All in a cube
I have repeatedly raised the topic of home network drives - well, if I helped someone decide. And for those who are still tormented by the pangs of choice, today I’ll tell you about another good option - NETGEAR Stora .
The first time I learned about this device more than a year ago - after the announcement of the drive at some of the exhibitions, I ran my eyes over an inconspicuous note. The only thing that was put back in memory at that time was the appearance of the device - whatever one may say, but you can’t confuse the cube with anything) And for some reason it has remained in memory since that this cube is simply huge - the fault was once attributed to clip art pictures in perspective without anything to compare sizes. In general, the closest born association is an office safe.
But more recently, I happened to use this device live. Well ... actually it’s really a cube, but in size it is very, very far from the safe - at best it’s a small safe.
Everything is standard in the configuration - the device itself, the adapter and the power cord, as well as a meter patch cord, a disk with software and a few pieces of paper.
The “peel” is made entirely of plastic, but underneath it, for structural rigidity, is a sturdy metal frame. Speaking of the "peel" - it is not clear what the engineers were guided by when they created the drive enclosure. I mean its glossy walls - one front and two side, they are actually mirrored, albeit not very easily soiled ...
In my opinion, in this case the glamor is completely unjustified - even the fact that the device is stationary and practically not designed for active touching with unwashed hands . And all this despite the fact that the remaining walls of the body are dull.
Here, for example, is the upper “cover”, or rather, all that remains of it (it contains as many as 456 holes for ventilation of the discs; recount, maybe I lost count somewhere). Under it is a silent 60mm cooler with automatic speed control, which pleasantly surprised me.
Below - a pair of rubber legs on special ledges - thanks to the resulting recesses, the device is easy to carry. Also below is a sticker with a unique serial number and many more ventilation holes - through them, air is taken in, blows around the discs and is led up.
Returning to the front part - on it, in addition to the name of the device, power indicators and two disks, there is a USB port to which you can connect something like a USB flash drive, external hard drive or printer. With a light effort, the entire front panel is removed, after which both disks become visible. More precisely, in my case, there was only one disc - 1TB ( Seagate Barracuda LP ). In principle, it’s quite spacious inside - a third disk would easily fit ... but two, then two - thanks to such a space, it’s easy to organize good cooling there. You can immediately evaluate the structural strength - the entire body consists of metal walls and L-shaped profiles with a thickness of 1 mm.
On the back side of the device are two plastic levers that allow you to pull out the discs - it is easy to pull and the disc drives out from the front side. Such a mechanism made it possible to get rid of the cassette racks that were, for example, in the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Duo drive . In this case, the disks in this case are removed and inserted back without problems - the click and that’s it.
Also at the rear is the RJ-45 gigabit port, a power and reset button, and a power connector (from the adapter). Some green controller is visible inside, but as I didn’t shine a flashlight inside, I didn’t see any inscription) I would have, because they are on the other side of the board - I didn’t think of disassembling everything. The drive runs on a Marvell 88F6281 ARM processor with a clock frequency of 1 GHz, the amount of RAM / flash memory is 128/256 MB, respectively.
In general ... in reality, the “safe” turned out to be very compact (175x150x146 mm with a weight of 2 kg), easily fit on the desktop - an almost silent cooler only contributed to this. And everything would be fine, but here is the glossy case ... IMHO, not for everybody.
I plug in the adapter and stick in the power cord.
The device is turned on by a button on the rear panel - for me personally, this arrangement of functionally important buttons is now a plus, because the child does not see them and, accordingly, does not make surprises) After turning on, by and large, only the disk itself is heard (or two, if you put the second one) - the noise level from the cooler is very comfortable. The indicators are not very bright, although in the dark they will be noticeable.
Start and initialization are fast enough. Having inserted the disk from the box into the drive, I launched the installer. At the very beginning, the softink asks for the serial number (which is written on the bottom of the device) and the desired device name.
If there are no problems with registration (and it, by the way, goes through the Internet), then the installer offers to enter the administrator account information. Next, check for software updates and ... and, in fact, everything - you can start working. Now, by the way, you can go to your drive from almost any place where there is a connection if you wish - to do this, go to% storaname% .mystora.com. My twitter readers had the opportunity to mock in test mode - they poured naked aunts until one of them changed the password for the account.
After rebooting the computer, a new icon appears in the tray - the Stora Agent program; it is also responsible for three network drives (X, Y, Z), which are automatically mounted at system startup.
All of them are of equal size - 930GB, from which we can conclude ... that's right - the MyComputer disk will be your personal file storage, “FamilyLibrary” - the “family” disk for the wife-in-law-son-daughter files, and “MyLibrary” - apparently, for your own media files. Accordingly, only the “family” folder is public, and all the others are personal for each account. Not the most obvious logical structure (as well as the way to connect to the system is also very controversial), but it is an exclusively “home” drive - you don’t have to “bother with mounting drives, registering a name in DDNS”. In addition to network drives, you can connect via FTP.
