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Comment on Cheap Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) In Stock by James F. Fordemwalt "Firmware Engineer & Sci-...

James F. Fordemwalt "Firmware Engineer & Sci-... — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:56:44 +0000

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

A place for my stuff, January 16, 2012

James F. Fordemwalt "Firmware Engineer & Sci-... (Boise, ID USA) -

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This review is from: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) (Personal Computers)

For the home or small office, the DS212j provides peace of mind for your data. I put two 2.5TB drives and followed the installation instructions to find that I finally had a place for my stuff.

1. Preparation
Make sure you are buying supported drives for the device (note: I put WD caviar greens in mine). Make sure you have a cool spot with power and networking ready.

2. Installation
Installing drives was trivial with my trusty phillips screwdriver (I call him 'Phil'.) No cables are necessary. The SATA drives mate directly with the built-in board. Then you fire up the provided DS software to install the runtime and get connected. Follow the steps to create the desired volume(s) and turn on the services that you want running. (Note: I had firewall issues with one of my computers when trying to connect.) There's even a "personal cloud" service that you can turn on if you're brave. Since I'm using mine for home I didn't try any of the built in email or LDAP services. Your mileage may vary.

3. Transfer
The DS212j has two USB connections on the back, which was perfect for me. I connected my WD My Book to it, and then was able to transfer my files directly to the new drives (rather than over the network). I was also able to use the Android apps for accessing files, photo, music and video. However, I don't currently have any DLNA devices so I haven't tried that yet.

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Comment on Cheap Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) In Stock by R. V. Cadena "Arkantos"

R. V. Cadena "Arkantos" — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:44:54 +0000

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

Nice NAS :), December 8, 2011

R. V. Cadena "Arkantos" (USA) -

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This review is from: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) (Personal Computers)

Nice, I upgraded from DS110j.
Now i have 2 HDDs in Raid (Mirroring)(2 Seagate Barracuda 1 TB drives)
I use Western Digital green disk for my DS110j, no problems so far. (1 year using 1TB wd10ears)

I use it for:

Pros:
* 1 Gigabit connection, (It works with your current 5e cable)
* Backups (Faster backups "LAN")
* Remote administration via Web
* Downloads (torrents)
* Documents uploads and downloads (It doesnt matter if i lose my encrypted pendrive)

Cons:
* No cons here :)

Neutral:
* HDDs setup with error checking can take about 3 hours

Ideal Buy if you are looking for a NAS.
Nice upgrade for home users.

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Comment on Cheap Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) In Stock by James

James — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:33:09 +0000

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

A challenger approaches, December 1, 2011

James -

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This review is from: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) (Personal Computers)

After all of the positive reviews for the Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS211J (White) I saw that an updated model was just released and decided to try it out.

Coming from an iomega StorCenter NAS and a NetGear ReadyNAS, I have one word for the DiskStation: WOW.

The D212J makes these other product lines look like thumb drives - mostly due to Synology's DiskStation OS. This feels like a full-fledged system; more or less a dedicated server. Faster, quieter and exponentially more customizable without being overwhelming. And so far, it's proving to be much more reliable.

Every feature and detail (and there are far too many to list), from start to finish, has been thoroughly developed. From the box, to the installation CD software (which remotely installs the OS on the unit over the network), to the remote access features and mobile apps, no feature has been left out or unpolished. Completely solid, every step of the way. If you're looking for a full-featured media server, backup server or file server, you'll find it all here in top form. You'll even find surprisingly well developed web and database server options.

The whole OS feels like if you took the best of Mac OSX and Windows 7 and blended them together. There's some serious R&D and talent behind this thing. It is rare to find a product so thoroughly excellent.

One of my more 'wow' moments: the DiskStation OS detected my router - with a custom firmware - logged into it, and tweaked it to allow remote access and torrent/usenet downloading through the NAS. In one click. Yeah.

Solid access control, packages/applications support, tons of remote usability, endless list of polished features, constant updates, high performance.

This is a vastly superior experience, and one that I don't expect to ever be topped for a device of this type.

It's worth far more than what it costs. You won't be disappointed.

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Comment on Discount LaCie d2 Network v.2 2 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301506 Best Price by Les Lewis

Les Lewis — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:36:26 +0000

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Works great, after driver update, September 5, 2010

Les Lewis -

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This review is from: LaCie d2 Network v.2 2 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301506 (Personal Computers)

I have been using this drive for about 5 weeks now. I bought it for backups of my PC. After reading some of the reviews I was a little hesitant to get it, but it seemed overall to be the best drive available. My initial backup was rather disappointing. It took 24 hours to backup 29G/163K files. I was starting to think about returning it. Then, the admin control panel for the drive indicated there was a driver update available.

