External Data Storage - The Netgear SC101 Enclosure

!: External Data Storage - The Netgear SC101 Enclosure

The Netgear SC101 (Storage Central) is a networked external hard drive enclosure for up to two IDE hard drives (ATA6 or above) which connects via an RJ-45 cable (standard network cable) to your wireless router, wireless modem or switch.

It is cosmetically quite a clean, modern looking case and considering it can house two drives is quite compact.

The hardware setup is very easy with access to the SC101 case being screwless (There is a small catch on the front of the unit that when twisted allows the case to be opened). Once you have opened the case, the only hardware setup is the insertion of either one or two IDE hard drives (ATA6 or above) of your choice and connection through the available 40-pin IDE cable and the four pin power supply cable. It is then simply a just a case of shutting the unit up and connecting to the power supply and router. So far so good!!

This is where the problems start, the software installation and its stability. The SC101 software is available through the Netgear site (here) and includes a SCM software utility for connection and management of drives and a firmware (Netgear Storage Central Manager) and firmware for the network hard drive enclosure.

Although not a deal breaker, this is where issues arise from. Ideally if you have a network drive, you don't really want to have to install software on every computer you want to access the drives, a simple ftp access would have been much simpler and user friendly.

The Storage Central Manager utility appeared to us to be inherantly flawed. When we tried to install our SC101 on an XP home desktop system, the installation failed twice for no apparent reason, before the software would install "correctly". After this the drives could be formatted and mounted on the system with very little hassle (although the software update facility caused the system to crash) and we decided not to run a RAID setup due to the different sizes of the IDE drive that we had available. At this point we still liked the SC101 and thought that maybe we had an isolated problem to do with the desktop we were using and the initial install software.

All was well for a week, until one day we powered our desktop on and there were no drives from the SC101 available! No number of reinstallations of the SC101 SCM software allowed access to the drives, and access to the drives was never regained through the desktop computer. Luckily the drives were still accessible through a laptop that we setup using the SCM software and files could be retrieved. It seems to us that the software that is used to run the drives is very unstable on certain systems (the closest answer we could get from customer support for the problem with compatibility with the desktop system was that there was a conflict with certain SCSI drivers utilised by certain mainboards, which although an answer, did not really solve our problem!).

At this point we decided to cut our losses and decided to use other forms of external enclosure as the SC101 seems to be far too unstable as a backup device and we just could not take the risk.

I am afraid that I really would not recommend the Netgear SC101 (Storage Central) to anyone even when taking into account the cost of the unit, which is fairly cheap for this type of product, the instability far out weighs the potential money saved.

For more useful articles and product reviews visit Computer Takeaway.

External Data Storage - The Netgear SC101 Enclosure

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Netgear Storage Central Model SC101 - Review

!: Netgear Storage Central Model SC101 - Review

Storage Central - Model SC101 £68 (£79.98 inc VAT) is a hard disk enclosure with built-in disc controllers and networking features. This device emulates one or more logical drives using one or two physical IDE or PATA hard disks and provides a shareable storage facility accessible by all windows computers on a DHCP enabled network.

A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a collection of storage devices linked to the local area network which are accessed and administered as one central pool, such storage does not require a specific computer to be running for file sharing.

The device is attached to the network switch or router and acts like a file server for all the windows computers. However, unlike most other network storage devices, this one requires a client to be installed on each computer in the network.

The basic unit is supplied with 0, 1 or 2 drives c£68+VAT for the empty box and £92+VAT to include an 80gig hard drive - the storage can be bought separately, or you can add your own existing hard drives to the 'empty' box.

Product Description:

This unit provides both Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) level 0 & 1 and can be expanded indefinitely. SmartSync Pro advanced backup software is included which creates real-time copies of stored data from the clients .

This product is well suited for sharing and back up with the simplicity of using a local drive. Easy to set-up and install, connect to any wired or wireless router (54G Wireless Ethernet Adapter) or switch.

This is very basic storage area network type implementation but it is not a network attached storage device, so each computer on the network must have its own client software installed. There is no ability to connect to the device, using its native file share method and there is no platform-independent file-sharing support. (As opposed to the standard situation where a NAS device will offer a shared file system that can be mounted in the OS's native method.)

You MUST use the included software. Although the device is capable of listening on port 80, there is no web interface to configure it. The included software, running on Windows is the only way.

Data transfer (read or write) about around 3MB/s. (this should be more like 10MB/s. This unit only supports simple security, ie a single password for each "logical drive" configured during set-up, probably because this is designed for the home market.

