Seagate Box Raid

WD Caviar Black drives combine a high performance electronics architecture with a rock solid mechanical architecture to deliver the perfect storage solution for your fully-loaded PC or maxed out gaming machine. Cool drive operation, no-touch head technology, and leading-edge vibration protection ensure enhanced reliability and sustained data throughput.

Brand: Western Digital Model: WD10000LSRTL Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 1.03" h x 4.00" w x 5.80" l, 1.52 pounds Hard Disk: 1000GB Dual processor: Twice the processing power to maximize performance. The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head Massive Capacity: WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 1 TB.

Most helpful customer reviews 56 of 64 people found the following review helpful. Disk good, packing bad (no, make that bad/bad) By 11bravo There IS a reason to buy RETAIL disks, not OEM disks, from Amazon, and that is the shipment's packing. Received this disk in a "standard" box (those just fine for BOOKS), with some brown paper wadded in along the SIDES of the disk's own box. No bubble wrap, no plastic air bubbles, just some paper that did NOT prevent the Western Digital box from moving around, as I noticed when I picked up the box from the porch. Come on, Amazon, these are NOT books, dvd's, or hand tools... At least you could put enough packing in so the object does not move, let alone putting packing in above and below to REALLY cushion the hardware. I'll note that the Amazon box was crushed in on 1 end a good inch, no doubt from having something dropped on it. UPS is not exactly known for its gentle handling of packages... Amazon should be aware of that and act accordingly. If this had been an OEM disk, I would have returned it immediately, not even bothering to format. With the retail version, I'll format and run a chkdsk. But in continues to amaze me why Amazon so carelessly ships computer hardware with such poor packing. Makes me want to look ELSEWHERE for computer products. Evening's UPDATE: Call the coroner - this drive is DOA. Plugged it in, powered it up, can hear it come up to speed, then click click - it's the head's death rattle; Window's disk manager waiting in vain for a disk that will never appear. Shame. UPS/Amazon has murdered another one... The only "good" news is, I won't have to wait for chkdsk's run... Note: this is the RETAIL version - i.e., comes in its own box, not an OEM (static bag only). If Amazon's packaging can't protect a retail box, think how an OEM would suffer... 17 of 18 people found the following review helpful. 5-yr warranty yes. By Omni Presence WD Caviar Black 1TB 32mb cache retail. Nice. This is apparently THE best drive right now considering the claimed performance and reliability. Price is very good at $99. Get retail box instead of the OEM Bulk drive. Retail has better packing, better binning selection from the factory, and overall your best chance of receiving a reliable drive that performs the way it's supposed to and will receive full warranty. (WD warranties the OEM bulk drive purchase 5yrs as long as it is shipped correctly, and there's the rub). Install is easy. Plug and play. Drive gets WARM so place it with some airflow. I have a well-ventilated case and the drive is reading 34C (93F) at idle. That's 10 degrees warmer than I'm used to with my old 160gb Caviar. The papers in the box claim 5yr warranty. WD website concurs. I don't think you need to register to get warranty service, just need your receipt. I have had no trouble from WD when I had to return a drive (did three last year) and I have never registered. AMAZON SHIPPING IS STILL AN ISSUE. Retail 1TB Black arrived with the retail box intact but loose in the shipping box, with some packing material tossed in randomly. The drive is suspended in the retail container, so that the retail box protects to drive from direct impacts but I still wouldn't want to drop or toss the box around. Unfortunately that is exactly what happens during shipping and Amazon is inconsistent about padding that box. But I'm happy to say that the drive tested fine with Western Digital Lifeguard Diagnostics - Extended Test. BTW same goes for the OEM one I got in comparison (miraculous considering the shipping for that one!). I did large file transfers between two of these on a fresh Windows & 64-bit install, P45/ICH10R motherboard (gigabyte ud3p) and throughput was 80MB/s - 114MB/s. I haven't run any performance Diagnostics, just looked at the Resource Monitor once in a while. So, decent performance. I'm going to run hw2bench and see what I get. It's a bit noisy with two of these in my quiet PC case, but not a bad sound, just purring every second

The HP EX490 Media Smart Server is the all-in-one solution to manage your media: a home server that can automatically backup and protect your digital memories, centralize your media and content for sharing with family and friends, and enable you to enjoy your digital media while at home or away. Network-based backup of PCs using Windows Home Server as well as Macs using Apple’s Time Machine. Media streaming of photos, music and videos to PCs, the entertainment center and remote devices including the iPhone. What's in the box: HP EX490 (1TB plus 3 unused expansion bays) MediaSmart Server, Power cord, Ethernet cable, Software installation disc , PC restore disc, Server recovery disc and Setup Poster and HP support guides. One year limited warranty and our dedicated software technical support available from date of purchase both online and by phone.

Brand: HP Model: FL704AA#ABA Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 5.71" h x 3.74" w x 6.10" l, 11.02 pounds CPU: Intel Celeron 2.2 GHz Memory: 2GB Hard Disk: 1TB Processors: 1 1.0 TB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive; No tools required to add 3 additional hard drives with the 3 open expansion bays Intel Celeron Processor 2.2 GHZ 64-bit; 2GB of DDR2 DRAM Connects easily to the home network through a built-in Ethernet port. 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) RJ45 Ethernet Powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server software 4 USB 2.0 ports (1 front, 3 back); 1 eSATA port (back) Supports both wired and wireless PCs via a wireless router

div.aplusAnnotate {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;} div.aplusAcontentHead {font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } div.aplusAcontentBody {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; } div.aplusAPlusHeader {font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.8em;} div.aplusAcontentLegal {font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;} div.aplusstyle11 {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; } div.aplusCaption {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;} div.aplusAPlusHeader1 {font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 2em;} hr.aplus-dashed {border-top:1px dashed #999999;color:#FFFFFF;height:1px;margin:3px 0;} IDEAL FOR

Most helpful customer reviews 93 of 99 people found the following review helpful. Useful and solid quality - for the committed user but not for picky people ~ Rev. July 2010 By Stanltaaf I'm technically inclined, but not an engineer. I have some experience with this topic... I first built my own server with spare parts and run it at my home. I am reviewing this because I bought it for my parents and installed it. Preface - as of 2010, I've seen a lot of heartache about Mac Compatibility. Please, do some research before purchasing this product for a Mac to see if this will fit your needs. There is a TON of outside forum support about this. Otherwise my original review still stands: Part 1: The software, and what HP brings to the party: Windows Home Server is actually a program (based on Windows Server 2003 with enhancements, optimized and pre-configured), and is easy to use in a home. And it is good, all by itself. HP's contributions by adding on its own 'add-ins' make the software better. As a sample of what this means for you, an example: If you are recording tv shows on in Windows 7 media center you can offload your shows here, and still stream them giving you instant access anytime over your home network from a windows 7 PC. The new update to the software also makes it so you can set windows 7 up to offload your recordings from your Windows 7 pc to the server automatically so you don't tie up your computer's storage space. If you want to take a look at what that kind of pc setup might look like, just search listmania for "Win 7 HTPC build"; I'm the first search hit. So what does HP bring to this? If you have media files that you want to convert for viewing on a mobile device, HP bundled an add-in transcoding software on this so you can offload that work to server's CPU and not tie up your computer while you'd rather be surfing or playing games or whatever else you do to make things better (Note: HP's transcoding will NOT remove DRM). There are a lot more add-ins they bundle with this, but it's exhaustive and there isn't the space. Bottom line, there are plenty of 'WHS' solutions. But my take is that HP has put a lot behind making this a great software bundle, and I have to say I'm impressed with the bonus they bring. Emphasis on the word Bonus, because they are 'nice to have-s' not designed for the people who consider them 'must-have-s'. The core functionality of streaming video, storing shares and back-up is what this is designed for. Part deux: What's so great about the hardware. The pictures make it look big. But it is small - about the size of a small bread box turned on end. I was surprised when I unboxed it. It's also easy to add hard drives. It comes with one, but you'll get hooked and want to add one. Just take out a tray, pop in a recent generation "SATA II" drive and replace the tray in the server and it self configures. I recommend buying one straight away anyway because then you can turn on 'file duplication'. That means the server at your specific direction will keep duplicate copies of folders you select on two separate hard drives in the server as insurance against mechanical failure. You can also back up the system drive, which I'm learning how to do, and you need an external USB drive to do that. Energy-wise It pulls about 4 to 6 watts under normal operation. Yet another reason to buy this if you are power conscious. Don't let that figure fool you. There's plenty of hardware oomph for most people's needs. Part Three - Documentation. There is a lot of documentation! Just not in the box that comes with the server. WHS started out of a user community/company initiative that blossomed into a server software product that now you are seeing hardware being made for. So, if you aren't sure if this is for you - please take a look online about what other uses this is for and what alternatives are out there. Summary: Good build, solid software, continuous integration to Windows backed by a very committed enthusiast

The HP EX495 Media Smart Server is the all-in-one solution to manage your media: a home server that can automatically backup and protect your digital memories, centralize your media and content for sharing with family and friends, and enable you to enjoy your digital media while at home or away. Network-based backup of PCs using Windows Home Server as well as Macs using Apple’s Time Machine. Media streaming of photos, music and videos to PCs, the entertainment center and remote devices including the iPhone. What's in the box: HP EX495 (1.5TB plus 3 unused expansion bays) MediaSmart Server, Power cord, Ethernet cable, Software installation disc , PC restore disc, Server recovery disc and Setup Poster and HP support guides. One year limited warranty and our dedicated software technical support available from date of purchase both online and by phone.