After getting the driver update things have been much better. That same backup now takes about an hour, using the included software (Genie Backup Manager Pro). I am not using file compression because I want to be able to use the standard explorer to get any needed files when the time comes. I am running a 100M Ethernet and have seen the backup use 90+% of the net capacity while transfering files. The PC is a new i7 processor, so it is quick. There are lull periods during the backup; I assume while the software is determining what to backup next.

My only complaint is with the backup software. Comparing it with the software that came with my older backup drive; it is harder to find a backed-up file if I need to. I have not tried the restore features of Genie Backup Manager; so, this complaint may be addressed there. My older backup drive's software organized the backup in latest, 2nd oldest, and so on directories so it was easy to find the first, second and 3rd oldest version of a specific file. Genie Backup Pro just makes a copy, organized by the date of the backup. So, if I want something that I changed a while ago, I have to search all the backups until I find it. Someday, I may try the restore capabilities of the software and see how they handle this. For now, it is not a priority.

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Comment on Discount LaCie d2 Network v.2 2 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301506 Best Price by andy45429

andy45429 — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:39:53 +0000

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent Drive, October 5, 2010

andy45429 -

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This review is from: LaCie d2 Network v.2 2 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301506 (Personal Computers)

Easy to set up. Stays connected all of the time and recognized by all the computers on my home network. Fast for the price. I like it much better than the Western Digital Worldbook that I have.

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Comment on Discount LaCie d2 Network v.2 2 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301506 Best Price by I. Sahba "Ivan"

I. Sahba "Ivan" — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:47:26 +0000

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

Simple and easy Netdisk, Mac friendly, April 18, 2010

I. Sahba "Ivan" (NC, USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: LaCie d2 Network v.2 1 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301504 (Personal Computers)

This Network Disk was purchased with the intension of being used in a Mac Only environment for professional graphic design and 3D modeling services. 4 macs on a gigabit Ethernet network.
Amazon packaging was done properly, arrived in perfect condition.
LaCie packaging was done very well. The package includes all cables and software needed.
SW Installation took 8-10 minutes and only requires to be installed on ONE machine.
It mounts very fast on each machine as I have named it; DA5-Netdisk
The files are generally reference Photos and 3Dmodels that are used and shared between these machines.

Transfer Speed:
Test file: A Folder containing 2 files; One 4KB (1,375 bytes) and the other 1,088,275,968 for a total of 1.01GB (1,088,277,343 bytes)
Test condition: The only file transfer done at the time.

On a G5 Dual 2GHz PPC:
From External FW800 to Netdisk, 31 seconds
From Internal SATA to Netdisk, 29 seconds

On a Macpro 2.93MHz Quad, 8-core
From External eSATA OWC to Netdisk, 29 seconds
From Internal dual RAID WD Raptors to Netdisk, 28 seconds

For testing I used a folder and NOT a file since that is a more realistic simulation of everyday use than one large file.
The speed is very good. It is NOT the fastest which is the IOCELL NETDISK NDAS 351 but the Iocell does NOT allow more than ONE Mac to write to the netdisk in NDAS (Multip[le READ, single WRITE). The difference is about 2-3 seconds per transfer on a 1GB file. That is very negligible for me or almost 99% of people who would use a netdisk.

Note that deleting ANY file or folder from the netdisk will NOT put the item(s) in TRASH but it DELETES the file(s) or Folder(s) immediately. While it can be a bit inconvenient for mistakes but it is great for the fact that the available space shown at the bottom of the window is always REAL. A warning window does pop up giving you a chance to cancel in case of mistake.

The drive enclosure runs silent, it runs cooler than almost any drive I have. The temperature normally is LESS than putting your hand under your arm.
The blue LED light in front is not very bright and not distracting. It does blink during file transfers.
The enclose is small and has a nice sturdy aluminum casing with a base foot that is very stable.

I consider the life of an external HD on FW800, 400 or eSATA to be about 3-4 years. I anticipate this drive to work this length like the other 7 externals that I have from LaCie. 2 of them are dead after 4 and 4.5 years.
I have also set up the information on this Netdisk to be backed up every night to another LaCie 2TB in case of any failure.

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Comment on Discount Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) Network Attached Storage ST320005LSA10G-RK for Sale by RWCinCT "RWCinCT"

RWCinCT "RWCinCT" — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:34:43 +0000

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

More space than I will ever need??, December 28, 2010

RWCinCT "RWCinCT" (Redding, CT) -

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This review is from: Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage ST340005LSA10G-RK (Personal Computers)

I've worked in IT since 1983. I've had lots of units (Western Digital - UGH!) and this Seagate unit has been the best of it's kind, though it's not for the technologically challenged.

