

Engadget has the details, including a neat gallery of the unit close up.

Since the advent of external USB storage devices, it’s been extremely easy to add storage to your computer without all of the popping open your case and cramming in the hard drive nonsense.

Western Digital’s My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB 2.0 external hard drive promises a good chunk of extra space at an extremely tempting price. There was a point in time where an external drive would set you back more than your run of the mill internal version but that price premium has slowly shrunk down to an acceptable profit-taking level.

The company touts the drive as a little eco-friendlier with up to 30% more energy efficiency than standard systems, which I take to mean competing brands that offer the same storage space using the same USB 2.0 interface.

Click the break for our full review.

Read more…

Look at what popped up on eBay, a 4 GB USB flash drive in the shape of a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Awesome! Not so awesome is the $140+ bid to take it home as of this writing . No thanks, but good for you worldseller2.

Source: Engadget

The usual method for expanding on your available desktop area is to attach a monitor to your graphics card’s secondary display port. In some instances it’s not possible or you’ve already taken up that port so you’ll need something like the HIS Multi-View DVI which works as a USB based graphics card. Bjorn3D has some thoughts on how it all works:

After extensive testing with the HIS Multi-View I can sum it up with a few words. Production environment. This thing would be perfect in an office setting or a home office. I know someone that has 7 monitors setup, and his took a long time to make them work right. The Multi-View would make his situation much simpler. Multiple video cards is awesome, but it’s very expensive. Software setup can be a pain as well.

That may be the best part of this little device. Software setup is non-existent. It takes away all the questions and troubleshooting. True set-it and forget-it. If they can resolve the issue with the copy-protected DVD’s and Windows Media Player, it would gain a lot of ground in my book. I just don’t see myself using that many monitors right now. If you are already using or planning to upgrade to multiple monitors, this might be the solution for you.

An interesting and useful device although it is just as pricey as a basic graphics card you can drag it around with you on the go.