Brand: HP Model: EX495 Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 9.75" h x 5.50" w x 9.88" l, 11.24 pounds CPU: Pentium Memory: 2GB Hard Disk: 1500GB Processors: 1 1.5 TB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive; No tools required to add 3 additional hard drives with the 3 open expansion bays - (Total Capacity 9TB) Intel Pentium Processor Dual Core 2.5 GHZ 64-bit ; 2GB of DDR2 DRAM Connects easily to the home network through a built-in Ethernet port. Powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server software 4 USB 2.0 ports (1 front, 3 back); 1 eSATA port (back) 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) RJ45 Ethernet - Supports both wired and wireless PCs via a wireless router) Provides enhanced network throughput and video conversion performance

div.aplusAnnotate {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;} div.aplusAcontentHead {font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } div.aplusAcontentBody {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; } div.aplusAPlusHeader {font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.8em;} div.aplusAcontentLegal {font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;} div.aplusstyle11 {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; } div.aplusCaption {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;} div.aplusAPlusHeader1 {font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 2em;} hr.aplus-dashed {border-top:1px dashed #999999;color:#FFFFFF;height:1px;margin:3px 0;} IDEAL FOR

Most helpful customer reviews 93 of 99 people found the following review helpful. Useful and solid quality - for the committed user but not for picky people ~ Rev. July 2010 By Stanltaaf I'm technically inclined, but not an engineer. I have some experience with this topic... I first built my own server with spare parts and run it at my home. I am reviewing this because I bought it for my parents and installed it. Preface - as of 2010, I've seen a lot of heartache about Mac Compatibility. Please, do some research before purchasing this product for a Mac to see if this will fit your needs. There is a TON of outside forum support about this. Otherwise my original review still stands: Part 1: The software, and what HP brings to the party: Windows Home Server is actually a program (based on Windows Server 2003 with enhancements, optimized and pre-configured), and is easy to use in a home. And it is good, all by itself. HP's contributions by adding on its own 'add-ins' make the software better. As a sample of what this means for you, an example: If you are recording tv shows on in Windows 7 media center you can offload your shows here, and still stream them giving you instant access anytime over your home network from a windows 7 PC. The new update to the software also makes it so you can set windows 7 up to offload your recordings from your Windows 7 pc to the server automatically so you don't tie up your computer's storage space. If you want to take a look at what that kind of pc setup might look like, just search listmania for "Win 7 HTPC build"; I'm the first search hit. So what does HP bring to this? If you have media files that you want to convert for viewing on a mobile device, HP bundled an add-in transcoding software on this so you can offload that work to server's CPU and not tie up your computer while you'd rather be surfing or playing games or whatever else you do to make things better (Note: HP's transcoding will NOT remove DRM). There are a lot more add-ins they bundle with this, but it's exhaustive and there isn't the space. Bottom line, there are plenty of 'WHS' solutions. But my take is that HP has put a lot behind making this a great software bundle, and I have to say I'm impressed with the bonus they bring. Emphasis on the word Bonus, because they are 'nice to have-s' not designed for the people who consider them 'must-have-s'. The core functionality of streaming video, storing shares and back-up is what this is designed for. Part deux: What's so great about the hardware. The pictures make it look big. But it is small - about the size of a small bread box turned on end. I was surprised when I unboxed it. It's also easy to add hard drives. It comes with one, but you'll get hooked and want to add one. Just take out a tray, pop in a recent generation "SATA II" drive and replace the tray in the server and it self configures. I recommend buying one straight away anyway because then you can turn on 'file duplication'. That means the server at your specific direction will keep duplicate copies of folders you select on two separate hard drives in the server as insurance against mechanical failure. You can also back up the system drive, which I'm learning how to do, and you need an external USB drive to do that. Energy-wise It pulls about 4 to 6 watts under normal operation. Yet another reason to buy this if you are power conscious. Don't let that figure fool you. There's plenty of hardware oomph for most people's needs. Part Three - Documentation. There is a lot of documentation! Just not in the box that comes with the server. WHS started out of a user community/company initiative that blossomed into a server software product that now you are seeing hardware being made for. So, if you aren't sure if this is for you - please take a look online about what other uses this is for and what alternatives are out there. Summary: Good build, solid software, continuous integration to Windows backed by a very committed enthusiast

The NetDisk Enclosure is a single drive Ethernet/USB 2.0 combination enclosure for your internal hard drives. It includes advanced NDAS technology for a central, simple and secure network storage with no IP configuration or server required. Install your custom hard drive and software, then connect the NDAS unit into a wired or wireless network (LAN) switch. Then install the driver software and use it like a local disk drive, on each specified computer. No more relying on a server for all your central storage needs. Get the direct networking, high performance and plug-and-play portability you need to be more productive! Since NDAS Enclosure requires no TCP/IP setting, the unit is invisible and safe from external hackers Includes Symantec backup software for added security

Brand: XiMeta Model: ENCL-1P Dimensions: 2.00 pounds Single-drive Ethernet/USB 2.0 combination enclosure Install the internal hard drive of your choice Includes NDAS technology for secure network storage with no IP configuration or server required Compact, lightweight drive offers plug & play setup Allows easy backup or expansion through software features that allow Mirroring (RAID 1), Aggregation or RAID 0

Most helpful customer reviews 17 of 18 people found the following review helpful. Does exactly what I need and does it very well By Virtualmonk I was looking for a way to create a data drive to be used by both me and my spouse but one that didn't involve drive mapping and leaving the computer holding the actual data on all day long. I heard about this device and decided to give it a try with my existing IDE drive. The install ran smoothly until I discovered that each time I shut down my system, I would have to go into the Control Panel to reactivate the Ximeta drive. It turns out that this is "normal" behavior if the drive was originally created as a Dynamic type rather than a Basic type. To fix this, it is necessary to back off all the data, convert the drive to Basic and reformat it. BTW, to my knowledge this isn't documented anywhere except as a response to a question on Ximeta's Support Forum. Once I formated the drive, remounted it and restored the data, it ran without a hitch. It's easily as fast as the drive would normally be were it connected internally in the CPU. I was concerned that because it has no cooling fan it might run hot, but so far the case has stayed at room temperature if not cooler. It's also virtually silent. I have it sitting on top of my CPU and have had no vibration issues. Two suggestions if you choose to pick up one of these units. One, shop around. Prices vary wildly for this unit. I managed to pick up mine on clearance at a major electronics retailer for a lot less than list or even Amazon's price. Second, if you don't already have a favorite IDE drive manufacturer, look for one that by itself runs quiet and stays relatively cool. Aside from the Dynamic to Basic conversion annoyance, I'm very satisfied with this unit and am seriously considering getting another so I can create a RAID 1 mirroring setup. Four months later... I'm still happy for the most part with these enclosures. They do the job and do it quite well. However, I have found two issues that, had I known about them earlier, probably would have caused me to drop my rating to 4 stars. One issue is that, for reasons I haven't been able to pinpoint, the NDAS Device Management software that manages the connections to the drives is hypersensitive and tends to lose connection and have to go into recovery mode at least three or four times a day (not a good thing when you have something like your Microsoft Outlook data file sitting on one of the drives). This could very well be my network setup and have nothing to do with the enclosures themselves, but it's an issue worth mentioning. The second issue, which is a *major* one, is that, while the drives are supposed to be able to run as network hard drives and USB drives simultaneously (i.e., be a USB drive for a nearby PC while it's a network drive to a PC in another location), this is only the case if the network drives are standalone. It doesn't seem to be the case if the drives are bound together (i.e., in a RAID1 configuration with a spare). I found this out the hard way and had to rebuild an array from scratch. Fortunately, the data on the drives was backed up on DVDs, so I didn't lose anything except a lot of time. 25 of 29 people found the following review helpful. Don't belive the troll - Ximeta NDAS is all right By Jacob Corn Don't listen to esanta. Ximeta's drivers did not support simultaneous read/write at one point, but they have always supported simultaneous read. And as of the latest version (out in July 2005, a little under a year before esanta's review), read/write is transparently available for an unlimited number of connections at once (note: Ximeta warns that trying more than 16 connections at once may be slow). Add to that the ability for both Raid 0 striping and Raid 1 mirroring, and you have a pretty attractive package. The sky-is-falling proprietary drivers are available for Windows, OSX, and Linux, and are stable in my experience. Note that (in all the OSes) the drive

WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives combine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and up to 2 TB capacity for the ultimate in power computing. Backed by a 5-year limited warranty. High Performance Electronics Architecture: Dual processor – Twice the processing power to maximize performance. Colossal cache – Bigger, faster cache of up to 64 MB means faster performance. Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture: Dual actuator technology – A head positioning system with two actuators that improves positional accuracy over the data track(s). The primary actuator provides coarse displacement using conventional electromagnetic actuator principles. The secondary actuator uses piezoelectric motion to fine tune the head positioning to a higher degree of accuracy. StableTrac – The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. NoTouch ramp load technology – The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. Massive Capacity – WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 2 TB. Compatible – We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. 5 Year Limited Warranty.

