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I bought a Netgear Stora MS2110 NAS (Network Attached Storage) device a few months ago for the dual purpose of using it as a cheap easy backup unit with built-in mirror RAID and a home media server to store my digital photos, videos and music so they could be streamed to other networked devices in my home.

I chose to buy the Netgear Stora because of its:

• NAS (Network Attached Storage) features like being accessible through my home network via an ethernet cable, automatic sleep mode after a period of inactivity and Gigabit ethernet transfer speeds at a great value price of $230+ $180+ retail including a 1TB hard drive
• Sleek black look – it doesn’t look like a computer device and completely fits in sitting next to my TV and TiVo in my home theatre unit
• Low noise – since it’s passively cooled with a big grill at the top of the box it doesn’t need a loud fan
• Builtin USB port – which makes it easy to share a USB drive or printer (I haven’t used this feature yet)
• Ability to make it easy to access my photos, videos and music from my TV and Digital/Streaming radio
• Included 1TB (1000GB) hard drive
• Mirror RAID feature which makes it easy to slide in another 1TB drive which automatically mirrors (backs up) the 1st drive without you having to do manual backups
• Upgradability. So in the future I could replace both 1TB hard drives with two 2TB drives. Update: I recently replaced the existing 2 1TB hard drives with 2 Western Digital 2TB drives.

Some shortcomings

• At the moment the only choice if you put in 2 drives is automatic backup. A future firmware upgrade should enable JBOD (just a bunch of drives) feature so if you put 2 drives into the Stora instead of mirroring them it accesses the drives as one big combined drive. UPDATE: this is now an option.
• The setup process requires a serial number for the software and the number is hidden underneath the Stora where you’d least expect it. It should be on top or on the side.
• I wish it had 2 hard disks already in it to make it simpler for mums and dads as a ready to to use backup solution without having to buy another drive and install it.
• I thought I had to turn the Stora off through it’s software interface but it turns out pressing the power button for 5 seconds turns it off. This should have been clearer.
• The browser based Flash interface for controlling the Stora’s admin features is slow and annoying, because you have to access it by logging into a website you can only use it through a PC/laptop with internet access

You can see speed tests comparing the Netgear Stora MS2110 to other NAS devices in PC World Australia’s review.

The Netgear Stora NAS MS2110 offers a cheap and relatively easy to use backup and home media server for a value for money price of $180+ retail

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Republishing in full not allowed without permission.. Source: bhatt.id.au/blog/

I was recently part of a Tourism New Zealand/Canon Video/Photo crew and took along a Hitachi SimpleTough 500gb Portable Storage drive to review and backup my photos as I expected our backpacks would be treated roughly during car/plane/helicopter transfers.

I copied photos from my camera’s SDHC storage cards to the Hitachi SimpleTough Portable Storage Drive as often as possible, after viewing them on my Kogan Netbook Pro and deleting badly taken photos.

The drive performed as well as a portable USB2 hard drive can be expected to in terms of file transfer speeds (which means it was frustrating slow as I was transferring many GB of photos).

I can’t wait for the widespread adoption of faster USB 3 portable storage, as I said recently during an interview about USB 3 with Radio Australia’s Tech Stream program.

Other People’s Reviews of Hitachi SimpleTough 500gb Portable Storage Drive

There’s a saying in backup circles that there’s really only two types of hard drive. Those that have failed, and those that have yet to fail. We’ve seen it attributed to many sources, but no matter the original author, it’s still stunningly true.
…
A caterpillar-style tank tread runs the length of the base of this larger than average external drive, but it’s not just for show. It unrolls out to reveal a USB 2.0 type A plug on a sealed cable. On the plus side, this means it powers from a single USB cable. On the minus side, if something goes wrong with the USB connector, it’s goodbye drive.
- Alex Kidman – CNET Australia

The Hitachi SimpleTOUGH external hard drive’s rugged enclosure and embedded USB cable make it a great companion for road warriors. If you plan to knock your hard drive about during travel, this would be a good choice.
…
The USB 2.0 cable has been embedded directly into the hard drive so it never gets lost. It’s not quite sealed when inserted back into the drive, however, so we doubt it’s fully protected against contact with liquid.
- James Hutchinson – PC World Australia

The journalist Alex Kidman at CNET Australia commented in his review of the Hitachi SimpleTough Portable Storage Drive that: “On the minus side, if something goes wrong with the USB connector, it’s goodbye drive” and looking at comments on Amazon.com by people who bought the drive it seems this failure is very common eg:

I picked up one of these a couple of weeks ago. The concept of a good ruggedized portable USB hard drive for the consumer market is LONG overdue. The 500GB SimpleTough worked fine the first few times I used it, plugging the fold out USB ribbon cable into a laptop or desktop…everything seemed ok and it worked like a champ…and was faster than any other external USB drive of its size that I’ve ever used.

