The One Keyboard from Matias is designed to plug into your computer (PC or Mac) for use as a keyboard and a 2-port USB 2.0 hub.  The standard model (shown above) is also designed to “connect wirelessly” to your iPhone or via Bluetooth to other smartphones for easy data entry.  You switch between the computer and phone with just a button click.  The keyboard shown is designed specifically for iPhone, but there are other models: one specifically for Blackberry, a slim keyboard that omits the numeric keypad and the on-board phone dock, and one that incorporates the phone dock into Matias’ Tactile keyboard.  Prices range from $79.95 for the slim, to $99.95 for the phone-specific models, to $199.95 for the Tactile version.  The keyboards are shipping soon; you can place a pre-order now.

Filed in categories: Bluetooth Gear, Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: iPhone 4 Bluetooth keyboard, Keyboard with USB hub

Matias One Keyboard Works with Both Your Computer and Your Smartphone originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 30, 2012 at 10:00 am.

The new wide-format Artisan 1430 inkjet printer from Epson gives you prints up to 13″ X 19″.  This printer has  advanced color and lighting correction for amazing photos, and it includes Adobe® Photoshop® Elements for more editing features.  You can print Ultra Hi-Definition prints (5760 x 1440 optimized dpi) on paper or photo paper, and you can print on CDs and DVDs.  Photos are smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant thanks to Claria® Hi-Definition Ink, and they’ll last up to four times longer than photo lab prints.  The Artisan 1430 is wireless, so you can share it with everyone on your network.  The MSRP is $299.99, but there’s currently an $80 mail-in rebate.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: Printer, Wireless

Epson’s New Wide-Format Artisan 1430 Printer originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 18, 2012 at 8:03 am.

Got a new Mac with the brand new Thunderbolt port but no accessories to connect to it?  The only accessories out now for the Thunderbolt port would be the $999 Apple Thunderbolt Display, a Thunderbolt to HDMI adaptor, or those pricey Thunderbolt External Hard Drives.  Don’t you just wish you could do more with that Thunderbolt port?  That’s where Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock comes in.  Announced at CES 2012, this dock packs 3 USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire 800 port, HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet jack, 3.5mm audio jack, and a pair of Thunderbolt ports capable of daisy chaining.  This will be something that I’ll definitely get for my Macbook Air 11” which only has 2 lonely USB ports.  As much as I would want this, the price of $299 is quite expensive for this dock.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: Dock, thunderbolt, USB

Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 10, 2012 at 8:00 am.

Logitech has just announced the Cube.  It’s a powerful mouse  that connects with your computer (PC and Mac) via the included Unifying Receiver, which features Logitech Advanced 2.4 GHz connectivity with the “reliability of a cord with the convenience of wireless, along with the option to connect up to six compatible devices.”  The Cube mouse is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand or in a pocket.  It has a rechargeable battery and an off switch so you don’t waste battery when you don’t need it.  Using Logitech’s Flow Scroll software, stroke your finger along the top panel and you’ll experience smooth, continuous scrolling that’s similar to scrolling on a touchscreen smartphone.  It also functions as a presenter.  Just lift it into the air and wait a moment while it switches modes, then you can advance slides by simply “clicking” the top of the mouse.  When you need to go back, turn the Cube over, then click again.  It’s available online only for $69.99 at Logitech.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: Mouse

The Logitech Cube – A New Type of Mouse originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 6, 2012 at 8:21 am.

Keyboards have been around for years.  They come in different shape, sizes and colors.  But what if I want a keyboard that can change functionality depending on which program I have open?  Art Lebedev’s Optimus Popularis is a beautifully engineered keyboard where each key is actually a mini screen.  Each key on the Optimus Popularis can be programmed to change functionality and to display whatever you want on that mini key.  There’s also a long screen that goes across the keyboard between the function and numeral keys where you can display a custom range of information such as temperature, stocks, CPU usage, etc.  Art Lebedev’s Optimus Popularis is the ultimate keyboard for those that can afford the $1,086 price tag.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, News

Tagged: Keyboard

Art Lebedev’s Optimus Popularis Programmable Keyboard originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 1, 2012 at 1:00 pm.

The team at Drobo asked The Gadgeteer to review their Drobo S, generation two, a five bay USB and/or Firewire storage enclosure.  For those unfamiliar with Drobo, the company came on the storage scene in the middle of 2007 with a focus on making storage simple.  I like to think of Drobo as the black-colored Apple of the USB and Firewire storage market. The reason that I think of Drobo this way is that the Drobo team has a similar mindset and focus as Apple with their desire to take an old idea and give it a new and useful spin, all in a glossy black coating.  Drobo may not be the the first to deliver innovative features, or the least expensive product in the market, but they have a loyal following.  In this review we will see if the Drobo S, at $799 from the Drobo Store, can deliver the ease of use and performance that has converted many consumers to avid followers of the shiny little black storage box.