Amazon Sales Rank: #4211 in Consumer Electronics Size: 750 GB Brand: Western Digital Model: WD7501AALS Format: CD Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 1.00" h x 4.00" w x 5.80" l, 1.61 pounds Hard Disk: 750GB WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives co MBine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache, and SATA 3 GB/s interface for the ultimate in power computing. High performance electronics architecture features dual processors and bigger, faster caches for maximum read and write speeds. StableTrac -- The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. 750 GB capacity holds up to 150,000 digital photos, 187,000 MP3 files, and 190 hours of HD video; 5 year limited warranty

It's easy to choose the world-class quality of a Western Digital hard drive. We’ve not only designed a drive that's right for you, we've also made it simple to find. These drives are ideal for business, home use, or high performance desktops, and are available in capacities up to 2 TB. With our renowned leading-edge engineering, you'll always make the right choice with WD. And you'll never compromise on quality. The power of choice. The quality of WD. WD Caviar® Blue™ Performance and reliability for everyday computing.Select true blue for reliable quality in everyday use. WD Caviar® Green™ Cool, quiet, . Select green for doing more with less energy consumption. WD Caviar® Black™ Maximum performance for power computing. Select black when you demand the highest performance. WD Caviar Black – Maximum performance for power computing. WD Caviar Black drives combine a high performance electronics architecture with a rock solid mechanical architecture to deliver the perfect storage solution for your fully-loaded PC or maxed out gaming machine. Cool drive operation, no-touch head technology, and leading-edge vibration protection ensure enhanced reliability. And we back it all up with a 5-year limited warranty. Features at a glance Maximum performance Ultra-cool and quiet Massive 1 TB capacity 5-years limited warranty Power your PC with our top-of-the-line high-capacity drives. High Performance Electronics Architecture Dual processor - Twice the processing power to maximize performance. 32 MB cache - Bigger, faster cache means faster performance. Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture StableTrac - The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. NoTouch ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. 5 Year Limited Warranty Massive Capacity - WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 1 TB. View StableTrac demo here. Compatible - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. How this WD hard drive protects your data Data Lifeguard is an exclusive set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair. WD's Data Lifeguard technology automatically finds, isolates, and repairs problems that may develop over the life of a hard drive. Data Lifeguard Tools are software utilities designed for WD hard drives that work with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation,diagnostics and repair both simple and worry-free. ShockGuard instantaneously protects the hard drive against damage from bumps and vibrations while it is running. This technology enables WD Caviar drives to achieve industry-leading shock specifications. Ideal For Power computing applications such as multimedia, video and photo editing, and maxed out gaming computers.

Most helpful customer reviews 207 of 223 people found the following review helpful. Fast drive, tons of storage By C. Longo The Caviar Black model of drives differ in three ways from Blue in three major ways: 1) 32MB buffer vs 16MB. This means the drive is overall faster because it can store more data in memory local to the drive. So if you access the same data frequently there is little or no drive access to get at the data. 2) Dual processors vs single. This will alleviate the load on your CPU as the drive itself has more processing power locally. 3) Five year warranty vs three. Five years is a lifetime in hardware. Basically, you're covered for longer than you will most likely use the drive. The Caviar Black line comes in three four sizes; 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, and 500GB. The 1TB and 640GB are the fastest because they use a denser platter technology which allows the drive head to get at the data quicker. The 750GB and 500GB are no slouches though and the differences in speed will not be noticeable to most people under most real-world usage scenarios. Caviar Black drives are the fastest affordable consumer drives available today. If you want faster you have to look that the VelociRaptor 10000RPM line of drives but expect to pay a lot more for a lot less storage. I measured the speed of the 750GB model using the HD Tune utility and access time was a fast 12.5ms with less than 1% CPU usage on my 3.2Ghz Intel Quad Core setup. The drive runs cool at 32°C in my system and is quiet. Overall a great drive at a great price. You can't really go wrong. 134 of 150 people found the following review helpful. 1TB of space, 32MB cache *PLUS* SATA2? Absurd. Buy now By Gordon Ewasiuk I bought two of these. Just an insane price. Thanks, Amazon. The drives are bulk/OEM which means they come with nothing. Just the drives and the anti-static bags. Do your homework. If you want software to hold your hand through a hard drive install, do not buy this drive. If you need screws, rails, or cables, do not buy this drive. If you want to save some cash while getting an absolutely absurd amount of disk space with SATA2 (3Gbps) plus 32MB of cache (older drives have 4-16MB), then get these drives. They are beasts. After the Seagate fiasco, I vowed to go with an alternative. Western Digital came through with these monster hard drives. Get one. Get two. You will not be disappointed. 55 of 59 people found the following review helpful. Faster, slightly more "clatter" By J. Poorman I bought this drive for my Mac Pro (Mac Pros, at least when I bought mine 3 years ago came from Apple with WD 250 GB hard drives). I have installed about 10 WD drives, upgrading this time form the WD 500GB drives, and this drive with its 32MB cache is indeed a bit faster (10-20 percent) than the 500GB. The ONLY downside at all to this drive is that is a bit louder when the heads are seeking, with the drive seek "clatter" more noticeable than the previous 500GB Western Digitals I just replaced (I needed more storage). Not bad tho--it's just that my Mac Pro is absolutely silent and I notice the least little additional sound and never really heard the 500's, the 1TB I hear now--but don't get me wrong it's not bad and there certainly is no drive "whine" when idling--these are quite drives. I guess whizzing across 1TB of data is a little more strenuous on the heads. I have bought about 20 Western Digital drives since 2000 and not one has failed on me--unlike LaCie--ick. See all 527 customer reviews...

WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives combine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and up to 2 TB capacity for the ultimate in power computing. Backed by a 5-year limited warranty. High Performance Electronics Architecture: Dual processor – Twice the processing power to maximize performance. Colossal cache – Bigger, faster cache of up to 64 MB means faster performance. Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture: Dual actuator technology – A head positioning system with two actuators that improves positional accuracy over the data track(s). The primary actuator provides coarse displacement using conventional electromagnetic actuator principles. The secondary actuator uses piezoelectric motion to fine tune the head positioning to a higher degree of accuracy. StableTrac – The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. NoTouch ramp load technology – The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. Massive Capacity – WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 2 TB. Compatible – We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. 5 Year Limited Warranty.

Amazon Sales Rank: #2232 in Consumer Electronics Size: 1 TB Brand: Western Digital Model: WD1001FALS Format: CD Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 1.00" h x 4.00" w x 5.80" l, 1.61 pounds Hard Disk: 1000GB WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives co MBine 7200 RPM spin speed High performance electronics architecture features dual processors and bigger, faster caches for maximum read and write speeds StableTrac- The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging

It's easy to choose the world-class quality of a Western Digital hard drive. We’ve not only designed a drive that's right for you, we've also made it simple to find. These drives are ideal for business, home use, or high performance desktops, and are available in capacities up to 2 TB. With our renowned leading-edge engineering, you'll always make the right choice with WD. And you'll never compromise on quality. The power of choice. The quality of WD. WD Caviar® Blue™ Performance and reliability for everyday computing.Select true blue for reliable quality in everyday use. WD Caviar® Green™ Cool, quiet, . Select green for doing more with less energy consumption. WD Caviar® Black™ Maximum performance for power computing. Select black when you demand the highest performance. WD Caviar Black – Maximum performance for power computing. WD Caviar Black drives combine a high performance electronics architecture with a rock solid mechanical architecture to deliver the perfect storage solution for your fully-loaded PC or maxed out gaming machine. Cool drive operation, no-touch head technology, and leading-edge vibration protection ensure enhanced reliability. And we back it all up with a 5-year limited warranty. Features at a glance Maximum performance Ultra-cool and quiet Massive 1 TB capacity 5-years limited warranty Power your PC with our top-of-the-line high-capacity drives. High Performance Electronics Architecture Dual processor - Twice the processing power to maximize performance. 32 MB cache - Bigger, faster cache means faster performance. Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture StableTrac - The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. NoTouch ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. 5 Year Limited Warranty Massive Capacity - WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 1 TB. View StableTrac demo here. Compatible - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. How this WD hard drive protects your data Data Lifeguard is an exclusive set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair. WD's Data Lifeguard technology automatically finds, isolates, and repairs problems that may develop over the life of a hard drive. Data Lifeguard Tools are software utilities designed for WD hard drives that work with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation,diagnostics and repair both simple and worry-free. ShockGuard instantaneously protects the hard drive against damage from bumps and vibrations while it is running. This technology enables WD Caviar drives to achieve industry-leading shock specifications. Ideal For Power computing applications such as multimedia, video and photo editing, and maxed out gaming computers.

Most helpful customer reviews 207 of 223 people found the following review helpful. Fast drive, tons of storage By C. Longo The Caviar Black model of drives differ in three ways from Blue in three major ways: 1) 32MB buffer vs 16MB. This means the drive is overall faster because it can store more data in memory local to the drive. So if you access the same data frequently there is little or no drive access to get at the data. 2) Dual processors vs single. This will alleviate the load on your CPU as the drive itself has more processing power locally. 3) Five year warranty vs three. Five years is a lifetime in hardware. Basically, you're covered for longer than you will most likely use the drive. The Caviar Black line comes in three four sizes; 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, and 500GB. The 1TB and 640GB are the fastest because they use a denser platter technology which allows the drive head to get at the data quicker. The 750GB and 500GB are no slouches though and the differences in speed will not be noticeable to most people under most real-world usage scenarios. Caviar Black drives are the fastest affordable consumer drives available today. If you want faster you have to look that the VelociRaptor 10000RPM line of drives but expect to pay a lot more for a lot less storage. I measured the speed of the 750GB model using the HD Tune utility and access time was a fast 12.5ms with less than 1% CPU usage on my 3.2Ghz Intel Quad Core setup. The drive runs cool at 32°C in my system and is quiet. Overall a great drive at a great price. You can't really go wrong. 134 of 150 people found the following review helpful. 1TB of space, 32MB cache *PLUS* SATA2? Absurd. Buy now By Gordon Ewasiuk I bought two of these. Just an insane price. Thanks, Amazon. The drives are bulk/OEM which means they come with nothing. Just the drives and the anti-static bags. Do your homework. If you want software to hold your hand through a hard drive install, do not buy this drive. If you need screws, rails, or cables, do not buy this drive. If you want to save some cash while getting an absolutely absurd amount of disk space with SATA2 (3Gbps) plus 32MB of cache (older drives have 4-16MB), then get these drives. They are beasts. After the Seagate fiasco, I vowed to go with an alternative. Western Digital came through with these monster hard drives. Get one. Get two. You will not be disappointed. 55 of 59 people found the following review helpful. Faster, slightly more "clatter" By J. Poorman I bought this drive for my Mac Pro (Mac Pros, at least when I bought mine 3 years ago came from Apple with WD 250 GB hard drives). I have installed about 10 WD drives, upgrading this time form the WD 500GB drives, and this drive with its 32MB cache is indeed a bit faster (10-20 percent) than the 500GB. The ONLY downside at all to this drive is that is a bit louder when the heads are seeking, with the drive seek "clatter" more noticeable than the previous 500GB Western Digitals I just replaced (I needed more storage). Not bad tho--it's just that my Mac Pro is absolutely silent and I notice the least little additional sound and never really heard the 500's, the 1TB I hear now--but don't get me wrong it's not bad and there certainly is no drive "whine" when idling--these are quite drives. I guess whizzing across 1TB of data is a little more strenuous on the heads. I have bought about 20 Western Digital drives since 2000 and not one has failed on me--unlike LaCie--ick. See all 527 customer reviews...

