Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Ever wish you could convert your large external USB storage drive into an NAS server? Well, Addonics says you can easily for $55. Just plug your USB drive to the back of this peripheral and connect the adapter via Ethernet to your router and you’re good to go. The Addonics NAS Adapter essentially converts your drive instantly into a network SAMBA share accessible by any Windows, Mac, or Linux PC. What’s more, users can FTP to their drive as well as use it as a BitTorrent appliance or print server."

Since its release, some more details have surfaced about this wee NAS. It can also act as a UPnP AV server. However, the NAS needs to format any drive you want, in FAT32 no less, and its hobbled with a 10/100 ethernet port. The price is attractive, and it pretty much sips power, but a lot of compromises have been made. For someone who just wants to have a low power NAS solution to back up some files, this might work, but I have some concerns about it being able to perform the more demanding tasks one expects from a NAS. I have doubts to whether it can sustain one or more HD feeds or whether it can quickly manage large backups like system images. The NAS doesn't provide any fault tolerance either. Until these doubts about these tiny NAS devices have been addressed, I'll stick to a more powerful storage solutions.

"eXcito of Sweden recently launched a follow up to their popular Debian-based mini NAS called BUBBA|TWO. I've got to say... the new incarnation has got everything I wished the original had and then some. For starters, BUBBA|TWO now comes preloaded with a streaming media server app (supports iTunes DAAP, UPnP media players, and soon Squeezebox network music players), a file server with shared user access to folders and photo galleries, improved web 2.0 inspired web browser interface, a built-in router and firewall."

The BUBBA|TWO is an interesting alternative for users who want a server at home, but don't want a full-sized computer or the setup headaches. This fanless device is nearly silent and very small (4.5 x 1.8 x 7 in) and only pulls 13 watts max, making it a big energy saver. Yet, it still manages to give you most of the functionality of a full server (firewall, router, file and folder sharing, media streaming, email, ftp, etc) using a easy to understand web based GUI interface. The only option on the device is the size of the internal hard drive, which ranges from no hard drive included up to 1 terabyte. Definitely worth a look!

"Gizmodo asked the question after Iomega announced that it was no longer going to pursue its plan of releasing a Windows Home Server product like HP’s MediaSmart Server (MSRP $749). Do you buy the explanation from Iomega that such a device is “prohibitively unprofitable” due to its cost being comparable to buying a new PC? My 2-cents: Price might be part of the reason (though other consumer-based NAS servers run about the same price for comparable amounts of storage), but I think the lack of consumer confidence in regards to stability and reports of file corruption has put a black-eye on the platform from the get-go. I don’t think WHS will get much traction in the general consumer market until OEMs get close to Apple Time Capsule’s price point of $299 for 500GB ($499 for 1TB) of storage and have all the bugs worked out."

With Iomega bailing out of their own Windows Home Server (WHS) offering, and with HP's WHS costing $749, along with the recent reports of stability and file corruption issues (problems that even our own Jason Dunn reported recently), Alexander Grundner from eHomeUpgrade asks the question, "Is Windows Home Server Doomed?"

It's essential that Microsoft fixes the stability and file corruption issues, but I like Alexander's idea to have a "lite" and "premium" version of WHS (although, I might call them "Windows Home Backup" and "Windows Home Media" respectively). Everyone should agree that it's extremely important to backup all important digital files (yet this always seems to be overlooked until it's too late), so if Microsoft could offer a version of WHS that makes it easy for non-techies to setup backups (and is down to the right price-point) I think it might be the jump-start that Microsoft is looking for in the WHS market!

Is anyone currently using a Windows home Server? If not, what's keeping you from making the purchase?