Yep, so what next?

Shopping for computer hardware is tricky. As soon as you move beyond a basic level of comprehension, you become overloaded with concerns about futureproofing, feature/cost ratios and that sort of thing. It was much easier when all you cared about was how much it cost!

Right now, I’m shopping for a NAS: Network Attached Storage device. Basically, it’s a hard disk or disks in a little box that you can connect to the network, and use it as a shared hard drive that’s always available, no matter whose computer is switched on or off at the time.

So far, there are three serious contenders:

1.) Maxtor shared storage II 500Gb

2.) Buffalo Linkstation Pro 500Gb

3.) D-Link DNS 323 enclosure (can take two disks) and a 500Gb drive.

Each one has its definite pros and cons. They’re all pretty zippy (according to the reviews I’ve read) but each one has a definite something that the others don’t have, which I’d like to have!

- The Maxtor has an iTunes server, and allows USB connection of extra disks. However, it’s HD is built-in, meaning you can’t upgrade it later on.

- The Buffalo is a screamer, but has no media serving capabilities, and also doesn’t support swapping of disks later on.

- The D-Link comes with two empty drive bays, so it’s completely upgradable, *and* it has built-in media serving capability, but the USB port doesn’t allow adding extra disks that way, as it’s set up to recognise printers only. So far, this gets my vote because of the empty drive bay feature, but not being able to plug in our existing 500Gb USB disk is a major letdown. It’s a waste of existing gear!

Why can’t someone just make the perfect device?