The D-Link ShareCenter 4-Bay Network Storage Enclosure (DNS-343) connects to your network instead of to a computer so everyone on your network can back up content to one central location. Plus, it lets you share your stored content across your network and over the Internet so family members, friends and employees can access it no matter where they are.

Size: Diskless Brand: D-Link Model: DNS-343 Platform: Windows Format: CD Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 11.00" h x 11.00" w x 12.50" l, 10.20 pounds Perfect way to store, share and safeguard documents, music, videos and photos Easily insert up to four 3.5" SATA hard drives without using tools Protect important files with RAID 1 or RAID 5 data redundancy Access stored files over the Internet USB port can act as a print server port

The D-Link ShareCenter 4-Bay Network Storage Enclosure (DNS-343) connects to your network instead of to a computer so everyone on your network can back up content to one central location. Plus, it lets you share your stored content across your network and over the Internet so family members, friends and employees can access it no matter where they are. This version of the DNS-343 does not come with a hard disk drive, enabling you to add your own hard drives (see specifications below). Key Features Supports four different hard drive modes (Standard, JBOD, RAID 0, and RAID 1) Up to 4 TB of storage from four SATA hard drives Capable of streaming audio and video to compatible UPnP-enabled devices Gigabit Ethernet port for ultra-fast wired connectivity With Sharecenter You Can Back It Up Keeping all of your important files on your computer without backing them up is like owning a house and not insuring it. It's important to back up your files so if the unexpected happens, you still have a backup in place. The ShareCenter 4-Bay Network Storage Enclosure can house up to four 3.5-inch SATA hard drives of any capacity1, giving you plenty of space to store your music, photos, videos, documents and other important stuff. When used with four hard drives, the 4-Bay ShareCenter allows you to back up files in full or incremental backups and comes with five different hard drive modes so you can best configure it to your needs. Standard mode creates two separately accessible hard drives JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives) combines both hard drives in linear fashion for maximum space efficiency RAID 0 provides faster speeds by combining both drives in a striped configuration, which means data is distributed across both drives in the enclosure. RAID 12 causes two drives to mirror each other, providing maximum protection. If there are four drives present, you can set up two separate RAID 1 partitions. If one drive fails, the unaffected drive in the partition will continue to operate normally. Once you replace the failed drive, RAID 1 mirroring will resume and both drives will mirror each other again. Advanced RAID 5 offers the highest performance with the most reliable data recovery in the case of a drive failure. RAID 5 technology uses a clever algorithm to distribute your data over four SATA hard disk drives and, in the case of a hard drive failure, the DNS-343 will continue to function with your data intact. B.Y.O.D. (Bring Your Own Drives) One of the best things about this ShareCenter device is that it comes without built-in hard drives. That means added flexibility and reduced strain on your wallet. Rather than being handed any old hard drive, you're free to hand pick the one that is the best fit for you. Choose the size. Choose the brand. Search for the best deal. Buy one. Buy two. Buy four! The sky is the limit. Bundled Software With bundled software, you never have to worry about your hard drive crashing. Not only does it let you restore individual files and documents in case they get lost, it lets you take snapshots of your entire hard drive so you can restore your computer to the way it was when the snapshot was taken. Sharing is Caring Because this enclosure connects to your network instead of directly to a computer, it allows you to share all of your saved content over your network. Music, photos, videos ... think of the possibilities! And no need to worry about the safety of your stuff. You can give rights to specific users or groups and assign them to folders with either read or read/write permissions. This is perfect for an office environment with employee-specific data or for the home where you can ensure your children will only have access to age appropriate material. D-Link Green While this may look like your average storage enclosure, it's not. This is a D-Link Green storage enclosure, which means it's as good for your wallet as it is for the environment. This product: Features a fan that only comes on when hard drives need cooling Allows hard drives to enter sleep mode when not in use to conserve electricity and prolong the life of the hard disk Complies with the European Union's RoHS directive that restricts the use of certain hazardous materials Uses recyclable packaging to help reduce waste that goes into the environment The D-Link Easy Utility The D-Link Easy Utility allows you to easily locate the 4-Bay ShareCenter from anywhere on the network. Once it is located, you can use the utility to map the hard drive so it will appear in My Computer on your PC. Easy Peasy Not quite the handyman? That's OK. You can insert hard drives without using any tools or attaching any cables. Additionally, you can monitor what's going on with the 4-Bay ShareCenter via the OLED display on the front, which shows important information including IP address, hard drive statistics, temperature, RAID status, and server status (FTP and UPnP) at a glance. The Power of Gigabit This ShareCenter device comes with a 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port, giving you blazing fast speeds so you can back up and access your stuff without the wait. USB Featuring a USB port that can act as a print server port, this storage enclosure allows a USB printer to be added to your network without the need for a dedicated computer. The USB port can also support a Universal Power Supply (UPS) monitor that supports "smart" signaling over a USB connection. If a power outage were to occur, the compatible UPS monitor would allow the UPS unit to safely shut down the DNS-343. Be Cool There's no overheating in this enclosure's future. It comes with a quiet built-in fan to keep things nice and cool. Find the Best ShareCenter for You All ShareCenter devices enable everyone on your network back up and share documents, music, photos, videos and more across a network and over the Internet. Depending on your needs, you can choose between two- and four-bay models as well as consider extra features such as a USB print server, built-in BitTorrent client, or RAID 5 hard drive technology. Models: DNS-321, 2-Bay DNS-323, 2-Bay DNS-343, 4-Bay   D-Link's most affordable ShareCenter solution, it can store up to two SATA hard drives of any capacity and it lets everyone on your network back up and share documents, music, photos, videos and more across a network and over the Internet. Learn more. Featuring a built-in BitTorrent client that allows you to download files without turning on a computer, it also has a USB print server port so you can share a single USB printer with all of the computers on your network. Learn more. A scalable solution for your home or business, you can start with one SATA hard drive and add up to three more as needed. Other features include RAID 5 technology for ultimate protection, an OLED display, a USB print server port and a management program for setting rules and schedules. Hard drive bays 2 bays 2 bays 4 bays FTP server USB port   Gigabit Ethernet BitTorrent     OLED     D-Link Green Backup Software UPnP Media Server RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5     Remote Backup (RSYNC)     Share ShareCenter Connects to Your Home Network One of the biggest misconceptions about ShareCenter devices is that they are simply external hard drives. Sure, they protect your stuff in case your hard drive crashes. And yeah, they allow you to back up your digital content so you can save space on your computer. But unlike external hard drives, ShareCenter devices connect to your home network instead of to a single computer, which means they can go far above and beyond the limits of an average external hard drive. Share Files Over Your Home Network Because ShareCenter devices connect to your home network, they are able to back up and store content from all of the computers on your network instead of just one. That means while you're backing up work documents from your laptop, the rest of the family can back up the digital photos and music from their computers. Plus, because all of that digital content is being stored in one central location, it's easy for everyone on the network to share it between computers. And no need to worry, ShareCenter makes it easy to control who has access to what, so privacy isn't an issue. Access Your Content from Anywhere ShareCenter devices feature built-in FTP servers, which enable you to access your saved content remotely over the Internet. Once you set up an FTP server, you can access all of your music, videos, photos and documents from virtually anywhere. That's right. Thanks to ShareCenter no matter how far you travel, you never have to be more than a few clicks away from all of your saved files. Stream ShareCenter devices work with avariety of UPnP A/V compatiblemedia players to stream media. Stream Media to Your Computers and TVs You're probably planning to store a lot of great stuff on your ShareCenter. Photos from last week's party, the video you shot of your best friend's wedding, your entire music collection and tons more. Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy it all whenever and wherever you want? With ShareCenter, you can. ShareCenter makes it simple to wirelessly stream digital media like photos, music and videos to any of your computers and your entertainment system. That means you can watch any saved media on your computer, or enjoy it with friends and family on your entertainment system. Anywhere, anytime. Compatible Media Players ShareCenter storage enclosures work with a variety of UPnP A/V compatible network media players to stream videos, photos and music to your entertainment center. Compatible media players include: Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 The Boxee Box by D-Link Protect Hard Drives Crash If you're like most people, a lot of your digital life is stored on your computer. Your digital photos, home videos, music, work documents and more. But guess what. Hard drives crash, so isn't it time you backed yours up? And not just manually every so often with an external hard drive. We mean really back it up. Enter ShareCenter ShareCenter can be programmed to back up your digital content on a schedule or in real time so you can set it and forget it. Plus, ShareCenter can house more than one hard drive and can be configured to operate in the hard drive mode of your choice. It's truly a custom solution. Feature Rich Backup Software With ShareCenter's feature rich bundled software, you never have to worry about your hard drive crashing. Not only does it let you restore individual files and documents in case they get lost, it lets you take snapshots of your entire hard drive so you can restore your computer to exactly the way it was when the snapshot was taken. ShareCenter devices allow you to easily create backup schedules and storage quotas for specific users and groups. Manage Simplified Management Io ShareCenter solutions can do a whole lot. They let you back up your content, share it with friends and family, access everything remotely from the Internet and stream content to your TV. Thankfully, they're also incredibly easy to manage. With included feature-rich backup software, Windows users can easily create schedules and rules including real-time, full or incremental backups and can set storage quotas for specific users and groups. All without breaking a sweat. Network Access ShareCenter storage enclosures support up to 64 unique users and allow you to add them to a group or individually, making it simple to manage who has access to what. Plus, you can easily give rights to specific users or groups and assign them to folders with either read or read/write permissions. This is perfect for the home where you can ensure your children will only have access to age appropriate material or for an office environment with employee-specific data. Storage Quotas Hate it when people fill up your hard drive with their photos and music? Want to save some space for your own stuff? Good news: ShareCenter supports storage quotas for both groups and individual users. That means you can easily limit the amount of storage users are allocated and change those quotas as necessary. With ShareCenter, you've got the power. Hard Drive 101 3.5-inch SATA Hard Drives 3.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives can be found easily right here on Amazon.com! As long as the hard drives you purchase are 3.5-inch SATA drives, they will work with your ShareCenter Device. The Right Capacity for You Hard drives come in a variety of storage capacities, generally ranging from 250 GB all the way up to 1 TB. Think of everything you want to store and back up on your ShareCenter device, including music, videos, photos and documents to decide on the best size for you: 250 GB Hard Drive 500 GB Hard Drive 1 TB Hard Drive 80,000 digital photos 4,150 hours of digital music 62 two-hour DVD-quality movies 160,000 digital photos 8,300 hours of digital music 125 two-hour DVD-quality movies 320,000 digital photos 16,600 hours of digital music 250 two-hour DVD-quality movies The Right Number of Drives for You You want to use your ShareCenter device for extra space to store your digital content and to share that content with all of the computers on your network. You want to store and share content over your network, but you also want to take advantage of RAID 1 technology to ensure that if one of the drives crashes, your content is still safe. You want to store and share content over your network with the 4-Bay ShareCenter device (DNS-343) and want to use RAID 5 technology because it offers the highest performance and the most reliable data recovery in the case of hard drive failure. Product Features Four 3.5-inch SATA hard drive bays Diskless (Add Your Own Hard Drives) Tool-less hard drive installation Five hard drive configurations--Standard, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5 High-speed Gigabit Ethernet connectivity UPnP AV server for streaming music, photos, and video to compatible media players Built-in FTP server for file access over the Internet Schedule downloads from Web or FTP sites Full or incremental backups Real-time backups with the included software Assign users/groups to folders with read or read/write permissions Establish storage quotas for users and groups Automatic e-mail notifications of device status Configurable via a Web browser Power management to conserve energy and help extend hard drive life 24/7 Basic Installation Support 1-Year Limited Warranty What's in the Box 4-bay network storage enclosure (DNS-343, diskless), power adapter, Ethernet cable, installation guide, CD-ROM with software and product documentation Hard Drive(s) not included. An internal SATA drive is required to store or share your files; drive must be formatted before use. RAID 1 mirroring requires the use of two (2) internal SATA drives. To avoid data incompatibility in RAID 1 and RAID 5 operation, use SATA drives from the same manufacturer. Formatted drive capacity for RAID 1 and RAID 5 operation is dependant on the drive capacity of the lowest-sized drive. May not work with older generation SATA drives. D-Link cannot guarantee full compatibility or proper playback with all codecs. Playback compatibility depends on the codec support of the UPnP AV media player. Unless additional precautions are taken, use of an FTP Server to access files over the Internet does not provide for secure or encrypted transmissions. It is recommended that the end-user utilize a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to establish a secure FTP session. * Examples of the number of photos, songs, videos and any other files that can be stored on a hard drive are provided for illustrative purposes only. Your results will vary based on file size and format, settings, features, software and other factors.

