Western Digital 2TB/4TB ShareSpace
I have two computers at home, both with DVD burners, and everyone in my family has their own USB thumb drives (either a 2GB or a 4GB drive), and all of this storage space sometimes seems to be not enough. With the cameras, mp3s, and CD-audio files as well as all those downloads, the free space shrinks pretty fast if you don’t keep an eye on it. I guess if I had one more PC, I’m pretty sure to be looking very hard at a network-based external storage solution.
A network storage solution looks like a good option for a small office or a home-based network which does is not yet prepared for an NAS or SAN solution. (Besides, NAS and SAN are both expensive propositions.)
But a simplified small-scale network storage might be cost-effective enough. The basic requirements for a small office/home office solution would be that it is attached via the LAN, it has RAID 0/1/5, it has an integrated (no-brainer) client software which would allow for scheduled backups, and it should have enough space on the drives.
Western Digital is expanding their line of external storage with the release of ShareSpace. The network storage solution in this case is a 4-bay 4TB stand-alone connected to the network via GigaEthernet. It also has a USB port for one-touch backup of a USB flash disk. This is a step-up from the standard external storage and hard disk that they also offer (with capacities of up to 1TB). Besides being a network backup solution, it can also serve as an iTunes server, it has a built-in FTP server and is MS Vista-ready.
On top of that, this is not a data center appliance, but something you can put on top of your desk. It was designed to be quiet, cool and energy-efficient. It consumes up to 33 percent less power compared with other network storage and backup solution.
If you stacked up several external hard disks and created a RAID disk around them totalling 1GB, you might end up with a cheaper system. Except that you would have to connect this to a PC and traffic would be going through the firewire port. The resulting hardware solution would be a shared folder on the external drive, with processing done by the host PC. You would also have to install a third-party backup software on the PC for the scheduled backup. The total cost might be cheaper, but you would have the PC choking every so often. Specially if it was running Windows.
ShareSpace has two variants: 2TB and the 4TB. The 2TB model can be configured for RAID 0 or RAID 1. The 4TB model can be configured for RAID 0, 1 or 5.
Since this is attached to a GigaBit LAN, the unit has to be attached to a GigaBit switch. The advantages of a fast backup would be lost if it was not using a switch.
The 2TB ShareSpace has a suggested retail price of $699, and the 4TB model has a suggested retail price of $999.