If you are looking for a drive you can plug in and use, you'll need to do a bit of work to get this up and running, but once configured - it's hands off for everything else. I would not recommend this to someone who doesn't have a good understanding of setting up disk shares/users/groups or isn't willing to read up on these subjects to configure the device.

It's relatively easy to setup for the technically savvy but not so easy to setup if you're a computer novice. The machine plugs directly on your home network (router/hub) and can be accessed by any device that will connect to a 'shared' drive. It does not have wireless connectivity, but if you connect it into a wireless hub, you can access it via a wireless device (e.g. a wireless laptop running iTunes or Windows Media or just as a shared drive).

This unit has a 'media service' that lets you publish a share as a music source and access it from iTunes on other computers. It can be accessed via a variety of file sharing protocols so if you've got a mixed environment at home (Windows, MAC, Linux), this machine is great. It also has a wiki feature - though I can't find a use for it at home but might work in a small office environment or if you keep track of things (recipes??) and need a storage mechanism.

This unit also can be configured to send e-mail alerts for various events (reboot, shutdown) and has a web interface for configuration. It comes with a utility for Windows PCs to detect the unit on the network - but the web interface must be used to configure the device so if you're using MAC/LINUX, you'll need to know how to look at your router to figure out what IP address the machine got, if you have automatic IP addressing (DHCP) on your router/hub. From there you use the IP address to get to the device via a web browser. The Windows utility does this easily, but it's not too difficult if you know how to do the above.

For those who are not technologically savvy (I'm trying to leave out most of the technobabble here), some of the settings may be a bit daunting (NFS, CIFS, FTP) and the concept of creating 'shares' and setting access levels and creating user accounts. However, if you are using this in a family setting and you want to setup separate areas for each member of the family (or create a 'private' area only accessible to a select group) then this unit can do this - but you need to know what you are doing.

This unit comes with two-2 terabyte drives which can used separately or be configured in a mirror formation (a.k.a. RAID 1). If you don't use mirroring, you get 4 terabytes of space but if you lose a drive due to failure, you lose the data on that drive. By using mirroring, both disks have exactly the same information on them which will always give you a backup if one of the drives fails. The only downside of mirroring is that you lose half of the space since both drives 'mirror' each other and contain exactly the same information. I highly recommend using mirroring - This way, if either one of the drives fails, you can replace it and not lose your data. This was an important feature for me - I rely on it to store the bulk of my data without having to do regular backups (who does those at home??).

Compared to Western Digital, Seagate (in my opinion and experience) has much more reliable disk drives. I've bought and lost two Western Digital units (USB/Firewire) and will never buy another.

If you want to have a unit that you can use for all of your data and store your iTunes on it (and access it from MAC and Windows and Linux as I do), then this unit is an excellent option.

If you have someone in your family who's good with computers, ask for assistance to set it up - it's worth getting this unit especially in a multi-user environment. If you're by yourself and/or know very little about computers and don't need the device to be accessible by any other than one PC, consider something you can connect directly to your PC instead.

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Comment on Discount Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) Network Attached Storage ST320005LSA10G-RK for Sale by David

David — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:53:32 +0000

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

Fantastic for personal or business use, February 19, 2010

David (Provo, UT USA) -

This review is from: Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) Network Attached Storage ST320005LSA10G-RK (Personal Computers)

I've owned the Seagate NAS 220 for about a month now and I have been blown away. The 2 TB unit has two one-terabyte drives and gives you the ability to choose whether you want more space (RAID 0) or more reliability (RAID 1). I opted for greater reliability.

There are three things that really impressed me with this product:

The speed: With the RAID 1 setup, when you read a file from the NAS, you're reading it from 2 hard rives simultaneously, and over a gigabit connection this means I can copy files from the hard drive at 40 megabytes per second. Writing is half that, about 20 megabytes per second.

The power consumption + noise: I figured I would hide this somewhere to prevent hearing it, but its so quiet that I keep it on top of my desk so I can see it. It's visually appealing to look at. Also, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is very low. When reading/writing from the drive, it uses about 18 watts, which at $.10/kWh is about $16 annually if it is running 24/7. It has an auto sleep mode which makes the TCO even lower. Compare this to a PC file server which can cost a few hundred dollars in electricity.

The simplicity: I plugged it in and went to the web based console (no software required) and answered a few questions and I was done. It works from Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and OS X 10.6. I gave it 4 stars in the features area because it might be a little over simplified, but that is only because I am a power user.

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with it. I will even recommend this product to small businesses who need network storage.