Most helpful customer reviews 25 of 26 people found the following review helpful. Very good NAS solution if you need a simple way to store lots of data By buru buru piggu This is my third D-Link NAS. I bought a DNS-323 one year ago and it has been on ever since, serving up files reliably to my PC/Mac home network, downloading torrents, and streaming videos to my PS3/XBOX 360 (after installing Twonky Media Server). Based on my mostly positive experience with D-link products and price-to-features ratio, I decided to stick with the brand. I had wasted money on a Galaxy Metal Gear NAS, and read mostly lukewarm reviews for Netgear, Iomega, Linksys, and other makers. Other NAS devices like the DLNA-enabled Buffalo Technology LinkStation Live were attractive, but their price point or storage capacity was not. I need a large number of bays to create a centralized media server. When I outgrew the DNS-323, I bought a DNS321 2-bay when I really should have applied that $130 toward this 4-bay product instead. I wanted to consolidate the half dozen 1 TB external drives I had sitting around and network them so I didn't have to keep plugging and unplugging USB cables when I wanted to retrieve files. My home network is heterogeneous and I also needed the ability to write large files (4 GB+) to the drives. FAT32 is the only mutually writable format across XP and Mac, but it has a 4 GB filesize limit, making it impractical for my movie storage needs. The D-Link uses a Linux file system (ext2 or ext3, your choice), so filesize concerns are now gone. I've had this product for a week, and so far so good. The device can be configured from any web browser, so you don't need the CD (which is a Windows-only configuration app). I have 1 TB Hitachi and WD drives inside. Build quality is solid (made of thick aluminum). It's a brick of a device and looks quite durable. For the price, I am not expecting world class security and many bells and whistles. I just need it for storing my personal files and media on my home network, and stream them, and for that, it works to my satisfaction. The iTunes server works very nicely. For file transfers, I FTP to it and do all my copying that way. For some reason, the Mac is a lot faster (20MB/sec) than copying from XP (10MB/sec). Vista is the worse, and I usually get 5MB/sec. It would've been really great for D-link to include BitTorrent support for this, like the DNS-323. Maybe in a future firmware update. All in all, I'm quite happy with this product. I don't place heavy expectations on it and don't demand $1,500 server performance from a $370 device. It was the cheapest 4-bay NAS I could find for the features I wanted and gives great overall performance for the price. You can install telnet on it (look for Fonz's funplug) and open the device up to more hacking if you are so inclined. Will update this review as I use the device more. 19 of 21 people found the following review helpful. Excellent NAS at a Great Price By James Thomas There weren't a lot of positive reviews out there but I took a chance and bought this NAS and I am very happy I didn't listen to the bad reviews listed here and another site. This was the cheapest 4 drive NAS I could find and it is from a reputable company and it works great. Since I bought it I see that it has come down in price which makes it even better of a deal. Now that I know how well it performs this is a no brainer when compared to all the higher priced 4 Bay NAS available (cough...Netgear). The NAS itself is very well built...solid construction and not flimsy plastic like some of the others I have read about. Installing the drives in the NAS is very sturdy. You do not need to install rails like some other companies and don't have to worry about anything snapping. Drive bays are all numbered and has the newest firmware now has automatic power throttling fans (when I first turned on the unit the fans didn't start up and I thought the unit was defective and then 1 minute later they

Available in capacities up to 2 TB, WD Caviar® Green™ SATA hard drives reduce power consumption by up to 40% and offer best-in-class acoustics and operating temperature. Based on WD’s exclusive GreenPower™ technology, these drives are designed to deliver power savings as the primary attribute. As hard drive capacities increase, the power required to run those drives increases as well. WD Caviar Green drives make it possible for energy-conscious customers to build systems with higher capacities and the right balance of system performance, ensured reliability, and energy conservation. They are ideal for PCs, external storage and other devices that require lower power consumption and cool, quiet operation.

Color: Blk/Sliver Brand: Western Digital Model: WD20000CSRTL Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional Format: CD-ROM Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 7.60" h x 3.88" w x 6.94" l, Hard Disk: 2TB Massive capacity - Capacities up to 2 TB offer the most available capacity for storage-intensive programs and space-hungry operating systems, like Window Vista®, with plenty of room left over for photos, music, and video. Reduced power consumption - WD has reduced power consumption by up to 40 percent compared to standard desktop drives with the combination of WD's IntelliSeek, NoTouch, and IntelliPower technologies. Hepls enable eco-friendly PCs, Caviar Green drives yield an average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over standard desktop drives making it possible to build systems with higher capacities and the right balance of performance, reliability and conservation Cool and quiet - GreenPower technology yields lower operating temperatures for increased reliability and low acoustics for ultra-quiet PCs and external drives. IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance.