Over the years Drobo has done a good deal of listening to their customers as well as to the market and has added new products to the mix including Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems designed for the small and medium business marketplace.  Personally, I can remember when Drobo came to market in 2007.  At the time, many storage vendors were moving to deliver NAS offerings, and Drobo lagged in the market by a few years with only USB and Firewire connectivty.  When Drobo delivered their first NAS product to market it was a kludge at best, requiring an external networking box to connect the Drobo to the network.  This kludgie time period within the Drobo corporate history is securely in the rear-view mirror of the company as they are now delivering a full family of storage solutions for the home and business market including a NAS offering in a single package.

Drobo delivered their Drobo S, second edition, and I opened the package to find a well packed product that is reminiscent of my opening my first Mac, albeit in black versus the Apple Mac white.  I had to stop myself from thinking outloud if Drobo is the yin to the Apple corporate yang. All joking aside, the second generation of the Drobo S differs from the first edition in that it adds a USB 3.0 port where the first generation only offered USB 2.0 along with Firewire.  The Drobo box includes a simple-to-open secondary box, labeled “Welcome to the World of…” as well as the Drobo S unit wrapped in a black felt-like material labeled with the Drobo logo.  Upon opening the secondary box, I was greeted by the Drobo company logo.   I was now officially “Welcome(d) to the World of Drobo.”
I must admit that the packaging was the first of its kind that I had seen in an external or NAS storage device, and it made me think about the thought that went into the packaging and how the Drobo team really cares about its products.  In my opinion, caring about packaging is something all of the technology and gadget vendors in the world could do with a little bit more of.  Understandably, having this kind of packaging adds to the cost of the overall unit and may be one of the reasons that many vendors stay away from delivering it along with their products, but I think that charging a little extra for great packaging that delivers the value of the company brand is worthwhile in the long run as it ensures that the company is burned in the mind of the consumer.  I am getting off of my soap box now and getting back to the review.

The secondary box contained;  USB 3.0/2.0, eSATA, and Fireware cables, power adapter and US three prong power plug, a CD with software, and 1/2 inch thick instruction manual.  For those that know me, I am not much a RTFM kind of guy in my regular life, but when doing product reviews I spend a good deal of time reviewing the instructions and following each direction as a good consumer should, but I was a bit shocked to find a 1/2 inch thick instruction manual in the box as this should be as easy as setting up any other storage device:  install software, connect up power and connectivity, add drives, and away you go.  The team at Drobo elected to include an instruction manual with four languages to ensure worldwide applicability.  The English section of the instruction manual comprised 40 pages of the manual and the first few pages were a glorified advertisement for the Drobo, which you would have already been happy to have purchased and then see more advertising.  I remember a movie that I saw in the past, I think it was Dave, in which a fake president asked his cabinet to cut their budget and one of the line items was for an advertising campaign to ensure the consumers that purchased American cars were happy with their car purchase.  From this reviewer’s perspective, it just does not make sense to advertise to your customers that have already purchased  your products when it was obvious that they had already convinced themselves to have purchased the products to begin with.  What I really liked about the packaging, was the top part of the secondary box that when opened showed you three simple steps to getting the product setup:

1)  Install the Dashboard from the Drobo provided CD

2)  Insert drives in Drobo, starting with at least two drives

3)  Connect power and computer cables and follow Drobo Dashboard directions.

Could it really be that simple?  The answer is yes, it really was that simple.

The Drobo unit itself is very pretty in a gloss and flat black finish.  In fact, the gloss black front cover is so glossy I had a hard time taking pictures of it with my DSLR, so I resorted to using a Drobo-provided product shot.  Be warned, if you like your products clean and shiny, the Drobo will not make you happy as it is a fingerprint magnet of the highest order.  The Drobo S is 5.9″ wide, 7.3″ high, 10.3″ deep and weighs in at 8lbs without any hard drives or the power supply.

The front of the Drobo has a number of lights on it, including;

• Five bay status lights on the right hand side arranged vertically to mirror the drive bays they show the status of
• Power light on the left hand lower corner
• Capacity lights in blue from lower left to right that light up to show you available capacity as a percentage in 10% increments, or a total of ten lights
• Access light that shows when the unit is being accessed for read-write operations

The front door of the Drobo unit is magnetic, a first in the storage devices that I have reviewed, and makes for easy removal and re-installation, albeit prone to being installed upside down.  In my case I installed the door upside down several times.  The air flow and venting are symmetrical so there are no concerns with installing the door upside down.   On the back of the door is a legend that clearly shows the meaning of the various drive action status lights and the actions that are required, including:

• Green:  None, system healthy
• Yellow: Add a drive here soon
• Yellow/Green:  Don’t remove this drive
• Red:  Add a drive here
• Red Flashing:  Drive failure, replace

One thing that I did notice about the front of the unit and the sides is that there seems to be a very small amount of air flow vents cut into the surfaces.  Most units of this design have larger air vents to allow the air to flow from front to back as it is pulled by a cooling fan.  We will have to see how the Drobo S fairs in terms of cooling in our testing.

On the back of the Drobo S one can find the following:

• 12V power connector
• eSATA connection
• Two Firewire 400/800 ports for primary connection and daisy chaining a secondary Firewire device
• USB 3.0/2.0 port
• Power toggle switch
• Kensignton Cable Lock Connector to keep the Drobo S in place when would-be thieves come calling

Much of the surface area of the rear of the Drobo S is occupied by venting for the cooling fan.  The team at Drobo elected to fit five drives into the standard size drive enclosure where other vendors would normally fit four.  One of the main design considerations for this trade off was where to place the AC transformer, inside or outside of the unit.  The team at Drobo elected to go with external placement to keep the form factor of the Drobo S smaller, while adopting a laptop style AC adapter to the packaging.