When you click on the same tray icon, a menu appears - if you click LogOut, then the disks from the system will be disconnected. If the administrator has created other accounts, then you can switch to them from the menu.
The item “Explore My Stora Folders” allows you to see a list of storage resources, and “Open Desktop Mirror” launches a simple (intuitive) program for backing up files from a computer. If you use this tool, then all files will be copied to the drive in the “My Computer” folder.
"Open Stora application" opens the web interface of the device, which was previously available when accessed through a browser by name or IP.
So, the main page of the drive in the browser. A bit gloomy ... a little later it turns out that it was made completely on a flash. Before us are three large buttons - Albums, My Library and Preferences. I will not describe everything in detail, only briefly.
Albums - in case you come from the sea and drop numerous pictures into the created virtual structure (there can be one file on the server, but the picture itself can be in different albums) - the name, description, background, access settings, etc. are set . Then you can watch it (slide show and all things), you can share a link to it with friends from anywhere in the world - in general, this is really such an album, no more, no less.
In My Library, all other files - in fact, there is a primitive file manager that allows you to manipulate downloaded files. Delete-move, file properties, search, different display methods, media filter, folder tree, etc. - everything is.
In addition, you can watch photos, play music and some videos (the full list is jpeg, png, gif, mp3, mov, mp4, flv; iTunes from the FamilyMusic folder can easily lose mp3, aac, m4a and wav).
The remaining Preferences item contains ... you won’t believe ...) In general, again, only a couple of screenshots, because almost everything is obvious.
Having access to the admin panel, you can remotely turn on / off the device (including according to the schedule), create and edit accounts, and manage backups. For about $ 20 a year, you can get a Premium service from MyStora, which will provide somewhat advanced functionality - SFTP, integration with a couple of services like Facebook and Flickr, something else ).
It is a pity, but even after updating all the firmware and software, the Russian language did not appear anywhere. In July, the manufacturer promises a new version of the firmware, but for now there is nothing left but to wait.
As for speed indicators - for the test I used the program Intel NAS Performance Tool 1.7.1, the results are as follows:
The average return of 20-30MB / s is very cool, at least against the background of many other entry-level devices. Moreover, you can not only dump all the necessary and unnecessary files onto the drive - through DLNA it will completely go down as a device from which you can directly watch movies, since even the most inveterate Blu-ray images have a stream of up to 50 Mbps.
I did not find a second hard drive for the RAID array, but on the Internet you can find data on high-speed measurements. In short - the speed becomes about 10% lower, because RAID-1 is organized by software. In the new version of the firmware, you can also make a JBOD array from two disks.
Very unusual and attractive appearance;
Reliable design, pre-installed silent cooler
Performance sufficient for most home tasks;
Easy installation, access from an Internet without unnecessary settings;
Compatibility with TimeMachine;
Low cost;
Glossy surface;
The not obvious first time folder structure;
To get started, you need an Internet connection (?);
Non-localized shell.
Other reviews say that there are problems with the Cyrillic file names on the device - perhaps this problem was on old firmware, but I have never encountered this for all the time. It could be attributed to the minuses and the software implementation of the array ... but I rummaged around ... and did not find devices of this level with a hardware solution.
The price of a “safe” without disks is 4-5 thousand rubles, and for 7-8 you can buy a version with a 1TB disk. Such pricing is quite interesting - because for the money you get a completely ready-to-use device, so to speak, out of the box.
There was already one network drive from this company, and I wrote about it - it was an excellent, but quite expensive ReadyNAS Duo . Therefore, as I understand it, Stora was released only with the aim of occupying a segment of the market for cheaper devices, so that it’s direct to every home. The inscription “Home Media Network Storage” flaunts on the packaging - perhaps there is no more suitable definition here. Indeed, the drive is really with the most home (even, probably, family) scope, really capable of performing certain multimedia functions, as indicated by the DLNA, UPnP AV and Windows Media Connect labels on the same box.
NETGEAR is not the first day on the network market and they have experience in creating various devices with RJ-45 holes) The Stora drive was no exception - everything works like a clock, everything is fine ... but, again, without any frills and frills - exclusively for people, who need to store information somewhere, but I don’t want to bother with the settings. For home or for small businesses, this is a really good choice (including price) - I connected the wires and a new drive has appeared in the system.
For more advanced users (which, I hope, most Habrazhitel is) this device is suitable only for simple file storage, for everything else (torrents, fussing with third-party software, more thorough configuration and all-all-all), devices of another class will be required. Well, or some hand-made solutions;)
Good luck!