Most helpful customer reviews 35 of 36 people found the following review helpful. Either WD20EARS or WD20EADS By Ask Bjørn Hansen (See below for an update!) Original review: This product (WD20000CSRTL) is a regular WD20EADS drive in retail packaging. I was worried it'd be a different drive, but it's not. Unlike the "OEM" version (WD20EADS) it comes in a big-ish box and with an "install guide" (good if you haven't tried installing a new drive, I guess), an SATA cable and 4 mounting screws. The packaging is obviously more wasteful, but considering the bad packaging reviews the OEM drives get here, maybe its a good thing. If it's the same price as the WD20EADS then I think it's a good deal, even if just for the better packaging. *Update July 2010* As others have pointed out; they are now selling WD20EARS drives under this ASIN. I use OS X, Linux and FreeBSD so it makes no difference to me; but if you use certain really old versions of Windows (Windows XP) you won't be able to use the full capacity (easily?) or something like that The recent drives we ordered like this came individually packaged in WD packaging, but with no cables or anything. *Update September 2010* Depending on the weather, phase of the moon etc you could now get any 2TB Western Digital "green" drive when you order this item. There are other Amazon product IDs that'll give you the same but for lower cost, too - so no longer recommended!! 15 of 15 people found the following review helpful. Great Drive By John K. Nakata This drive with "Retail" packaging (WD20000CSRTL) and "Bulk/OEM" (WD20EADS) are the same drive. Often the retail version with the fancy packaging is more expensive but when they're the same price GET THE RETAIL VERSION. One is packaged for retail and the other sent by Western Digital to companies who use them in their products The packaging is significantly different. The OEM drives come in small cardboard cartons protected usually by foam. This is fine when shipped in larger boxes with dozens of drives but may cause a problem when ordered individually. Of the 12 WD drives I've purchased the only one that came DOA was the OEM packaged unit. The drive had shifted from the center to the edge as a result of rough handling by the carrier. I have 12 WD bare drives acquired over the last 7 months for my MacPro . I love them. I have Western Digital drives in each of the 4 hard drive bays. For the boot drive I use the Black for maximum performance (7200RPM) while the others are Green Drives with variable speed (5400-7200RPM) for efficient power use. They run cool and are very quiet. A very small downside is they take a little extra time to "spin up". For "general" and "off-site" back ups I use the bare WD drives and NewerTech quad-interface SATA HDD dock I store these drives in a static-proof box by Wiebetech (10-pack for $55.00), which provides protection for the exposed circuits and connectors. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THESE DRIVES! Only one came DOA and it was replaced by Amazon within a week. I've been buying each time there's a dip in price. (279.00, 229.00, 219.00, 209.00 and 199.00) 17 of 22 people found the following review helpful. Died sooner than later By Jaime Moreno I haven't even had this drive a year yet and already I've had to RMA it! It ran okay for a drive that doesn't even spin 7200rpm so it runs very quiet and cool. Not good for video intensive stuff though because one the drive starts to get full you will notice the slowdown and slight delays. As you can tell other than it running cool, quiet and capacity it has few redeeming qualities. I should've listened to others that were holding off buying 2TB or larger drives since it is new tech and hasn't been as tested as some of the smaller capacity harddrives All I know is that I've never had a harddrive fail me so quickly before and I must not be alone because I've already been waiting over 2 weeks for Western Digital to send me a replacement drive and all I get is a delayed message.

500GB - 7200rpm - Internal

Brand: Western Digital Model: WD5000AAKB Platform: Windows Format: CD Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 1.05" h x 4.02" w x 6.01" l, 1.39 pounds Memory: 0MB Hard Disk: 500GB Processors: 1 Bulk packaged EIDE hard drive No cables, hardware, or manuals included 3 year warranty Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging

It's easy to choose the world-class quality of a Western Digital hard drive. We’ve not only designed a drive that's right for you, we've also made it simple to find. These drives are ideal for business, home use, or high performance desktops, and are available in capacities up to 2 TB. With our renowned leading-edge engineering, you'll always make the right choice with WD. And you'll never compromise on quality. The power of choice. The quality of WD. WD Caviar® Blue™ Performance and reliability for everyday computing.Select true blue for reliable quality in everyday use. WD Caviar® Green™ Cool, quiet, . Select green for doing more with less energy consumption. WD Caviar® Black™ Maximum performance for power computing. Select black when you demand the highest performance. WD Caviar Blue – Performance and reliability for everyday computing To make drive selection simple, we've gathered all our popular WD Caviar SE16, WD Caviar SE, and WD Caviar drives under one umbrella we call WD Caviar Blue. Built to Western Digital's awarding winning quality standards, these drives are available in a full range of performance features. Features at a glance Solid performance Ultra-cool and quiet Capacities up to 750 GB 3-years limited warranty Interface PATA - Enhanced integrated drive electronics (PATA), also called Parallel ATA (PATA), hard drives have been the standard in the computer industry for more than 10 years. SATA - Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives are quickly becoming the new standard. Motherboard manufacturers now include SATA inputs on their boards. Because of their considerably narrower cables, SATA hard drives provide increased airflow and less clutter and in the computer system compared to PATA drives. The performance difference - PATA drives support data transfer rates up to 100MB/sec, and all WD Caviar Blue SATA drive support 3 Gb/s transfer rates. Cache - WD Caviar Blue is available in 2 MB, 8 MB, and 16 MB cache sizes. Bigger cache memory yields faster performance. Capacity- We offer drives ranging from 40 GB to 750 GB. Pick the biggest capacity your budget will allow. You can never have too much storage space. Reliability - We understand the importance of your data, and we are committed to protecting that data with exceptionally reliable products, advanced data protection technology and superior customer support. Cool - Keeping the drive cool enhances reliability. WD continues to develop new and innovative ways to keep drives cool while they are operating. Quiet - The technology that Tom's Hardware Guide called "very fast and nearly silent" is used throughout this family of drives. Our WhisperDrive technology minimizes noise to levels near the threshold of human hearing. To cut seek noise, SoftSeek technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in more efficient operation. View IntelliSeek demo here. NoTouch™ ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. (Available on 120 GB capacities and above) IntelliSeek™ - Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration. (Available on 120 GB capacities and above) Compatible - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. How this WD hard drive protects your data Data Lifeguard is an exclusive set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair. WD's Data Lifeguard technology automatically finds, isolates, and repairs problems that may develop over the life of a hard drive. Data Lifeguard Tools are software utilities designed for WD hard drives that work with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation,diagnostics and repair both simple and worry-free. ShockGuard instantaneously protects the hard drive against damage from bumps and vibrations while it is running. This technology enables WD Caviar drives to achieve industry-leading shock specifications. Ideal For Family and business computing.

Most helpful customer reviews 9 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Great Drive for the Money By Howard Rubinstein Just installed this drive a few days ago in my machine. Incredible drive for less than $80.00. I noticed a difference in speed right away thanks to the 16mb cache. The drive is extremely quiet. The only problem I had was getting XP to recognize it as a 500 GB drive. It kept wanting to see it as 132 GB. This was easily solved with the Easeus partition program (a free download and an incredible program in it's own right!). Once that was taken care of, everything else just fell into place. Definitely go for the SE16. The shipping was fast and communication was great. Thanks Cyberguys!!! 6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. This drive sucks. I am so surprised By Jered M. Stoehr I read these reviews and my jaw dropped; I couldn't believe people were having the same problem with this drive. I was so happy when I picked it up; a top name drive for under $100 500gig SATA, not even a month later it crashed Not worth the deal, I see the price has gone down since I bought it... 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Failed! By David J. Atkinson I have to agree with the first reviewer - this is the worst drive I have had in terms of reliability. It failed after only a few months of operation. Luckily, it was part of a mirrored RAID set and the other drive is still functioning perfectly. Recommend you avoid this drive. See all 28 customer reviews....

The Deskstar hard drive delivers colossal storage capacity and 7200 RPM performance in a standard 3.5-inch form factor. The Deskstar has a robust mechanical design that exceeds the industry standard for quality and reliability. Through a patented ramp load/unload design, the risk of shock damage is minimized by eliminating direct contact between the heads and disks, reducing wear and heat while improving overall drive reliability and power efficiency. 2TB capacity, 3.5-inch Desktop SATA Hard Drive, Award winning performance, Colossal Capacity for your PC or Mac, High Reliability, Industry Leading green, power consumption

Size: 2 TB Brand: Hitachi Model: 0S00164 Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 11.00" h x 3.50" w x 8.50" l, .70 pounds Hard Disk: 2GB Boost performance and increase the capacity of your PC or Mac in minutes Green, technology for industry leading, low power consumption Upgrade your existing hard drive, or add one for increased capacity Full replacement, worry-free 3 years warranty

Most helpful customer reviews 32 of 35 people found the following review helpful. Great Hard Drive for Raid 5 Setup By Brian's Reviews I built a Linux Raid Server using 4 - 2tb Hitachi HD32000 Hard Drives in Raid 5 configuration. I then used two Seagate 250gb in Raid 1 for the Linux OS. This setup works great. I wanted to use the Seagate 1.5tb but there are problems with the firmware and Raid 5 configurations. The Hitachi's on the other hand have worked perfectly. I would recommend this to anyone building a solid Raid 5 setup looking for the best combination perfomance & value per tb. 16 of 19 people found the following review helpful. Nice in my Drobo Raid: Affordable 2TB 7200RPM By R. Auger This drive is a latecomer in the 2TB arena and doesn't have many reviews, but it is a well loved contender. I put several of these in a Drobo Raid Enclosure and they work extremely well, maxing out the claimed read/write speeds of the enclosure. This drive is the only affordable 7200rpm 2TB drive. They also start up quickly; when you've got four of them in one enclosure, this really matters Because of this, a lot of people buy these for raids. The green drives are popular, but the WD and Seagates seem to have a lot of trouble running in raid configurations without flashing the firmware. They can have varying RPMs from eachother set at the factory, not good at all. Hitachi's are a bit noisy, my only complaint. But a nice throaty sound at least. Be sure to look up the firmware in your enclosure or desktop and make sure that it fits a drive this modern and large. 30 of 42 people found the following review helpful. Noisier than my whole system By Pedro Corbett I have just purchased this drive and it produces more noise when accessing data randomly than my 3 case fans plus CPU fan plus video card fan plus my other 3 HD's TOGETHER. What's worse, Hitachi simply removed the option to alter the AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) parameters from their Feature Tool utility since its version 213. If anybody else was unfortunate enough to purchase this drive, here's the solution: get the freeware utility WinAAM or the more sophisticated HD Tune (not freeware), boot the system with the HD set to IDE mode in the BIOS (AAM can't be altered in SATA/AHCI/RAID mode) and set the AAM value to 128. There will be NO noticeable performance penalty (I did A LOT of testing with HD Tach) and the absurd noise will disappear. I tried contacting Hitachi's support about this but they didn't seem to even bother reading my message and sent me a standard copy and paste reply. This will be my first and last Hitachi hard drive EVER. See all 35 customer reviews....