One of the main features that I was looking forward to testing out is the BeyondRAID data layout and disk management utility that is built into the Drobo S unit.  Where other vendors stick with standard RAID configurations, from RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, Drobo elected to utilize a proprietary RAID setup.  BeyondRAID  enables a consumer to use drives of different sizes and capabilities where most vendors with their standard RAID layouts require the same drive capacities and capabilities.  Also, recently the team at Drobo updated BeyondRAID to include an implementation of RAID 6, or parallel RAID, enabling the Drobo S to survive two disk failures out of five in the unit.  While the mathematics behind figuring out the case where two drives fail at the same time escapes me, the team at Drobo wants to ensure that your important data is available in the case of the unthinkable happening.

To ease the transition to BeyondRAID the team at Drobo has delivered a web-based Capacity Calculator.  The Capacity Calculator is a intuitive drag and drop application in which you select your drive capacity and add it to your Drobo unit of choice and the bottom line capacity is calculated and displayed.

At this point, it was time to add my SATA Hard Disk Drives to the unit.  The Drobo adds another innovative feature to the external storage market, carrier-less drives.  The Drobo does not require any mounting rails or enclosures for Hard Disk Drives, making insertion and removal a breeze.  No more fighting with the enclosure to fit the drive in or screwing in minuscule Phillips headed screws only to lose one and have to get on your hands and knees to find it.  A very nice touch for the Drobo S.

The drives that I used for my testing included the following:

• 2 x Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM SATA
• 1 x Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200 RPM SATA

To start the testing I installed two drives; a 1TB and a 500GB.  I then launched the Drobo Dashboard on my MacBook Pro and was told that it was ready to connect.  I then turned on the power to the Drobo S and was asked if I wanted to check for an update to the Drobo S, which I did.  There were no updates available.  Next, the Drobo Dashboard asked me to format the hard drives installed in the system as they had not been seen by the Drobo S before.  There were two choices available, HFS+, and FAT32.  I should take a moment at this point to explain that all file systems are not created equally, nor are they all accessible from every operating platform.  For example, Windows, Linux, and Mac systems can all see FAT32, but only a Mac can see HFS+.  That is one of the main differences between the various file systems.  There are many others, including performance, availability in the case of a device failure, maximize volume and single file size, data layouts, and application support to name a few, but this product review is not a review of files systems.  If you are interested in finding out more about file systems you can check out the Wikipedia’s File System Comparison chart.  The Drobo Dashboard tells you about the difference between HFS+ and FAT32 in terms of operating platform connectivity.  For this product review I selected HFS+ to ensure a high level of performance and reliability.

Next, I was asked how large I would like my volumes to be.  I selected the largest volume size of 16TB, not that I am going to ever grow to that size, but I may go there in the future, and the Drobo Dashboard tells me as much, by asking me to plan for the “foreseeable future.” Finally, I was asked to give the volume a name.  I selected Drobo-Vol1 so when it shows up on my Mac I know what I am looking at.  The formatting started and a message was displayed on the Drobo Dashboard that the Drobo formatting will take five minutes and require a reboot of the Drobo, along with a message to “Please be patient and allow Drobo to finish the format process.”  The formatting process took under five minutes, exactly 4:32 to be exact at which point I was shown the available capacity of my Drobo S at 432.99GB of free space. You may be saying “wait a minute, I thought that you said that you put a 1TB and a 500GB drive in the Drobo S, should it be more free space?”  Ah, but don’t forget that this is a BeyondRAID configuration and the Drobo S is capable of losing either drive and continuing on, in effect one drive is backing the other up, similar to a RAID 1 configuration, or a simple mirror.

As you can see above in the Drobo Dashboard, the usable capacity is broken down based on the BeyondRAID layout of the two drives, with the following:

• 434.89GB usable capacity for data
• 465.75GB reserved for expansion
• 496.62GB used for protection, in case of a drive failure
• 815.08MB overhead

After formatting I was told that an update of the Drobo S is available, to firmware v2.1.2 and if I wanted to update, I selected “Yes.”

At this point, the Drobo asked me to stop any data transfers and wait until the Drobo came back up, reminding me not to unplug or disconnect the Drobo while the update operation was in progress.  Once the update completed, the Drobo Dashboard asked me to reboot the Drobo, which I did. When the Drobo rebooted the lights on the device flashed and settled down to show the two drive bays occupied with a bright green.  Once that completed, the Drobo Dashboard told me that an update to the Drobo S had an updated version, v2.0.3a and would I love to install the update.  I said “Yes” and off I went to upgrade the Drobo Dashboard, which took approximately three minutes to download.  The time required to download the software will vary depending on the speed of your Internet connection.  Once download, it took another two minutes to install and I was back in the Drobo Dashboard, ready to manage my Drobo S.

While the Drobo S was running on my desk it was barely noticeable in terms of noise, and the unit stayed cool during my testing, nullifying my initial concerns about venting and airflow.