Now all of a sudden I start getting “Device Not Recognized”, no matter what laptop or desktop, USB port, or even USB hub (powered) that I plugged it into, and regardless of OS (using XP or Vista). After several iterations of patiently unplugging it, letting it spin down for a minute, then plugging it back in…still not recognized.

So during my last attempt I was going to give up, box it back up and return it…I started to reach to unplug the drive and lifted it up off of my desk a little bit…and suddenly…it WORKED and my system recognized it. So I tried the theory, I unplugged it again, let it sit, plugged it back in while it was sitting flat…didn’t work…then as soon as I elevated it to about a 45 degree angle off my desk it was recognized and worked again.

Diagnosis…bad USB ribbon cable, and bad workmanship. I have treated this drive with kid gloves and it never got any kind of abuse, period. The drive may be ruggedized, but clearly the ribbon cable is a serious Achilles heel.
- Ryan Webb “webbr1″

After less than 3 weeks it stopped working. It may be rugged as per the case construction, but the cable is flimsy and the connection intermittent. I now cannot access my data as the driver is not recognized (and have not been able to find a new one to download). Customer service is a nightmare…. I have called 5 times, waiting up to 25 minutes; no one answers. Same applies to email requests for service. So I would not recommend the product nor the customer service. Pretty horrible.
- E. Hannes “Kika5″

DO not buy this drive; It is an absolute garbage.

It was a good idea to include the USB cable.
It was a cute idea to have a notch on the device where the cable can be stored for convenience.
Not such a great idea to have one end permanently molded to the device.
It was a terrible idea to have a ribbon cable with zero flexibility on one axis.
It is a horrendous design to have such a short cable — about 4 inches, that the drive will hang in mid-air if you connect to the front USB port on a desk top.

I am not sure how “rugged” the drive mechanism is, but the cable is as finicky and flimsy it can be.

My experience is identical to the other posters who got “unrecognized device” message after a while. It does it all the time and I was lucky to get my data out of the device.

I am just waiting for the next successful connection to format it so that I can return it.

All in all, the design is so bad to make the device unusable after about a month, if that long.
- kb-hunter “Good hunting”

Review Verdict

At first the Hitachi SimpleTough Portable Storage Drive “tank tread” style built-in USB2 cable seemed like a good innovation which meant purchasers didn’t have to carry a separate loose USB cable that could get lost easily.

However the majority of reviews by purchasers of the drive on Amazon.com are very angry as the cable is unreliable and often causes access to the drive to fail.

So my recommendation is do not buy any products from the Hitachi SimpleTough Portable Storage Drive series as long as they continue to have this USB2 cable design flaw.

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I was meeting with a friend recently and transferring some files onto their laptop when I realised I’ve been using USB Drives to do that for the last year. In fact I haven’t needed to burn any files to DVD ever since I got several USB Drives with 8Gb or more capacity.

Basically cheap 8GB and larger USB Drives (costing $15+ at time of writing) have made data transfers via burnt 4.7GB DVD’s obsolete.

Many people own laptops or netbooks these days so if you need to give them some files at a meeting it’s much faster and easier to copy the files onto a fast USB drive than it was in the old days of finding a blank DVD and waiting while your computer burnt the files to it.

On the more rare occasions when larger files need to be transferred eg: many videos or photographs, a portable USB hard drive is the best solution, far easier than burning dozens of DVD’s.

Do you Agree or Disagree? Have cheap 8GB and bigger USB Drives made data transfers using burnt DVD’s obsolete?

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GUEST ARTICLE: You may think you don’t need a portable hard drive but I urge you to reconsider, many people keep only 1 copy of precious information like family photos on their laptop which can get lost or stolen or their home computer where the hard drive will eventually fail after a few years. This review compares the Iomega Ego and Seagate FreeAgent Go 320 GB drives (298gb usable space).

“lost precious photos” photo credit: Kalena Jordan

When it comes to backing up your precious data, it’s worthwhile investing a decent amount of time and money to make sure you buy the right product for your storage needs. However with so many portable media solutions on the market this can be hard.

Style, Drop Protection & Warranties

Iomega’s 320gb eGo is super sleek and curvy. It was clearly designed with style in mind for people who want their computer accessories to match their iPhone and Laptop/Macbook.

With this in mind it has a shiny tough aluminum case and comes in three metallic colours: silver, midnight blue and ruby red. Iomega offers a 3-year limited warranty (registration required to extend from 1 year).

