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Addonics Mini NAS: when RAID is too much to ask for

November 17th, 2009

Addonics Mini NAS: when RAID is too much to ask for

If you’re in the market for a single bay network drive, your options have certainly been adding up lately — and now the kids at Addonics are premiering their aptly named Mini NAS. Billed as “the world’s smallest,” this guy is roughly the same size (and roughly as attractive) as a small hub, and it sports 10/100Mbps Ethernet, a 2.5-inch drive bay, a USB port for printer sharing, and support for SMB, Samba, and iTunes music sharing, FTP access (up to 8 simultaneous users), and a BitTorrent client. Yours now for $69. PR after the break.

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Addonics Mini NAS: when RAID is too much to ask for originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted in Computers and Technology, Engadget |

Tags: 100mbps Ethernet, 17 Nov, Addonics, Bittorrent Client, Break, Engadget, Ftp Access, Hub, Inch Drive Bay, music, Nas, Nbsp, Printer Sharing, Raid, Samba, Simultaneous Users, Smb, Storage, Usb Port, Usb Printer |

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Hands on with Synology’s DS409slim: 2.5" drives in a NAS

October 8th, 2009

Hands on with Synology’s DS409slim: 2.5" drives in a NAS

For the growing number of users who are ditching the desktop PC and going laptop-only, some form of external storage is a necessity, if only for backup purposes. But the housings for most external solutions tend to come with loud fans, which poses a problem for those of us who live in small apartments, where an external storage unit might sit right next to the dining table. And then there’s the size issue, which crops up whenever you consider anything more ambitious than a simple external USB drive. Any amount of RAID means multiple drives, and multiple drives mean more space, more fans, and more noise.

As a laptop-only user in a New York City apartment, I’ve faced all of the above issues when looking for an external storage solution. So I was intrigued by the announcement of Synology’s DS409slim, the baby brother of the DS409 NAS. Synology took a standard four-bay NAS box and shrunk it to host laptop drives—even with four drives, this thing is tiny, comparable in volume to a Mac Mini. The laptop drives are meant to keep the heat and power use down, so there would presumably be little in the way of loud fans. And, despite the compact form, it had all the ports—gigabit ethernet, USB for drive, camera, or printer sharing, and eSATA for backing up its contents—that are found on the larger version. It seemed like NAS Nirvana.

Well, on paper at least. Laptop drives would almost certainly involve some sacrifices, but I was interested in finding out what you’d have to give up to go slim.

As the results of this brief comparison between the DS409slim and its full-sized brother, the DS409, indicate, those cool and quiet laptop drives may make less of a difference than you think.