What is Thin Provisioning all about?

Once the Drobo S setup was complete, I opened Finder on my MacBook Pro to find the Drobo S was not available for content.  I select the drive and selected “Get Info” to see the capacity as seen from my Mac’s perspective and was told I had 17.59TB of capacity, as can be seen below.

At this point, you are probably saying to yourself , “wait a minute, there was only 400+GB available from the Drobo S a moment ago, how did the Mac see over 17TB’s of capacity?” The answer is in a technology called Thin Provisioning.  Thin Provisioning technology enables a device to virtualize the storage and make it appear to the operating platform, users, and applications that there is more storage available then there truly is.  In reality there is still only 450GB of storage available, but it looks to me as there is a much larger pool of storage available.  This works well for users that think they need a lot of storage, but tend not to use it, which will increase the costs for the organization without any really benefit.  While not a perfect solution, Thin Provisioning, is very useful for users that do not need as much space as they think that they do.  Thin Provisioning is in contrast to what the industry has come to call Fat Provisioning in which the full amount storage is actually allocated at the time of provisioning regardless of usage.  In the case of the Drobo S, the thin provisioning provides a bit of a buffer to expand the volume to almost double the size in the BeyondRAID configuration that I was working with.  This was all done automatically for me, which saved me a bunch of time during the setup process.  Most vendors do not offer Thin Provisioning at all, let alone in a package at this price point. If you would like to read more about Thin Provisioning check out the Wikipedia page on Thin Provisioning.

Is expanding storage capacity really that simple?

One of the major claims from the team at Drobo is how easy it is to expand the capacity of their Drobo units, and I set about testing this claim by adding a 1TB 7200 RPM drive to the unit, and it did not miss a beat.  It took under five minutes to add the new drive and grow the volume.  When completed, the Drobo S turned the drive bay light green to mark that it was added.  I must say that it was a very smooth and seamless process that impressed me.  With other vendor’s storage products, one usually has to plan for drive expansion and allow time for the new drive to be added and the system rebalanced to deliver maximum performance and usable capacity.

After adding the 1TB, drive the Drobo S updated the volume layout within the BeyondRAID configuration and provided a new set of capacity metrics, which can be seen below.

By adding a 1TB drive the following usage was available:

• 1.30TB available for data
• 0GB reserved for expansion
• 992.11GB used for protection, in case of a drive failure
• 2.3GB of overhead

Another view of the Drobo Dashboard showing the capacity of the newly expanded BeyondRAID configuration can be seen below:

I must admit, that I like the Drobo Dashboard; it is intuitive and very pleasing to my eyes.  Other storage vendors in the market should take note of the simplicity and workflow of the Drobo Dashboard and look to incorporate its simple and glacial approach to storage management.  With that said, at the price point of $799 it should be this simple and one is paying for this level of simplicity.  I remember from almost a decade ago that several analysts said that the initial cost of storage was some 15% of the overall cost, while the other 85% was born out of the management expense of the personnel and other costs.  From an enterprise perspective these costs may be hard to justify a higher initial out of pocket, but I realize that over time the amount of time that I personally devote to managing my storage is costly and having this kind of management interface and capabilities ensures that I will not be spending hours and hours working that I have done in the past when the management capabilities were not as intuitive or well laid out.

Also, the Drobo S has a strong of blue lights on the lower part of the unit that show the usable capacity in 10% consumption based increments.

Performance

I created a number of file sets to test the Drobo S with, including a small file set composed of thousands of smaller 1MB files, and a large file set with 100 1GB+ files.  I utilize my MacBook Pro and connected the Drobo S via USB 2.0 for the first test.

The performance of the Drobo S with three drives was 27.5MB/s write and  34.2MB/s read.  While not super impressive for the small file test given that there are three 7200 RPM SATA disks in the Drobo S, I am not surprised as the USB connection could not sustain a high level of writes.

During the large file test, the Drobo S faired a bit better with 34.5MB/s write and 40.3MB/s read.

Both tests show that the Drobo S can handle most of the workloads that it will run into on a daily basis, including streaming SD and some lower-resolution encoded HD video.  I did not test it personally, but I believe that HD content encoded in true HD will present a challenge for the Drobo S as one needs consistent 40MB/s performance to stream a high quality HD piece of content.  Personally, I would expect the performance to be a bit higher, but I am not familiar the specifics of the internal processor and memory of the Drobo S.

Reliability

I wanted to test the reliability of the Drobo S, so I set a test in place that would see how the Drobo S does under load when a drive was pulled out.  First step is to create a test load, which I did using my large file set.  The system was humming along at a hair over 30MB/s when I pulled the lowest drive, a 1TB 7200 RPM drive.  Immediately, the lights on the Drobo S changed from a green to a flashing green and yellow signifying that I should not remove any drives and that the unit was in a recovery mode.

Also, on the Drobo Dashboard, which I have come to find installed itself as a startup application-a mixed blessing we all know well – that a red warning message appeared telling me that my “Drobo cannot currently protect your data against hard drive failures.”