Iomega's DVR Expander Drive adds up to 1 TB of storage capacity to your eSATA-enabled Pace Americas Set Top Box or Scientific Atlanta Explorer digital video recorder so you can enjoy more TV and movies! Stores up to 300 hours of standard-definition or 60 hours of high-definition TV. Easy to use, the recording location is automatically managed by the DVR. This compact drive sits horizontally or vertically (in included stand) and quietly complements your home theatre experience. Check with your local cable service provider to confirm service compatibility.

Color: Silver Brand: Iomega Model: 34508 Platform: Windows Format: CD-ROM Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 1.22" h x 7.82" w x 4.75" l, 1.95 pounds Hard Disk: 1024GB Compatible ? Tested to work with eSATA-enabled Pace Americas Set Box or Scientific Atlanta Explorer digital video recorder (DVR) High Capacity - Stores up to 300hours of standard-definition TV 0r 60 hours of high-definition TV Easy to use - Recording location is automatically managed by the DVR Compact and Quiet - Sleek silver drive sits vertically in stand and quietly compliments your home theatre experience 3 Year warranty with product registration

DVR Expander Drive AV eSATA, 1TB At a Glance: Up to 250,000* Songs (MP3s) Up to 400,000* Digital Photos Up to 300* hours of DVD Video Up to 60* hours of HD Video Perfect Complement to your Home Theater

Most helpful customer reviews 29 of 31 people found the following review helpful. Works great with DirecTV HD DVR and the price is better than others. By David D. Wong I have had good luck with an Iomega MiniMax 320 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 400 Desktop External Hard Drive that I use with my Apple Mac mini MB463LL/A Desktop so I thought I would give this Iomega 34508 eSATA DVR 1TB Expander Drive a try with my DirecTV HD DVR HR-20. The HR-20 is a silver DirecTV HD DVR and not like the newer all black DirecTV HR21/HR22/HR23 which I have one as well. It works great with the extra storage. As anyone who likes to use the DVR for HD content knows, the drive on the DirectTV gets full very fast. I had to keep deleting recorded programs. This Iomega 34508 eSATA DVR 1TB Expander Drive replaces your existing DirecTV Drive so you will not be able to access your existing programs you recorded on the DirecTV HD DVR. It basically steps in "front of the line" of the DirecTV drive but does not delete those programs on DirecTV I suggested that you watch all your programs you want before you install the Iomega drive. You will not be able to access those DirecTV recordings while the Iomega 34508 eSATA DVR 1TB Expander Drive is connected. The good news is that an eSata cable comes with the Iomega drive and it works fine. It is not that long - maybe 3 feet but it is not a problem where I have it. I will probably return the 6.6 foot SIIG CB-SA0211-S1 6.6-Feet Serial ATA External Cable that I purchased in addition to the Iomega drive. I just followed the instructions by unplugging my DirecTV DVR for 10-60 seconds before hooking up the Iomega 34508 eSATA DVR 1TB Expander Drive and plugging in the power for the Iomega drive and then the power for the DirecTV HD DVR. After the DirecTV came back up from searching for a satellite signal, everything was there. I believe some of the shows I wanted to record came up in the menu search after a while since it takes a little time for all the shows to get populated into the menu I recommend this for DirecTv HD DVR owners as a great lower cost solution to the Western Digital and Seagate versions of this item. 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Never recognized by SA 8300HD By C. Carsner Received the Iomega DVR expander from Amazon, registered it online, and performed a "by the book" installation. This is my third device of this type, first Iomega, so the procedure was familiar. The SA8300HD asked if I wanted to format the drive. I said OK. No confirmation of any type. After about 45 mins of no discernable activity, I rebooted the DVR. When it did not recognize the new drive, I rebooted several more times. Iomega chat support suggested a slightly different sequeence of install events. This resulted in a "drive is bad" message from the DVR. Iomega chat support had nothing more to offer other than a "refurbished" replacement of the product 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Simple installation and instant DVR storage By V. Grund Installation instructions were short and effective. I had to reboot my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD a few times to get it to work, which I blame on my DVR's quirky software. The first reboot yielded a question, would I like to format the drive? That complete, it took another reboot for my percent free space to increase massively. This is a simple, inexpensive fix to a DVR storage problem. See all 54 customer reviews....

PortaGig 62 is modeled after it's powerful big brother the GT 062E, and offers large capacity in a tiny footprint. A built-in fan keeps the two internal drives cool while Glyph Manager software constantly monitors the drive and enclosure health, notifying you if there is a problem. Bus-powered with FireWire 800, the PortaGig 62 also includes USB and eSATA ports for optimum compatibility, allowing you to easily work on the road with a reliable RAID. eSATA is not a bus-powered interface. However, you can use the eSATA connection for fast data transfer (up to 177MB/s) while simultaneously using the FireWire 800 connection to power the drive. An external power supply is included with the PortaGig 62 if bus power is not available or is insufficient. Specifications Rotational speed (RPM) - 7,200 RPM Bridging chipset - Oxford 936 Average seek time - 8ms Cache size - 8MB Software selectable drive modes - RAID 0/1/Spanning Interface connectivity - 2 x FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b) 9-pin ports, USB 2.0 Hi-speed (device-side) port, eSATA 3Gbit/s port Compatible Operating Systems - Apple OS 8.6, 9.X, 10.X; Windows 98SE, 2000, XP, Vista, 7; Modern Unix-based, Linux, or BSD Dimensions (HxWxD) - 1.7 x 4.8 x 3.6 in.

Brand: Glyph Dimensions: 1.19 pounds Inside The Box - FireWire 800 (9-pin to 9-pin) cable, USB Cable (A to Mini-B), Universal AC external power supply, Glyph Manager Software installer disk, Protective carrying sleeve Features Dual-Drive, Portable RAID Storage Solution - PortaGig 62 offers large capacity in a small package, complete with a cooling fan and rear power switch. With two internal SATA drives, it uses the next-generation Oxford 936 chip, supporting RAID 0, RAID 1, and Spanning. Connected by FireWire 800, USB or eSATA, it reports the health of the two internal drives using Glyph Manager. A software utility for setting the drive mode, Glyph Manager also reports case temperature, fan speed individual drives Speeds and Performance - PortaGig 62 drives are available in 7,200 and 5,400 RPM models and use only Seagate brand hard disk mechanisms. Seagate drives live up to their reputation for performance, quality, and durability. All models of the PortaGig 62 perform well in an audio environment, however the 7,200 RPM models have slightly higher track counts compared to the 5,400 RPM models due to their higher transfer rates. Tested and Approved - The PortaGig 62 has been qualified with Digidesign Pro Tools to support over 70 tracks of 24bit / 48k audio, with edits.

Create a multimedia entertainment system without having to buy another computer! Netgear’s new ReadyNAS Duo (1 X 500 GB) RND2000 allows you to directly stream music, photos and video to existing networked media players – without a PC. You can even use it to build a personal web page to easily share photos with friends and family members. Uniquely designed for NAS (Network Attached Storage) at home, the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo is perfect for households that have more than one computer. Unlike a USB drive, the ReadyNAS connects to the network and makes your data simultaneously accessible via all your connected Windows of Macintosh computers. And you can use it anywhere via the Internet to gain access to your stored data! Plus, the ReadyNAS Duo’s can be outfitted with an optional "spare" hard drive to protect you against drive failure by making a duplicate copy of all your data. This innovative device supports most network music, picture, and video players. Store, access, and share your data with the ReadyNAS Duo.

Size: 500 GB (1 x 500 GB) Color: Black Brand: Netgear Model: RND2150-100NAS Platform: Windows Format: CD Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 11.40" h x 6.90" w x 10.00" l, 4.56 pounds Hard Disk: 1000GB Network attached storage device offers 500 GB of storage with GigaBit Ethernet for fast data transfer Stream music, photos and video to network media players without a computer Access files from anywhere via Internet connection; host your personal Web page to share with friends and family Support for extra hard drive, allowing X-RAID data protection Measures 4.0 x 5.6 x 8.7 inches (WxHxD); 5-year warranty

