Hitachi SimpleNET NAS Head USB 2.0 Portable Dongle SNET (Black)
From SimpleTech Technology
SimpleNET is the easiest way to make your existing USB drive even more valuable! Share its contents across your network, quickly and easily! SimpleNET is a small network adapter that enables you to share and access existing USB hard drives over a network. Simply plug a USB hard drive into SimpleNET and then plug SimpleNet into an Ethernet network. The drive then appears as a network drive on the network. Easy to install, easy to use! SimpleNet is extremely cost effective too! Why pay more for a new hard disk drive? Make your investments pay off by sharing music, photos, videos or documents in minutes! No configuration necessary, no additional drives to buy.
Color: black Brand: Hitachi Model: SNET Dimensions: 7.00" h x 5.00" w x 2.50" l, .60 pounds
SimpleNet USB NAS - Not Quite out of Beta Hatachi SimpleNet NAS USB to Ethernet promises a truly simple way to connect a USB storage device to your home network via wired Ethernet connected to your home router. Setup and control is managed through an internal web server accessible through Apple's Bonjour (zero configuration networking) software. No MAC (Media Access Control) address in included on the box so installation of Bonjour for windows ([...]) is mandatory. Apple Mac users have Bonjour built-in to OS X through Safari. All of this innovation as well as the small form factor induced me to purchase the device and set it up for use with both USB thumb drives as well as a Western Digital external USB storage device. As promised SimpleNet connected to the disk / flash subsystems and made the storage accessible over my home network via Bonjour. However in about 10 minutes the plastic box housing SimpleNet became very warm. At that time the disk / flash subsystems were no longer network accessible. The internal web broswer's setup pages then became blank and no longer displayed information. Removing the power (supplied through an included 5 volt adapter) for twenty minutes to permit the device to cool again allowed me to connect to my storage, but only after repeating the setup process. Clearly this became tedious. Note that no paper manual is provided and the mini disk containing the manual and Bonjour for Windows software is only compatible with tray drives CD readers. Sadly it's back to the store with this device. It would have been a great way to create a NAS (Network Attached Storage) system to a home or small business network. I hope they try again, but first do the beta testing in the lab. SimpleNet = SimplyAwful This device is one of the few purchases I have made where I can say I really blew it. For all practical purposes this is a discontinued device that is hanging on by a thread. I purchased it as Office Max, and it was relatively easy to setup. The problem is this: 1. It is GODAWFUL slow. Transfers over a direct network connection gives transfer rates of 500-600 K/s. You might as well be copying over the internet. 2. Files appear to be limitted to 2GB in size. When I copied a larger file, it was invisible over the network. I did read that if you accessed the drive via FTP (it has a built-in FTP and SSH server), then the file would be visible. 3. Support for the device is non-existent. Going to the Hitachi product page offers little help. It show the device, but there is no information available under downloads, support, user manuals, etc. It appears to me that they are tryiing to let this device slowly disappear. I wonder if it has anything to do with the use of Linux and FAT (like Tom-Tom). Stay away, unless you only want to backup small files (like documents of 1-10MB). Otherwise, it will drive you crazy. Simplenet dongle Surprisingly, this is a good Nas device for its price. I did not know what to expect for the Simplenet dongle. I like the design because it is plain and simple. The main reason why I bought this dongle is to share my attached devices to anyone on my network. As a Mac user, I was pleasantly surprise that this dongle is cross-platform. All my Macs and PC's are able to use this device. The itunes server is simply amazing. I can share all my music from an external hard drive to all my computers. All the features have been working. There are something's that can be improved. The transfer rate could be improved. The device itself gets pretty hot. I wish this thing had gigabit Ethernet, but even though it has some flaws I still say it's a good device for its price.