The Drobo S continued to copy the files, albeit a bit slower.  Performance dropped to 14.8MB/s during the reconstruct.  I opened the Drobo Dashboard to dig a bit deeper into the status and I found that the management software displayed very useful information, including a time estimate to complete the reconstruct of six minutes.  True to the estimate, the Drobo S completed the reconstruct in just a hair over 5:30.

During the reconstruction, the file copy completed and the unit returned to normal operational mode, as you can see in the screen shot of the Drobo Dashboard below.

Finally, to test that the Drobo S could fully recover, I reinserted the failed drive, which was never actually a bad drive, under the same load, and the Drobo S instantly recognized the drive as one it had seen before and added it to the BeyondRAID configuration.  During the reinsertion of the drive, performance was as seen before with this file set of 37.2MB/s.

One other note on the management capabilities of the Drobo S.  The Drobo Dashboard includes a proactive email capability that supports sending email alerts to a user or administrator of choice in the case of a failure or other useful information.  This is a very nice feature for those in a corporate setting in which the user may not manage his or her own systems, especially with a USB device that does not sit on the network, nor is centrally managed.

Backup?

The Drobo S can serve as a backup target, or Time Machine target for Macs.  For Time Machine, I would strongly suggest creating a separate volume within the Drobo to keep your files and backups separate.  Finally, the Drobo S has a Drobo Copy function available from within the Drobo Dashboard that can automatically backup source folders to the Drobo S at a scheduled time and day.  This is a nice feature for those that want to automate the backup of Windows, Linux, or Mac file sets without having to load a third party backup software package or run Time Machine.  I did not test the Drobo Copy capability during my testing so I do not have any information or review to share on this capability.

Conclusion

So, the big question, will the Drobo S live on, or will it go to the gadget graveyard?  The answer isn’t a simple cut-and-dry one as it is in most of my reviews.  A few years ago I purchased a NetGear ReadyNAS and have been using it as a consolidated storage pool for all of my systems in my home where I backup and store all of my content.  I also have a few USB storage devices that I use for travel and scratch space for my video projects that are starting to fill up and I need to spend the time to clean them out, so from that perspective the Drobo S will find a home on my desk, but in the long term I see it going to the gadget graveyard as the performance and price tag are not what they need to be for me to use the Drobo S on a daily basis.

Overall, the Drobo S is a very well executed USB and Firewire storage product.  The major selling points for me are the simplicity and usability found in the Drobo Dashboard coupled with the efficiency found in Thin Provisioning and reliability of the Drobo S.  The mediocre performance and exorbitantly high price detract from what otherwise is a very well rounded storage unit.  I would like to see how the Drobo network storage solutions perform as I see users, including myself, migrating away from USB and Firewire disk enclosures to network attached storage products that can be placed within a centralized location, like my wiring coat closet, or even in a small and medium business wiring closet with the telephone equipment and centralized server.  Even home users are moving to centralizing their storage and consolidating down the number of storage resources, if not for any other reason, but to share the content.  There are some markets, such as digital video editing that will always require a direct connection of some kind to the workstation for scratch or temporary disk space where the Drobo S and other like it will find homes, but I see their time drawing to a close as well as networks and NAS devices increasingly will compete and win this market.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews

Tagged: External hard drive storage

Drobo S Storage Array Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 31, 2011 at 11:00 am.

With the move to eSATA, many consumers are looking for a way to quickly and easily clone or move their content from their current SATA or IDE disk drive to a new eSATA drive, or they may be looking for a way to connect a new eSATA drive to a USB port for quick and easy access to data from another system. In either case, most of those looking to use this kind of product are professional techies within the IT Support Function of a company or service provider looking to deliver quick and easy service to their clients who want their important data moved between an old system and a new one, or have had a system failure and want quick access to recover their data. StarTech, the maker of many useful gadgets to connect everything from your home theater to your servers and USB devices, asked The Gadgeteer to review the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock. While I do not regularly need to clone disk drives, I do have the need to copy my trusty USB 500GB hard disk drive to a eSATA drive that I am installing in my kids’ PC so I have an online backup copy of my content. Read on to see how the product fared and if it ended up in my gadget graveyard or not.

I received the box and quickly opened it to find the following:

• StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock
• AC Power Supply for the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock Product Review
• USB to eSATA Cable
• Mini USB to USB Male Cable
• Product Manual written in several languages

The StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock is tiny and easily fits in the palm of my hand. Weighing 1.59 oz (45G) and measuring in at a scant .64″ (16.3mm) high x 2.76″ (70mm) wide x 3.15″ (80mm) long it is easy to see how taking the product along for the ride would be simple.

The Hard Drive Duplicator Dock is well labeled with ports for every hard disk drive interface that you can think of, save for SCSI, but no one really uses SCSI devices any longer. With that said, the weight of the product and size does not include the required power supply, which easily quadruples the weight. I would have thought that StarTech would have gone for a smaller cell phone style pop up AC prong charger to match the scant size of their Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock, but then they would have had to pick a voltage and made two part numbers, one for the 240 folks, and another for the 110 folks. This way, they killed two birds with one AC Adapter, but gave up on the ultimate portability.

