Netgear Storage Central: Officially on my Gear Lust List!

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.livedigitally.com/?p=166' target='_blank'>http://www.livedigitally.com/?p=166</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The Netgear Storage Central took my breath away. Two IDE drives fit nicely into this white and silver box-o-goodness. Costing only $129.00 for this double shot, I can add my two 250GB Western Digital 7200RPM 8MB buffer hard drives and store half a terabyte over my network. This fatboy plugs into your router and shows up as a network drive. Mirroring, partitioning, and striping are available for each individual need. Expect to see this network storage device in a month. Updates to this will include ‘server qualities’ for example streaming the content to you T.V. while your computer is off.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/netgear4800.jpg" /> <br /><br />Tell me that doesn't sound like an impressive device! I want, no, I <i>need</i> one of these. :D

[Mexico]

Looks like a toaster... As long as it doesn't toast your hard drives to a crispy brown. BTW, I want one too.

[sojourner753]

I like it.

I wonder what kind of smarts does it have? Is it running some bios or OS like linux?

[Jason Dunn]

Looks like a toaster... As long as it doesn't toast your hard drives to a crispy brown. BTW, I want one too.

I don't really care what it looks like myself because it will be in my back room with the router and cable modem. :D

[bljarv]

Man, that would be a sweet way to add some redundant storage to a home network so that you would never have to worry about those digital images, archived files, or whatever's important to you. Put me in the group with those who want one!

[mcsouth]

I'll join the "I want one too!!!" crowd - I've been contemplating an external hard drive for a while now, mainly to act as backup space for all computers on our home network (3 and growing!), but also for storing common files that everyone here at home wants access to - photos, music files, video being the obvious. I had almost settled on a Maxtor 250GB external, but I sure like the looks of this unit!

I wondered if you could start out using this unit with only one drive in it, but came up with nothing but the press release at Netgear's site - you can find the press release here - http://netgear.com/pressroom/press_releasesdetail.php?id=241

Imagine throwing a few Hitachi 400GB drives into this bad boy!

[that_kid]

Oh yeah 4 of those with two 300 gig drives in each = :D add me to the list for 4.

[Kursplat]

One? Only one? Jason, how could one possibly be enough?

I've actually been looking for a 4-drive enclosure to add 4 250s or 300s in a RAID 5 setup. I found one for a couple hundred dollars. 750-900 GB with redundancy for around $1000. Now all I need is the spare $1000. :D

The only downside is its still tied to a computer, not a standalone solution like this cool device.

[Phoenix]

Very cool. This would be a great addition to my home network!

[klinux]

Nice.

Nicer if we know more details i.e how does it format the HD, what OS is it using, how Windows/OS X/Linux friendly is it, etc.