Lovers of media - whether it be MP3s, Blu-ray rips, or photographers who enjoy doing it RAW - we have good news for you. Western Digital just announced they upgrading their ShareSpace network attached storage (NAS) server from an already mind-boggling 4TB to a whoppin' 8TB. And to think we were all drooling over 1TB less than a year ago.
Luckily, you can now kick back with that tiny netbook of yours and load as much media as you want onto an off-site data monster. You know, so you don't have to freak out in case the absolutely unthinkable just so happens to greet you one morning...
Capable of streaming all of your media with its built-in DLNA support, you'll be able to fully take advantage of the built-in Gigabyte Ethernet when you want to watch some 1080p videos lag free.
The server comes with a total of 4 slots for 3.5-inch hard drives, which can all be removed and installed on the fly. It also comes with the WD Anywhere Backup software that provides automatic and continuous protection for those who rather go about their daily lives without having to manually back up their data every few days (though we do hear it tends to lag your computer a great deal, so we suggest doing the backups at night while you're sleeping).
The WD ShareSpace NAS runs a relatively pricey $1700 and will be released later next week. You can also grab the original 4TB and 2TB flavors if you want, which should receive a sweet little price cut with the introduction of the 8TB model.
[via Cnet]
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Comments (4)
This is a nice looking product with all the right stuff. It doesn't offer data redundancy out of the box so you'll have to set up your own RAID system in it, which means all the bays have to use the exact same drive. So decide ahead on what capacity you're looking for because upgrading 4 drives at a later date can be costly.
If you're looking at this sort of system I'd recommend the Drobo. You can use two to four drives, of any size and maintain data redundancy. So if you are like me and had a few drives laying around (or simply want to start cheap and work your way up) you just by the empty system and drop in the drives and you're ready to roll.
The drobo is a nifty little device, and I actually thought about it a lot before deciding on my 4-bay Qnap, but it's no NAS. Unfortunately you need the drobo and the drobo-share to make it into a networkable device, something that never made much sense to me. So, if you want a real NAS, but want the ability to put any mix of drives it it you want, you'll have to get the drobo and drobo-share.
I just bought the 4tb version of this a few months ago. Damnit!
I wonder if you can upgrade the firmware since the actual hardware hasn't changed. (ie my 4tb one is 4 bay as well)
If you want a network attached storage device (NAS) then the best reading on the subject is found here:
http://smallnetbuilder.com/
They do very good reviews and advice articles of network based drives for everything from sharing media and backing up home networks to small business fileshare solutions.