I used the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock to duplicate one of my USB hard disk drives to a new eSATA drive that I planned to install in a PC that my kids are using. To use the device, one simply connects the AC power and the source and target hard disk drives to the correct ports on the Hard Drive Duplicator Dock and presses a button and the cloning magically happens. The process can be monitored by looking at the progress bar LEDs that are broken into four 25% segments. Depending on your drive size and drive characteristics, the cloning process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours for larger drives and those with slower interfaces. When I cloned my drive, a 500GB disk drive it took a bit under two hours. The drives were connected via USB and the eSATA connections. From my review of the clone drive, it was a perfect copy of the original – there were no issues with the files nor directory structure of the cloned drive. I used the Drive Duplicator to connect the eSATA drive to my laptop via USB, as the dock enables one to use an eSATA drive through USB in a slave mode. I tried a number of drives and the device was a bit finicky on which drives it would connect to, but after a bit of fiddling with the connection and powering the device off and on I was able to see the drives.

The Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock can also be used as a slave device to allow you to connect your USB, SATA, or eSATA devices to your PC or Mac to browse the contents of a disk drive. To change the mode of the device, one simply presses the Mode Selection Button and the color changes to show you that the mode has been switched. I should add that the device also shows that source, target, and slave devices have been successfully recognized by changing colors on the LEDs. This is important as you need a visual “OK” to show you that you are ready to go. The Slave Mode is a very useful feature as I was able to connect my PC drive to my Mac without the use of a drive enclosure. For a professional techie or service technician this capability is invaluable as one can show up at a job site and access any disk drive type simply and easily. As we all know, or should know, when you have a system failure, the first thing that you do is worry about your precious data and many of us do not backup our data as we should. Being able to connect up any disk drive type to your laptop and check that the information is ok is worth the $75 asking price alone. Having drive cloning capability on top of that is an added benefit along with the size and portability of the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock.

To sum up the review, I would happily recommend the StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock for any professional techie or service technician that needs to quickly and easily clone or access the contents of a disk drive. The Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock is available on the StarTech website as well as your favorite gadget retailers for around $75. The StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock will live on, perhaps not in daily use, but at least a couple of times a year.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews

Tagged: Duplication, eSATA, Hard Drive

StarTech Portable eSATA USB to SATA Standalone HDD Hard Drive Duplicator Dock Product Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 26, 2011 at 12:30 pm.

The Gadgeteer was asked by the team at Buffalo Technology, makers of wireless networking, NAS, and all around good gadgets for the hi-tech home and business, to review one of their latest NAS products, the Buffalo TeraStation Pro Quad – TS-QVH8.0TL/R6.   The Buffalo TeraStation Pro Quad is positioned for storing and protecting the small and medium business market’s (SMB) most important asset – its data.  While not specifically designed for the home market, and with a price tag of $1,200, I can understand why it is positioned as such.  From my perspective, the home technology consumer market is quickly evolving and on the edge of that market are consumers looking for a way to quickly and easily share their media, documents, and other content and may look at these NAS offerings shortly.  Having reviewed several other NAS products for The Gadgeteer, I was excited to review one of the larger and more performance-oriented NAS products on the market.I received the Buffalo TeraStation Pro Quad and opened the box to find a well packaged NAS unit complete with power cord, CAT-6 Ethernet Cable and a package with a CD and setup instructions.  From a physical perspective, the Buffalo TeraStation measures in at 6.7″ wide x 8.5″ deep x 9.1 ” high.  It is a small form factor when you consider that it holds four standard 3.5″ hard disk drives in hot-swappable bays.  Many of the NAS units in the market have a similar small form factor.

Weighing the unit I came up with 17.2lbs without the power cable.  From a power perspective, the Buffalo TeraStation is worldwide-capable, supporting 110-240v power through an integrated power supply, which adds to the weight of the unit.  The Buffalo TeraStation is finished in a flat black textured plastic and will fit in well within a network or server environment  While the product packaging does not exude quality – as it feels a bit cheaper then it should for the price – I have seen a lot worse and a lot better.  The Buffalo TeraStation could do with a makeover to bring it up to the  higher build quality and more modern look and feel of  the NetGear ReadyNAS family of NAS products.  From my perspective, The NetGear ReadyNAS family of NAS products are more stylized as they use polished metals and more attractive and tactile smooth finishes.  Look and feel is subjective and I can understand why Buffalo selected the black matte finished texture, as it neither adds nor detracts the look and feel of a data center; it just sits there and does its job – storing and ensuring that data is available when and how it is requested.On the front of the unit are the following:

• Power Button that lights up when the system is active
• Two-Line Backlit LCD Message Panel – making for easy reading in the dark
• Lights for Error, Information, LAN 1, and LAN 2
• Display Button
• Function Button
• Keyed Locking Mechanism
• VGA Port for connecting an external display, but the disk door must remain open

On the back of the Buffalo TeraStation are every network and storage port that one could think of, save for an eSATA connection, which some consumers may be looking for given the eSATA devices on the market.  The fit and feel of the back of the unit is anything but simple, reminding me of my first DELL Servers, simple metal with etched port names and a removable fan that requires a Phillips screwdriver for removal. One nice thing about the design of the back of the Buffalo TeraStation is that it includes a power connector stabilizer that will keep the power plugged into the unit.  It is the little black piece of plastic that is directly below the power connector in the above picture – a nice addition that keeps the power flowing and the connection secure.   The Buffalo TeraStation has the following ports on the back of the unit:

• Two USB 3.0 ports – that are color coded in the standard USB 3.0 blue color
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• Two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports
• UPS Serial port
• Power Connector
• USB-Internal HDD Boot Selector Switch
• Fan Outlet – I strongly recommend placing the unit so there is adequate ventilation of six inches behind the unit
• Kensington Security Connector

The unit came with a Quick Setup Guide that informed me that there were five steps to setup the software.  The instructions were simple to follow and also included the most important information, the default userid and password to get into the NAS Management Console – TeraStation Navigator.