According to Iomega, the eGo is shock proof from 1.3-2.1 metres depending on the model you choose. This is handy if you accidentally knock it off your desk or if you’ll store it in a briefcase or backpack during work trips or a travelling around on a backpacker holiday.

Although it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing that your data should be safe even if your eGo gets battered and bruised, it’s probably better to limit the amount of stress you put on the eGo and avoid dropping it to just to see if it still works afterwards because magnetic platter hard drives were never designed to survive excessive or frequent shocks during use, storage or transit and will always be susceptible to some form of data loss or corruption if they’re thrown about.

Video Overview of Iomega eGo

Like most other portable hard drives in the market, the Seagate 320gb FreeAgent Go doesn’t come with any shock protection. If you’re going to use it in one place this isn’t a big problem but it is called a “portable” hard drive and therefore you’d expect it will get a few bumps and knocks during its lifespan.

What the FreeAgent Go lacks in shock protection, it makes up in size. It has a noticably smaller footprint than the eGo in terms of overall size and weight, and is equally sleek and thinner than its flashy counterpart. The FreeAgent Go is available in ten different colours and is backed up with a 5 year limited warranty, two more years than the eGo.

Video overview of Seagate Freeagent Go

4 tiny rubber feet help to prevent the eGo skidding off your desk at the slightest touch as well as allowing some airflow underneath the drive during data transfers. The FreeAgent Go doesn’t need rubber feet because its case feels rubberized which gives the unit grip on most surfaces.

Both portable hard drives connect to your Laptop/PC via a USB cable for data transfers and power. The 57.5cm Iomega cable is long enough to plug into USB slots on the bottom of a tower case and extend so the drive can sit on top of the tower case whereas the 45cm Seagate cord is too short to do this.

The Iomega eGo is sold in a standard cardboard box with an easy to access plastic case inside. In comparison the Seagate FreeAgent Go is sold in a horrible multi-layer hard plastic case which you could easily cut yourself with quite badly. If you do buy it be very careful with your fingers while pulling the drive out of its case after using big scissors to hack through the plastic.

Iomega has a little blue LED light next to the USB port which flashes quite brightly and obviously when the drive is being used for data transfers. The Seagate has a much cooler dotted pattern of holes on its case that light up and pulse slowly during data transfers but this pulsing can be hard to spot if the drive is under bright lights.

Portable Hard Drive Speed Test

Both portable hard drives were put through their paces in a two pronged speed test transferring a large amount of data from a desktop computer (Windows XP SP3) hard drive to the portable hard drives. Results reveal that the eGo delivered faster performance than the Free Agent Go in both tests by a small margin.

Test 1 (34.1 gigabytes – 8,445 photos & small .mov video files)

Test 2 (16.8 gigabytes – 100 video files)

Verdict & Price Comparison

A quick price comparison of Australian online shops revealed that the the Seagate Free Agent Go sells for $98 which is a little cheaper than the eGo for $115.

The Seagate FreeAgent Go has the advantages of being slightly smaller, lighter and cheaper than the Iomega eGo but in the end I recommend buying the Iomega eGo for peace of mind because of it’s drop protection and aluminium case.

Other People’s Reviews of Iomega Ego and Seagate FreeAgent Go

Plenty of companies have their own lines of portable external hard drives for carrying data on the go, but few have the polish of Iomega’s eGo drives. We’ve already reviewed several eGos including the eGo Helium, eGo Camo, and eGo Brown Leather and they all impressed us with a healthy amount of extra features and added drop protection.

We haven’t heard from Iomega in awhile, so we’re happy to welcome a new addition to the eGo family; in fact, we think this new 320GB eGo Portable reinvigorates the series with a sleek new design, a triple-layer software bundle, and even faster transfer speeds than previous models; we have no hesitations about giving the Iomega eGo Portable a CNET buying recommendation.
- CNET USA – Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive w/ Protection Suite (320GB, silver)

The latest generation of Seagate’s FreeAgent Go drives comes in a slender casing (12.5x80x130mm) and is certainly light enough for easy transport at only 160 grams.

From a pure data shifting viewpoint, we averaged a read speed of 23.8MBps with the FreeAgent Go and an average write speed of 25MBps, which is solid without being stunning for a drive with these characteristics over USB. Bear in mind that your choice of files – whether you’re shifting single large files or folders of many files (and especially your operating system of choice), Vista for whatever reason is still horrible for file transfers, while XP and OS X tend to perform equally well — can affect your results
- CNET Australia – Seagate FreeAgent Go Portable Drive 320GB

This article has been written by Pranav Bhatt. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Economics and Business at Sydney University. He has an interest in world travel, cricket, politics, technology and the media.

Visit the Rambling Thoughts Blog regularly to read articles about Technology, Personal Finance, TV Shows, Politics, Environment, Books and more