We recently reviewed the NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+, a network attached storage device, or NAS, that's built for small offices and work groups. We were so impressed with its performance that we decided to test NETGEAR's home-user model, the ReadyNAS Duo, to see if it measures up to its bigger sibling's performance. .caption { font-family: Verdana, Helvetica neue, Arial, serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; } ul.indent { list-style: inside disc; text-indent: -15px; } table.callout { font-family: verdana; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.3em; } td.think { height: 125px; background: #9DC4D8 url(http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/electronics/detail-page/callout-bg.png) repeat-x; border-left: 1px solid #999999; border-right: 1px solid #999999; border-bottom: 1px dotted #000000; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 10px; width: 250px; } td.glance { height: 100%; background: #9DC4D8; border-left: 1px solid #999999; border-right: 1px solid #999999; padding-top: 10px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 10px; width: 250px; } The ReadyNAS Duo can serve as a digital media server for your home. View larger. We're happy to report that the ReadyNAS Duo rivals the NV+, but at a fraction of the price. Built for the home-user and home office, this compact, powerful, and surprisingly quiet and energy-efficient device has just about everything you need to keep your digital media easily accessible and protected. Unfortunately we don't have the space to describe everything we admire about this outstanding NAS device. What we can describe are several features that stood out, including its compact design and easy set-up, quiet and energy-efficient performance, web-, print-server and advanced media streaming features, and its outstanding data protection capabilities. (Our review of the ReadyNAS NV+ covered the system's RAID array functionality, as well several other features that the Duo shares.) In short, this is an advanced NAS device that anyone who is serious about digital media should consider for their home network. Easy Set-Up and Compact Design In addition to this 500 GB version, the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Duo comes with 750 GB, and 1 TB capacities. The models share identical features, with the difference being the amount of storage in each. The version we tested, the RND2150, included a single 500 GB SATA drive in a hot-swappable carrier with room for a second drive alongside it. (Each of the models ships with a single hard disk drive and can be easily upgraded for data redundancy by installing a second compatible disk drive of equal or higher capacity. The new disk drive will automatically mirror the first drive.) While the initial set-up with the system's extremely intuitive interface took less than 20 minutes, getting the information for the more advanced-user procedures took a bit more time. NETGEAR does not ship the Duo with extensive user guides. Instead, users are directed to ReadyNAS's online community forum (www.readynas.com) for advanced set-up procedures and add-ons. While navigating the forum for information can be time consuming, the site is constantly updated by NETGEAR developers and community members. We found information easy to locate and well presented. Like the NV+, users do not need an technical background to configure the Duo. However, a knowledge of network basics, and an ability to search for and install basic files is a must. And anyone with even a modicum of networking experience will find the Duo a breeze to work with. The Duo is smaller than a breadbox and is constructed with a sturdy metal chassis and door. It includes a Gigabit Ethernet port and two USB 2.0 ports on the back, and an extra USB port at the front along with a "backup" button. With two drive bays, you can easily upgrade the Duo for data redundancy. View larger. The Duo is designed to work with virtually any USB storage device and USB printer. We began by plugging a flash drive, external hard drive and a printer directly into the Duo. In each case, the devices appeared as shared drives on our network computers, and the printer connected to the device without a hitch, giving the networked computers instant printing abilities. Overall Set-Up and Design Grade: A- We would prefer to have more documentation included with the hardware, but the online forum is an excellent source of information. Quiet and Energy-Efficient Performance A huge plus for us is the ReadyNAS Duo's quiet performance. A fan sits at the back of the device, softly humming. Although we disagree with the NETGEAR marketing materials and wouldn't sleep with the Duo, we wouldn't hesitate to set it alongside a home theater system, or in another common area. Compared to many other NAS devices, the ReadyNAS Duo is as quiet and unobtrusive as they come. In an idle state, our single-disk Duo consumes only 27 Watts of power (or about 35 Watts with two drives installed), and a bit more than that with disk activity. In disk spin-down mode, power consumption goes down to a mere 12 Watts. This is a huge savings when compared to the 100 Watts or more from most computers with comparable storage and RAID abilities. The Duo also lets you schedule partial or complete shut downs for additional efficiencies. So if you plan to use the device as your primary digital media server or for scheduled back ups of your data, these energy savings will quickly add up. Overall Power Performance and Noise-Level Grade: A What a relief to keep our carbon print (and electricity bills) low--quietly and unobtrusively. Web Server and Advanced Media Streaming Features Our primary reason for wanting the Duo was to serve our digital media from a single source and reduce the work load of our personal computers. With the Duo, you can kiss goodbye the need to keep your computers running when you want to stream media files. The Duo can connect via your network to such devices as the NETGEAR EVA8000, Sonos Digital Music System, Logitech Squeezebox, Apple iTunes clients, Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360. In fact, it will work with just about any DLNA-compliant device. Once we loaded our entire music collection onto the server and launched the Duo's built-in iTunes server, our music was immediately available through iTunes on our personal computers. But what really made us smile was that our digital music became instantly available through our Logitech Squeezbox player, bypassing our computers entirely. This means that we now have 24/7 wireless access to our entire digital music collection without having to turn on our computers. On the down side, because the Duo's SlimServer add-on does not offer the software's most recent updates, functionality is slightly compromised, but the advantages of instant, uninterrupted access to our music library far outweighs those inconveniences. The ReadyNAS Duo can serve files to all your computers and compatible media players in your home. We were also able to access our personal video files seamlessly through our networked computers. While we found performance to be virtually indistinguishable from playing the files directly on our hard drives, if we were streaming HD video over our wireless network we would have needed to use Wireless-N to ensure steady performance. (If you're looking to do this NETGEAR recommends a purpose-built product called the 5GHz Wireless-N Bridge Kit, or one of their 200MB Powerline Network Adapters.) We also found that editing large raw video files was best accomplished directly off our local hard drive and uploading the edited files to the Duo, but this was more a function of our network connections than it was with the Duo's performance. NETGEAR's FrontView web-based control panel makes configuration and administration simple. View larger. Another nice touch is the Duo's Web server capability. With about 20 minutes of configuration time, you can serve your own personal Web Site or blog. Set-up was much easier and quicker than uploading to a remote hosting site. Obviously, if you have visions of launching the next hot social network site, neither the Duo (or your Internet connection) will be able to handle the traffic. But for your own Web site or personal blog, it will stand up nicely. Overall Web Server and Media Streaming Grade: B+ Once ReadyNAS is able to update firmware concurrently with the media device updates, you'll never need a computer to serve your media files again. Advanced Data Protection What truly allows the Duo to live up to its "advanced NAS" moniker is it wealth of data protection features, especially its X-RAID technology, "Continuous Data Protection or CDP," and its scheduled back up abilities. Just add a second 500 GB disk drive into the empty bay, and the ReadyNAS Duo will automatically build a mirror of the first drive by copying every byte from the first drive to the second one. In case of any hard drive failure, the data is protected. We had a SATA 500GB drive on hand, so we tried this. It was as easy as securing the drive with four screws onto the carrier and plugging the drive in. The data mirroring is taken care of automatically on the fly by the unique X-RAID. ReadyNAS Duo also includes a feature we're enthralled with called "Shadow" that not only backs up folders and files every time you save them on your computer, but also gives you the ability to save and revert to previous versions of the files. If your local file is lost or corrupted, you simply right click on the back-up file on the Duo to restore it to its original location. Every user on our network accessed this feature without a glitch. As featured on the Duo, CDP is a powerful way to keep your files protected. And to keep the files on the Duo protected, we scheduled back-ups to a connected external USB drive. The Duo flawlessly performed a full back up the first time, and incremental back ups thereafter. And a convenient "back-up button" located on the front of the device lets you back up your entire system, or parts of it, with a single click. With the X-RAID and the backup features provided by the Duo, you'll never have an excuse to lose a byte of data again. Overall Data Protection Grade: AWith the Duo, we will have to work hard to ever lose data again. Conclusions The ReadyNAS Duo is a powerful, attractive, and flexible NAS device that is great for a home network. It offers much of the functionality of a dedicated server, but since set up is mostly plug-and-play, it does not require a dedicated IT personnel to manage. As noted, the manual does not give all the answers. Fortunately, the strong online community and Web forums offer excellent support and services. And finally, the ReadyNAS Duo is backed by an industry-leading 5-year warranty, so you can rest assured that you'll be protected should anything go wrong. What's in the Box ReadyNAS Duo with 500 GB hard disk drive, two hard disk trays, quick installation guide, warranty card, power adapter, power cable, Ethernet cable, ReadyNAS Installation CD and Discovery Utility, and NTI Shadow for ReadyNAS for Windows and Macintosh.

Most helpful customer reviews 205 of 208 people found the following review helpful. Comparison of ReadyNAS Duo, Iomega ix2, LaCie, HP for small office use By Edward Barnett This product is one of a number of network attached storage (NAS) devices on the market targeted at small offices and home users. If you're not familiar with NAS devices, the concept is simple: A NAS device contains one or more hard drives and plugs directly into your network (i.e., your router). When compared to simple USB hard drives that plug directly into a computer, a NAS offers a number of advantages: 1) It is accessible to any computer on your network. This is convenient at home, since you can use the NAS as a central repository for files (documents, photos, music files, etc.) that you might want to access from any of a number of different PCs. In a small office, having a central storage location for key files (client documents, contact lists, etc.) can be critical. 2) In principle, you could achieve the same benefit by attaching a big USB drive to one PC, setting that PC up to share its files, then leaving that PC on all the time But these NAS devices are better optimized for file sharing, use far less energy, and take up far less space than a full PC. 3) Most of these NAS devices have something called RAID. They have (or allow you to install) multiple hard drives in the same unit, then they write every bit of data to multiple drives. This way, if one drive fails (as they are prone to do), the NAS can automatically switch over to the other drive and you don't lose any data. One HUGE warning, though - RAID only protects you from drive failure. NAS devices still have plenty of "single points of failure," including the power supply, controller, etc. I lost all of my data on a LaCie Network Disk because of a software glitch in the unit, even though all the individual drivers were fine. RAID reduces your risk of losing files, but it does not eliminate it 4) Because the NAS is always available to any PC on the network, it's a great solution for backing up individual PCs, in addition to operating as a file server. I am currently using a number of different NAS products in both my small business and my home. Here is a summary of the pros and cons of the three models I am currently using: Netgear's ReadyNAS Duo, EMC Iomega's ix2, and LaCie's Ethernet Disk RAID NAS. I'll call out only areas in which I see significant differences between the products. Also, this review is intended mainly for small office users - the features you might care about for a home NAS are likely to be different (e.g., you'd probably care about how well it works as an iTunes library or for streaming movies, neither of which is key in our office setting). Here goes: 1) Netgear ReadyNAS Duo. This is a smaller, two-drive version of Netgear's ReadyNAS product (originally developed by a company called Infrant, which Netgear acquired) It takes up very little space, uses relatively little power, and is fairly quiet. Reads and writes to this device are very fast, which is important when running backups. The ReadyNAS has a particularly robust feature set when it comes to backing up the NAS to another device on the network. This is important, since even with RAID, it's possible that the whole device will fail (e.g., if the power supply goes bad), so you want to make sure you back up your NAS regularly. Setup isn't hard, but you have to know what you're doing - this device is clearly targeted at somewhat technical users who know the terminology and are willing to work through all the configuration menus. This is our primary file server in our office, and it has been a reliable workhorse. About once every 2-3 months, I need to log on to fix something that has glitched - other than that, the ReadyNAS Duo has required no effort beyond setup It's one of the best small NAS products I've used. 2) Iomega ix2. Iomega is now owned by EMC, the company that creates the monster-sized storage devices for.