Within a few minutes of running through the five steps on the setup program that came on the CD, I was able to access the Buffalo TeraStation.  All and all the setup was very simple and straightforward, and I could see any user that had a basic knowledge of their network setup the Buffalo Terastation with ease.  Once up and running, I saw that the Buffalo Terastation had an easy to read LCD front panel that displays the status of the NAS device along with information on the IP address on the network and a host of other useful information.  I logged into the TeraStation Navigator, the web based management interface, and started to explore the management console and the features of the Buffalo TeraStation.  The Buffalo TeraStation was very quiet and did not run hot during my testing.  There was a good deal of airflow on the front and the back of the unit drawing cool air across the hard disk drives.  I could barely hear it running in my wiring closet in my home.  Most small businesses or home users will be installing the unit in wiring closet or cabinet next to other equipment, such as a server, that will, most likely, be louder than the Buffalo TeraStation.

To log into the TeraStation Navigator, one needs to supply a username and password, which can be setup in the setup.

The web-based management interface is fairly intuitive given my experience with other NAS systems.  For those that have not setup a NAS system, the management interface is reminiscent of the 802.11G and 802.11N wireless routers that many have learned to manage.  One of the instructions is to set the local time zone in the web management interface, which I did and the clock automatically set itself as the Buffalo TeraStation is set to a Network Time Protocol Server.  The web-based management interface is setup around a two-tier navigation framework with major tasks at the the top level and secondary tasks within the selected section available once the top level is selected.  An example is under the System top level category are functions grouped into that area, including; settings, storage, LVM, LVM Volume, Backup, Failover, Maintenance, Power Management, and Restore/Erase.

From the time zone setup, I explored a bit further and found the storage tab, where I saw that the Buffalo TeraStation ships in a RAID 5 configuration by default.  For those unfamiliar with RAID, it stands for Redundant Array of Independent Drives.  There are a number of RAID configurations that meet the performance and data availability requirements.  For each configuration there is a certain amount of overhead in terms of stripping the data across the drives.  The base system includes 8TB of RAW storage capacity in four (4) 2TB SATA drives.  In a RAID 5 configuration, data is stripped across the drives and the fourth drive is where all of the parity data is written.  In other words, performance is increased as the four drives are combined in a single logical volume and each write takes advantage of the four drives together while the parity stripe protects the drives in case a single data drive is lost.

From a NAS protocol support perspective the Buffalo TeraStation offers every protocol one could want, including:

• NFS – Network File System support for Linux
• CIFS (SMB) – for Microsoft Windows and Mac
• HTTP – for serving web pages directly from the Buffalo TeraStation
• FTP – File Transfer Protocol
• BitTorrent
• iTunes
• DLNA
• AFS
• Time Machine

What makes the Buffalo TeraStation good for small and medium sized business?

Performance

To test the performance of the Buffalo TeraStation, I created two file sets; a small file set with thousands of ~1MB files, and a second large file set with 20 100MB+ files.  I tested the file copy from a standard Mac and PC setup, both with SSDs, and found that for small files, the performance delivered an impressive 38Mb/s thanks to the read-write performance of the processor, RAM cache, and multiple drives.  Single drive systems can turn in 4-8Mb/s performance, while a multiple drive NAS system can easily double, or in this case quadruple the performance.  For the larger files the performance increased to 42.6Mb/s.  Larger files usually deliver more impressive results in testing for these systems as the file size makes a single file movement simple.  I will add that I did not turn on Jumbo Frames on the devices as it would have increased the performance a bit more as the MTU size goes from 1500 to 9000 or six times the amount of data in each packet on the wire.

Hardware and Operating System

From a hardware perspective the Buffalo TeraStation has a 1.6Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM and runs Buffalo’s own NAS operating system.  I am assuming that Buffalo selected an open source version of Linux and then added in the packages that they needed to meet the needs of the market.   In the end, the operating system and feature set is extremely well done and complete, making for a seamless experience.