Good stuff:

1) Supports spanning and mirroring capabilities.

2) Discrete device eliminating the need for an additional computer/server.

3) Can support unlimited storage within the physical limitation of the two drive bays.

4) Once the interface drivers are installed, all Windows applications are able to utilise the attached drives as 'local' drive letters.

5) Easy to install and set up assuming a simple home network.

6) Supports block-level data transfers and fast response time being slightly better than USB 2.0 or fire wire external hard drives.

7) Inexpensive compared to similar products. Pre-configured network-attached storage (NAS) devices range from £200 to £1,500.

Bad stuff:

Hardware Issues:

1a) No peer-to-peer network connectivity (UPnP support).

1b) Drivers are only compatible with Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 200x.

2) It only supports IDE ATA 6 or 7. Most new drives on the market meet this requirement but older drives will likely not.

3) This system uses a partition format unrecognized by Windows, So these hard disks can not be disconnected and put into another computer without being reformatted.

4) This device allows password protection of each individual logical drive but does not support NTFS level security, there are no folders restricted to specific machines.

5) The disks are passively cooled and the device can get extremely hot when in use. Whilst this does not seem to adversely effect operation, using two fast hard drives could lead to premature failures.

6) No file level compression or associated security.

7) Each physical hard disk reacquires one IP address.

Software Issues:

1) No web based management utility, device setup can be done from any computer with the interface drivers but each computer's drives must be configured individually.

2) The interface software is true 64 bit and is not compatible with windows 9x systems;

3) The configuration utility is simple to use but is very basic, I am using version 1.5.7.

4) Every time the utility loads, it asks the user if it should check for and install driver updates. This can be bypassed but you are informed that "the software upgrade contains valuable enhancements" regardless of if you are using the latest version or not.

5) The update process takes an unpredictable time (there is indication of activity but not of total progress or time required) and is not automated; download and update are not integrated and requires answers to questions that are implied.

6) When the device firmware if updated, the drivers and utility software on all the computer must be upgraded and sometimes the drives need to be reattached.

7) There is an online help system which explains the utility features, but does not include any instructions, user guide or how to information.

8) There are two configuration options, advanced and a set-up wizard, drives created with the advanced method can be attached by the wizard but these drives are ignored and can not be managed.

9) No audio streaming support.

Recommendations:

Buy: If you want an economical solution, which will work straight out of the box 98% of the time, and you have a typical home network with no complications, and none of your computers have spare drive bays you are happy to configure for your own backup drives.

Don't buy: If any of the above don't apply, or you want direct addressable storage from any part of your network, or you have critical data protection requirements, or your network is not currently configured using or can not use dynamic host configuration protocol (DCHP), or is using non standard private addressing range

This is not a prefect technical solution and is unsatiable for anything larger than a typical home or micro office environments. 6/10 for design and implementation, 9/10 for effort and usefulness.

Effectively: If you don't know how or why your network works, this is probably perfect. If you do know what you are doing, you will almost certainly have tweaked something somewhere which will make this unusable or unnecessarily complicated to make work.

System Requirements:

Windows 2000(SP4), XP Home or Pro (SP1 or SP2), Windows 2003(SP4);

DHCP server in the network;

Compatible with ATA6 or above IDE (Parallel ATA) hard disks;

Physical Specifications:

Dimensions 6.75" x 4.25" x 5.66" (L x W x H);

Ambient Operating Temperature 0̊-35̊ C;

Package Contents:

Storage Central SC101;

12V, 5A power adapter, localized to country of sale;

Ethernet cable;

Installation Guide;

Resource CD;

SmartSync Pro Backup Software CD;

Warranty/Support information card;

Netgear Storage Central Model SC101 - Review

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Netgear ReadyNAS Duo 2-Bay 500 GB (1 x 500 GB) Network Attached Storage RND2150

±1±: Now is the time Netgear ReadyNAS Duo 2-Bay 500 GB (1 x 500 GB) Network Attached Storage RND2150 Order Today!