The first time I learned about this device more than a year ago - after the announcement of the drive at some of the exhibitions, I ran my eyes over an inconspicuous note. The only thing that was put back in memory at that time was the appearance of the device - whatever one may say, but you can’t confuse the cube with anything) And for some reason it has remained in memory since that this cube is simply huge - the fault was once attributed to clip art pictures in perspective without anything to compare sizes. In general, the closest born association is an office safe.
But more recently, I happened to use this device live. Well ... actually it’s really a cube, but in size it is very, very far from the safe - at best it’s a small safe.
Everything is standard in the configuration - the device itself, the adapter and the power cord, as well as a meter patch cord, a disk with software and a few pieces of paper.
Appearance
The “peel” is made entirely of plastic, but underneath it, for structural rigidity, is a sturdy metal frame. Speaking of the "peel" - it is not clear what the engineers were guided by when they created the drive enclosure. I mean its glossy walls - one front and two side, they are actually mirrored, albeit not very easily soiled ...
In my opinion, in this case the glamor is completely unjustified - even the fact that the device is stationary and practically not designed for active touching with unwashed hands . And all this despite the fact that the remaining walls of the body are dull.
Here, for example, is the upper “cover”, or rather, all that remains of it (it contains as many as 456 holes for ventilation of the discs; recount, maybe I lost count somewhere). Under it is a silent 60mm cooler with automatic speed control, which pleasantly surprised me.
Below - a pair of rubber legs on special ledges - thanks to the resulting recesses, the device is easy to carry. Also below is a sticker with a unique serial number and many more ventilation holes - through them, air is taken in, blows around the discs and is led up.
Returning to the front part - on it, in addition to the name of the device, power indicators and two disks, there is a USB port to which you can connect something like a USB flash drive, external hard drive or printer. With a light effort, the entire front panel is removed, after which both disks become visible. More precisely, in my case, there was only one disc - 1TB ( Seagate Barracuda LP ). In principle, it’s quite spacious inside - a third disk would easily fit ... but two, then two - thanks to such a space, it’s easy to organize good cooling there. You can immediately evaluate the structural strength - the entire body consists of metal walls and L-shaped profiles with a thickness of 1 mm.
On the back side of the device are two plastic levers that allow you to pull out the discs - it is easy to pull and the disc drives out from the front side. Such a mechanism made it possible to get rid of the cassette racks that were, for example, in the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Duo drive . In this case, the disks in this case are removed and inserted back without problems - the click and that’s it.
Also at the rear is the RJ-45 gigabit port, a power and reset button, and a power connector (from the adapter). Some green controller is visible inside, but as I didn’t shine a flashlight inside, I didn’t see any inscription) I would have, because they are on the other side of the board - I didn’t think of disassembling everything. The drive runs on a Marvell 88F6281 ARM processor with a clock frequency of 1 GHz, the amount of RAM / flash memory is 128/256 MB, respectively.
In general ... in reality, the “safe” turned out to be very compact (175x150x146 mm with a weight of 2 kg), easily fit on the desktop - an almost silent cooler only contributed to this. And everything would be fine, but here is the glossy case ... IMHO, not for everybody.
I plug in the adapter and stick in the power cord.
Inclusion and work
The device is turned on by a button on the rear panel - for me personally, this arrangement of functionally important buttons is now a plus, because the child does not see them and, accordingly, does not make surprises) After turning on, by and large, only the disk itself is heard (or two, if you put the second one) - the noise level from the cooler is very comfortable. The indicators are not very bright, although in the dark they will be noticeable.
Start and initialization are fast enough. Having inserted the disk from the box into the drive, I launched the installer. At the very beginning, the softink asks for the serial number (which is written on the bottom of the device) and the desired device name.
If there are no problems with registration (and it, by the way, goes through the Internet), then the installer offers to enter the administrator account information. Next, check for software updates and ... and, in fact, everything - you can start working. Now, by the way, you can go to your drive from almost any place where there is a connection if you wish - to do this, go to% storaname% .mystora.com. My twitter readers had the opportunity to mock in test mode - they poured naked aunts until one of them changed the password for the account.
After rebooting the computer, a new icon appears in the tray - the Stora Agent program; it is also responsible for three network drives (X, Y, Z), which are automatically mounted at system startup.
All of them are of equal size - 930GB, from which we can conclude ... that's right - the MyComputer disk will be your personal file storage, “FamilyLibrary” - the “family” disk for the wife-in-law-son-daughter files, and “MyLibrary” - apparently, for your own media files. Accordingly, only the “family” folder is public, and all the others are personal for each account. Not the most obvious logical structure (as well as the way to connect to the system is also very controversial), but it is an exclusively “home” drive - you don’t have to “bother with mounting drives, registering a name in DDNS”. In addition to network drives, you can connect via FTP.
