Netgear Storage Central or something similar?

03/18/2006 04:29:50 PM · #1

I went to CompUSA today to look for an external enclosure for an internal hard drive to replace the one that bombed. While I was there, I discovered the NetGear Storage Central SC101 which seemed even better than just getting another external drive because I won't have to drag it around the house with me and when I get my desktop up and running again, I can share music,photos, etc. As usual, I couldn't get a single minute of customer service so I just bought the thing and brought it home.

Now that I'm reading about it, the reviews are kind of scaring me and are not overwhelmingly positive. Does anyone have any experience with this? Or can you suggest something similar? (Hopefully within a similar price range, $100-150.) Apparently the software is rather buggy and my biggest concern is that they have a proprietary file system. Is this just I should expect in this price range? Is there something I can rig up that would be better?

Thanks!

03/18/2006 04:35:37 PM · #2

I *think* if you're networking around your house, you can "share" a drive on the main computer, hence creating a sort of network thing. I don't know if you can share an external drive, but I don't see why not. Of course every time I try to share drives, I get frustrated with good ol' Microsoft... but that's neither here nor there.

I'd be a bit concerned about proprietary file systems, but I don't have any experience with that thing.

On another related note, my two (2) hard drives arrived Friday, which I'm going to install in a RAID configuration, so that should one fail, I still have EVERYTHING on the other one. Will also back up to an external in an enclosure.

I bet between the two of us, we have LOTS of backup disks and drives in the future... :-)

SamDoe1

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

03/18/2006 05:02:13 PM · #3

Melethia is right. You can share any hard drive on one computer, to any other computer on your network. I've done this many times while I worked with computer network admin in high school as well as at my house. Doing this requires both the computers to be on the same workgroup and the drive that you want to share to be set that way. Once you do this, check and see what name your computer is assigned. You can see this (Assuming you're running Windows) by right clicking on My Computer > Properties > Computer Name tab. You can share external hard drives as they just show up as another drive on your computer anyway. So the way you access this drive once the above things are done is:
Go to Start > Run
Then type in //computer name/drive letter

Any questions, let me know.

Message edited by author 2006-03-18 17:03:49.

maxj

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

03/18/2006 05:07:40 PM · #4

Melethia's option would require the computer housing the hard disk to be on, but it would work, and is how I have things set up at home.

However, I would also think that by having the drive on a computer that is in use would make the drive more succeptable to viruses and such, keeping the drive in one of these central storage things would make viruses less of a problem as many household viruses dont travel over networks, and I would imagine you could have the NSC drives protected by a password.

Message edited by author 2006-03-18 17:08:44.

03/18/2006 05:24:27 PM · #5

The problem and possible problems with networking a drive on the desktop is that it's not currently up and running. I suppose it could be, in the corner on the floor for awhile until the room it's going in is remodeled. The possible problem is that it only has two hard drive bays and they are both full. Does that matter? Can I add in new ones? If I add one drive and a DVD burner, is that enough for backing up or should I be getting into a RAID configuration?

Can someone just come to my house and make the best setup happen? I am tired of thinking about it.

SamDoe1

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

03/18/2006 05:36:09 PM · #6

Originally posted by mk:

Can someone just come to my house and make the best setup happen? I am tired of thinking about it.

That depends on where you live...
You can always add an external drive to your desktop. It would show up in the same way as your C drive would show up and could be shared over the network. This way, you don't have to worry about RAID configurations or not having your desktop hooked up currently. You can just hook it up to a different computer for the time being, and then transfer it to the desktop when the time comes.

bod

03/18/2006 08:25:53 PM · #7

I usually like Netgear kit, but have heard less than stellar things about the SC101 too.
If I were in the market for a NAS setup I would probably go for a Linksys NLSU2 - partly because it's Linux based and there's a decent open source community around it. No need for any Linux knowledge for normal use though.

If I wanted something that looked cool too I'd have to go here.

wavelength

Nikon D300

03/18/2006 08:30:04 PM · #8

Buffalo Terra Station

My FIL bought one and is completely enamored with it. Gets the best ratings and reviews from everyone.

03/18/2006 08:46:55 PM · #9

Originally posted by bod:

If I wanted something that looked cool too I'd have to go here.

Ooh, that's kinda hot. Kinda expensive but kinda hot.

Originally posted by wavelength:

Buffalo Terra Station

My FIL bought one and is completely enamored with it. Gets the best ratings and reviews from everyone.

Gets a bad rating from my wallet. :P

Message edited by author 2006-03-18 20:47:05.

03/18/2006 08:57:21 PM · #10

A rich friend of mine has a terastation thingie and swears by it. He also has more dollars worth of L glass than I suspect my car is worth.

I'm sadly relegated to RAIDing a couple of disks and "getting by" with "only" 250G of storage...

As for sharing a drive, yes, the "main" computer needs to be on for it to work. Mine never gets shut off, but that would be because I'm a geek, and if I shut it off, the pretty little red/green/blue fan light goes out and I don't have my night light! I'd stub my toe in the middle of the night. That would be bad.

I don't mess with that whole "network neighborhood" thing either, since I've had limited luck with it. I designate drives and folders to "share" and have XP Pro running on the desktop. Somehow it all works. Of course, the teenager next door is probably sharing my drive, too, but as long as he doesn't use it to store porno, I'm good.

03/18/2006 09:46:18 PM · #11

Side note to mk - time of death: 8:41 pm, Central time.

The freezer trick did not work, nor did the dropping of the drive from either waist high or shoulder high. It is officially and irrevocably deceased. A moment of silence....

Have I mentioned to the rest of you that you really, really ought to back up your pictures?

On the plus side, other than the pictures and a few recently ripped CDs, I have no idea what else I lost on the drive. Sometimes not knowing is best!

_eug

Nikon D50

03/18/2006 10:45:05 PM · #12

Originally posted by wavelength:

Buffalo Terra Station

My FIL bought one and is completely enamored with it. Gets the best ratings and reviews from everyone.

I've been looking at those and drooling for months now. It's my next storage purchase -- when the wife unlock my credit card which is probably not until well after my trip to Kenya.

_eug

Nikon D50

03/18/2006 10:46:29 PM · #13

Originally posted by Melethia:

Side note to mk - time of death: 8:41 pm, Central time.

Ouch. Sorry to hear...

03/18/2006 11:02:19 PM · #14

Originally posted by Melethia:

:/ Perhaps now is the time for us to seek out some sort of Buddhist philosophies that encourage leaving the past behind and embracing fresh, clean starts or something?

03/18/2006 11:51:41 PM · #15

Originally posted by mk:

:/ Perhaps now is the time for us to seek out some sort of Buddhist philosophies that encourage leaving the past behind and embracing fresh, clean starts or something?

Excellent plan! I've got lovely fresh new drives just awaiting the deposition of brand spankin' new files. Of course, it would help if I'd actually install them in the machine... Soon. I shall install them soon.

And yes, in the mean time, I am backing up to DVD almost every time I dump the card. Lovely habit to get into. Now if I could just remember to reset the ISO back to 100 before I shut off the camera each time.

_eug

Nikon D50