Excellent HTPC expansion

[chadwolcott]

Just wanted to pass on some "user experience". For anyone in need of some storage you should take a look at the Ximeta NetDisk. I have 2 or them mirrored that I use for my business and absolutely love them. They are NAS (Network Attached Storage) solutions but can also be used via USB. There are a number of sizes available (I have 2 160GB), they are very flexible and easy to use and setup. The speed is very good over USB and over ethernet, easily enough throughput for media applications.

THey are a little pricey for storage, but being able to just plug them into a CAT5 jack is very nice. ...and No, I don't work for Ximeta

http://www.ximeta.com/products/netdisk.php

[hjackson]

I had seen these at BestBuy and CompUSA. If you don't already have a separate pc running XP as your server, I'm not sure the extra price for these NAS servers compared to the price of a regular external HD of the same memory is worth it. If you don't already have an extra pc as your server, and using your current pc as a server (with external HDs attached) is not an option, these NAS servers would sure be great. My question though would be, can you daisy chain regular external HDs to one NAS server to save cost, or can you only daisy chain other NAS servers together?

hjackson

[chadwolcott]

You can't really daisy chain them together, they plug directly into a network jack or usb port. The beauty of these is that they don't require another PC to be on to use them as would be the case if you just used external harddrives. Especially if you're like me and don't want to have a bunch of external HDs sitting around my living room, plus you don't have the added overhead of an OS. A regular external drive of the same size is about $30 less or so.

It's definately not for everyone, but NAS devices have been a staple of IT environments for a while now...now there's a "consumer" version. Being able to essentially create a RAID-1 setup with a few clicks of the mouse is very nice too