When you click on the same tray icon, a menu appears - if you click LogOut, then the disks from the system will be disconnected. If the administrator has created other accounts, then you can switch to them from the menu.
The item “Explore My Stora Folders” allows you to see a list of storage resources, and “Open Desktop Mirror” launches a simple (intuitive) program for backing up files from a computer. If you use this tool, then all files will be copied to the drive in the “My Computer” folder.
"Open Stora application" opens the web interface of the device, which was previously available when accessed through a browser by name or IP.
So, the main page of the drive in the browser. A bit gloomy ... a little later it turns out that it was made completely on a flash. Before us are three large buttons - Albums, My Library and Preferences. I will not describe everything in detail, only briefly.
Albums - in case you come from the sea and drop numerous pictures into the created virtual structure (there can be one file on the server, but the picture itself can be in different albums) - the name, description, background, access settings, etc. are set . Then you can watch it (slide show and all things), you can share a link to it with friends from anywhere in the world - in general, this is really such an album, no more, no less.
In My Library, all other files - in fact, there is a primitive file manager that allows you to manipulate downloaded files. Delete-move, file properties, search, different display methods, media filter, folder tree, etc. - everything is.
In addition, you can watch photos, play music and some videos (the full list is jpeg, png, gif, mp3, mov, mp4, flv; iTunes from the FamilyMusic folder can easily lose mp3, aac, m4a and wav).
The remaining Preferences item contains ... you won’t believe ...) In general, again, only a couple of screenshots, because almost everything is obvious.
Having access to the admin panel, you can remotely turn on / off the device (including according to the schedule), create and edit accounts, and manage backups. For about $ 20 a year, you can get a Premium service from MyStora, which will provide somewhat advanced functionality - SFTP, integration with a couple of services like Facebook and Flickr, something else ).
It is a pity, but even after updating all the firmware and software, the Russian language did not appear anywhere. In July, the manufacturer promises a new version of the firmware, but for now there is nothing left but to wait.
As for speed indicators - for the test I used the program Intel NAS Performance Tool 1.7.1, the results are as follows:
The average return of 20-30MB / s is very cool, at least against the background of many other entry-level devices. Moreover, you can not only dump all the necessary and unnecessary files onto the drive - through DLNA it will completely go down as a device from which you can directly watch movies, since even the most inveterate Blu-ray images have a stream of up to 50 Mbps.
I did not find a second hard drive for the RAID array, but on the Internet you can find data on high-speed measurements. In short - the speed becomes about 10% lower, because RAID-1 is organized by software. In the new version of the firmware, you can also make a JBOD array from two disks.
Advantages and disadvantages
Very unusual and attractive appearance; Reliable design, pre-installed silent cooler Performance sufficient for most home tasks; Easy installation, access from an Internet without unnecessary settings; Compatibility with TimeMachine; Low cost; Glossy surface; The not obvious first time folder structure; To get started, you need an Internet connection (?); Non-localized shell.Other reviews say that there are problems with the Cyrillic file names on the device - perhaps this problem was on old firmware, but I have never encountered this for all the time. It could be attributed to the minuses and the software implementation of the array ... but I rummaged around ... and did not find devices of this level with a hardware solution.
The price of a “safe” without disks is 4-5 thousand rubles, and for 7-8 you can buy a version with a 1TB disk. Such pricing is quite interesting - because for the money you get a completely ready-to-use device, so to speak, out of the box.
findings
There was already one network drive from this company, and I wrote about it - it was an excellent, but quite expensive ReadyNAS Duo . Therefore, as I understand it, Stora was released only with the aim of occupying a segment of the market for cheaper devices, so that it’s direct to every home. The inscription “Home Media Network Storage” flaunts on the packaging - perhaps there is no more suitable definition here. Indeed, the drive is really with the most home (even, probably, family) scope, really capable of performing certain multimedia functions, as indicated by the DLNA, UPnP AV and Windows Media Connect labels on the same box.
NETGEAR is not the first day on the network market and they have experience in creating various devices with RJ-45 holes) The Stora drive was no exception - everything works like a clock, everything is fine ... but, again, without any frills and frills - exclusively for people, who need to store information somewhere, but I don’t want to bother with the settings. For home or for small businesses, this is a really good choice (including price) - I connected the wires and a new drive has appeared in the system.
For more advanced users (which, I hope, most Habrazhitel is) this device is suitable only for simple file storage, for everything else (torrents, fussing with third-party software, more thorough configuration and all-all-all), devices of another class will be required. Well, or some hand-made solutions;)
Good luck!