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Great Deal :
$274.99
Date Created :
Sep 02, 2010 23:00:05

Netgear Readynas Duo 1X 500Gb

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±1±: Best Buy I purchased this unit 2 years ago from Amazon. It came with a 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 installed and I purchased a duplicate for the second bay. It has stayed powered up continuously for the past two years and completed light duty work as a file server in a small home network (5 machines, both PC and Mac). No complaints at all until a few days ago when it went off-line and unresponsive in the middle of a large file transfer (~250 GB) from the NAS to a machine on the network. Couldn't get it to power down so had to pull the plug. The most credible troubleshooting advice I found online was to check the drives first before other steps like a factory reset. I used a USB to SATA cable to check the drives and sure enough the drive in Bay 2 was toast (failed SMART Test for a read error even though the SMART Status read good). The NAS re-started just fine with the good drive in Bay 1 and Bay 2 empty. All the data was intact and readable. My only complaints are that it came with a Seagate drive that has a reputation for failing (lots of reviewers of the drive saw a lot less service than my 2 years), and the way that it handled the disk failure wasn't graceful. I fully acknowledge that I may not have had the unit configured optimally to handle the disk failure (I'd not upgraded the firmware or set any advanced configurations--I just plugged it in and started copying files and since it always worked I never worried about it). I still have the troubleshooting to do in order to figure out what the unit could have done and should have done when the disk failed. I didn't lose any data, but wonder if it could have been worse if it had happened during a write instead of a read.

Update: Reviewing the logs I see that the NAS started reporting disk errors over 6 weeks prior to the disk failing. If I had configured the unit to send me alerts, I would have gotten an email or a text and would have had an easier time troubleshooting. During all the swapping of disks, I had one disk tray release button freeze and stick hard. It was easy to find a very helpful thread on this in the ReadyNAS Forum. While it appears that it is a design flaw, and there is a re-disign completed, with a little fiddling and some silicone grease I was able to fix mine with no problems. on Sale!

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NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central

±1±: Now is the time NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central Order Today!

Nice Design by :
Netgear
Over All Rating Reviews :

Great Deal :
$77.99
Date Created :
Aug 30, 2010 07:00:10

With Storage Central you can add the capacity you need to store, share and back up your valuable digital content—-music, games, photos, videos, and office documents—instantly, easily, and securely, all with the simplicity of your C:drive. IDE drives sold separately. Storage Central is easy to setup and install. Just slide in one or two 3.5” IDE disk drives of any capacity; connect Storage Central to any wired or wireless router or switch from any vendor, then configure with Smart Wizard install assistant. Now you’re ready to access files from any PC on your network, as a simple letter drive. Storage Central automatically stores and duplicates your important digital content such as music, games, photos, and more. Storage Central ensures that no one can access your files but you and delivers the utmost privacy of your valuable data content. With Storage Central, you can expand outgrown storage volumes, and add more capacity whenever you need it—instantly and easily. Storage Central makes real-time copies of your valuable data, ensuring maximum protection against data loss. Additionally, storage can be expanded indefinitely, keeping pace with all your future storage needs. SmartSync™ Pro advanced backup software is included. Storage Central features True SAN technology, an advanced network storage technology. True SANs provide block-level data transfers, delivering sustained performance much faster than low-cost NAS devices. Only NETGEAR Storage Central is True SAN, providing advanced data center technology in an affordable, easy-to-use package.

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±1±: Best Buy I have 4 of these in my home, each has 2 Seagate 500gig hdds, and I have yet to come into any problems at all with mine.

The first thing you need to do upon getting it is open the case, for almost all 4 shower up with either the IDE or PSU cable off, or hanging on the last needle, giving me errors left and right about how netgear 1 no longer has a letter assigned to it. Once all cables and stuff is plugged back in where it should be nice and tight, Ive had my 4 going on a year and have yet to have a single problem with any of them.

The only downside, is it is slow transfering files to it.

A plus, big plus, is that because they assign a drive letter, I can put on them my kids games that dont need a cd to run on it, and can be installed to that one drive, and all the other users can play that game too, without having to install anything, just click and play.

It also sure beats the need to keep on a dedicated, power sucking, network PC to share files with. These have little 12 watt power adapters, and they even spin down when not in use, so youre saving your hdd, from spinning 24/7, creating heat, and use when not using it so your prolonging the life of your drive and saving money.

My last problem is QC, whey theyoverlooked so many of these with the wires hardly pushed on or off, causing these GREAT storage devices to get a bad rap, but because so I was able to pick up my 4 as refurbished, for half the cost of new.

But there just are a ton of pluses when you get it working correctly, just having therm show up as a drive letter on every pc they have a driver installed for, opens a world of possibilities that you cant have making a dedicated server pc. I will never give mine up till I have the funds for a gigabit unit. Movies, games, music, all from a little tiny drive that can be used without bogging down the main pc, is probably the biggest plus with them on Sale!

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