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Comment on Discount Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) Network Attached Storage ST320005LSA10G-RK for Sale by G. Farnsworth

G. Farnsworth — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:34:16 +0000

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

Works well if you have the right switch/router--later started misbehaving, October 26, 2010

G. Farnsworth (Pennsylvania) -

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This review is from: Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2-Bay 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage ST340005LSA10G-RK (Personal Computers)

I feel like I'm in a good place to review this item because I own both the Seagate 220 and also the Western Digital MyBook World Edition, and they are competitors. Both are inexpensive network attached storage appropriate for a home office or for home use. For both machines the only feature I use is reading and writing to the hard drive through windows sharing (from either a windows computer or a linux computer). For that reason I will not comment too much on some of the features like automatic backups, media sharing, etc. For the most part on machines of this level those features are gimmicks. They don't work very well and they degrade overall performance of the NAS, as you will be able to read from other people's reviews. When I want to play media from my NAS, I just mount the drive through windows sharing and play what I want. When I want to back up my computer, I copy stuff myself. For the reason I have a generally more favourable view of both of these machines than other people.

Anyway, on with the review. First I will mention two issues I had to overcome before this NAS was reasonably functional for me.

1. This is the big issue I had to fix: This Seagate NAS does not work well with just any gigabit switch. I originally had it plugged in to a TP-Link switch. I could write to the NAS at full speed, but when I wanted to read from it, the speed was horrible. Maybe 1/20th the speed at which I could write to the NAS. After spending a good deal of time researching the issue online I found out the NAS doesn't play well with some routers and switches. Notably it does not work with D-Link switches. Well, I will add TP-Link to the list it doesn't work with. If I plugged the NAS directly into my Linksys router, the problem went away, but that's only a 100-megabit connection. The funny thing is that the traffic still had to go through the TP-Link switch. In other words, the device this is directly plugged into matters, the rest of the network really doesn't. Anyway I tried various solutions (changing the frame size and so forth). They don't work. The only solution was to buy a netgear switch. If your network has a TP-Link or D-Link switch or router that you'd like to plug this into, budget for a netgear gigabit switch. They aren't real expensive, but I was very annoyed at this problem.

2. This is a small issue, and partly windows' fault: If you create a shortcut to this shared drive in windows and then play a movie from the NAS, it will disconnect 20 minutes into the movie. I originally thought this had to do with the NAS going into sleep mode, but I disabled that feature and it didn't change anything. I didn't notice the problem when playing from my linux machine, and the WD NAS doesn't do this. Anyway, the solution is to actually map the drive in "My Computer" instead of just using a shortcut to get to it. You'd think there would be no difference between those two, but the former works and the latter disconnects after 20 minutes.

Having overcome those two problems, the NAS now functions very nicely for me. The main thing I use this NAS for is to play movies that I have ripped from my DVD collection. They play perfectly on any computer in the house and I can even play two movies on two different computers. Actually I'm not sure how many movies I can play at a time. Nor have I tried playing any HD movies yet, so I can't comment on that, but the speed over my gigabit network seems more than adequate for that.

A couple of comparisons with the Western Digital:

1. This machine is significantly faster than the Western Digital. When I upload to this machine from my Linux box I sustain about 18 or 19 megabytes per second. On the Western Digital I get about 11. This may not sound like a big difference here, but when copying a large file or backing up a whole computer, it makes a very noticeable difference. I don't pay a lot of attention to my download copy speed, but it is above 30 MB per second, whereas I get more like 19 from the Western Digital. I am running this in a RAID 0 configuration. However, I also did a speed test using JBOD and the speeds were exactly the same, so the gain is not really from the RAID (the WD I use has only one HD in it, so there's no RAID option).

2. The Seagate is significantly louder than the Western Digital. It's not loud compared to most hardware, but you can hear the drives spinning if you get close and listen, and when they start up or go to sleep you can hear a click that is pretty noticeable. Sometimes it clicks when no one is using it and you would think it would just be sleeping peacefully. At first I thought this was a hardware problem but it turns out that my NAS is fine. It's just louder than expected. Of course, WD sets the bar high for silence. It is almost impossible to tell if the WD machine is on or doing anything if you ignore the lights on the front (or... Read more

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Comment on Low Price Canon imageCLASS MF4450 Laser Multifunction Printer with 33.6 Kbps for Sale by Duraleigh

Duraleigh — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:05:48 +0000

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Love it!, August 12, 2011

Duraleigh -

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This review is from: Canon imageCLASS MF4450 Laser Multifunction Printer with 33.6 Kbps (Office Product)

I have had several laser printers over the past 15 or so years. Always bought HP brand. After getting burned with the last three HP printers (one issue or another occurring way too soon in the printer's life) I decided it was time to try another brand. I have had this Canon printer up and running three days now and am very pleased with my purchase. Now, I may change my review in 6 months or a year, but right now I feel my purchase was a very good decision. The quality of the print is sharp. The speed is quite acceptable. A slight tad noisy, but I have it on my desk right at ear level.

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