Availability and Replication Built-In

With RAID protection built-in and the processor and RAM to keep your files moving, the Buffalo TeraStation will keep up with the demands of many small and medium businesses as well as many home users looking to beef up their media collections.  I was able to test the Buffalo TeraStation replication using a secondary Buffalo TeraStation on my network.  I was excited to see my files replicate the two systems and failover occur seamlessly when I cut the power to the primary system.  The Buffalo TeraStation takes advantage of a Distributed File System (DFS) to resolve network aliases to allow easy access to files.  Within the web-based management console, there is a setting that enables the Buffalo TeraStation to failover and take ownership of the files that have been replicated.  The Buffalo TeraStation automatically recognized the backup Buffalo TeraStation and configured itself for failover once the device was set as the target device.  After the failover, the devices synchronized themselves once the primary device came back online.  This feature was impressive as all of my changes to the files replicated back to the restored system as though nothing changed.  One thing to realize is that the replicated target must be the same size as the primary storage.  In other words, there is no free lunch. One other thing to realize is the network segment that the replication is on will get a bit hot during replications, and I would strongly suggest looking at setting up a separate VLAN to keep the devices on their own segment if you plan on using this feature.  You will give up some of the redundancy of trunking two paths together, but you will gain a much faster replication.  With that said, replication will take away from the overall performance of the device itself.  I did not test the performance during replication and suggest that this is again a no free lunch concern of having a device that can do so much in a single package.

Backup support

The Buffalo TeraStation comes with a 10 pack of backup software supporting backup of all of the major operating systems.  Additionally, the Buffalo TeraStation supports Apple’s Time Machine for Mac so no additional software is needed to backup your Windows, Linux, or Mac clients.  This is a major plus for those in the IT market looking to deploy a centralized backup target for all of their critical servers and users that would not backup without a central storage device.  Many IT shops distribute USB devices to backup their critical servers and workstations.  While effective, centralizing backup to a NAS system enables a better level of control.  Further, one can add a USB backup hard disk drive device to the Buffalo TeraStation and back it up for a third level of support, or leverage the included integration with Amazon S3 Cloud Storage Service to automatically backup important data to the cloud.

Security

With support for 128bit AES encryption the Buffalo TeraStation ensures that even if someone has physical access to the device it will be very hard, but not impossible, for the thief to access the files contained within the system.  By default the encryption is disabled and one will need to enable it.   Encryption will slow device writes and reads and is a necessary trade-off in some security-conscious organizations.

Virus Checking Built-In

The Buffalo TeraStation includes built-in virus protection which keeps your files free from viruses.  The team at Buffalo strongly suggests creating a secondary file share to quarantine suspected infected files.

Three year warranty

Buffalo backs their Buffalo TeraStation with an industry-leading three-year warranty.

Industry leading support

I looked at the Buffalo Technology website and reached out to the technical support team via contacting their support center and found the staff knowledgeable and supportive for even the simplest question.  Also, the Buffalo TeraStation is capable of checking and updating the operating system on its own.  I did not get a chance to test this feature out as there was no new upgrades available.  I suspect the upgrade will require an outage in serving files as the system will surely have to reboot.  Additionally, the Buffalo TeraStation supports a UPS.  In the case of a power failure, the UPS will gracefully shut down the Buffalo TeraStation, avoiding a time consuming replay of the log and checking the RAID layout for errors.

Support for Active Directory with up to 5,000 users

By integrating with Active Directory or other directory services, the Buffalo TeraStation makes it easy to integrate into an organization.  The team at Buffalo Technology wisely suggests to stay away from directory services with over 5,000 users as synchronizing the account list can take away from file serving performance, which is the primary task of the device.

Ability to block certain file types

Blocking certain file types within an organization is important as there are some file types that may be restricted, such as game files, pictures, music, and video.  These file types can consume costly storage space and take away from the goals of the IT organization in providing a shared service, let alone violating copyright issues.

Power Management

The Buffalo TeraStation includes a powerful power management feature set that enables the IT organization to set three power schedules for spinning down the drives and putting the system into a standby mode.  I did not test the power consumption of the device and did not ask Buffalo for the power requirements, but I assume that it consumes about the same amount of power as a 60W light bulb even under load.

Conclusion

Overall, the Buffalo TeraStation is an impressive solution for small and medium businesses to share their files between the users within the organization.  The Buffalo TeraStation can share files with all of the operating systems within the organization while ensuring that they are highly available and replicated to a secondary system.  Additionally, the Buffalo TeraStation has the performance and scalability while sharing media files and web pages that enables the organization to consolidate their servers, thereby justifying some of the increased cost.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews

Tagged: External hard drive, NAS

Buffalo TeraStation Pro Quad TS-QVH8.0TL/R6 Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 21, 2011 at 11:00 am.

The tiny Data Traveler 109 USB drive from Kingston comes preloaded with urDrive software “that gives you a new and exciting way to look at your data“, according to the maker. I am always interested in new and exciting ways to look at my data, so let’s take a look!

Kingston makes good stuff and the Data Traveler 109 thumbdrive is a nice piece of work:

• 2 capacities (8 and 16gb) and 7 colors
• 1.535″ x 0.486″ x 0.179″ (39.00mm x 12.35mm x 4.55mm)
• A bit more than a gram
• Compatible with any USB 2 system (urDrive is for Windows XP or newer)
• Convenient lanyard hole (that is pretty dang close to being bigger than the drive itself!)

The unit is very small in a plastic housing that would not be very tough in a larger unit, but is OK in the smaller package. The large lanyard hole makes it easy to slip on a keyring or, just maybe, a lanyard! In fact, I found I needed to thread a large rubber band in it during the review period just to keep it from getting lost in the detritus on my desk. No instructions are included in the packaging.

"Just how small IS it?"

I was sent an 8MG black and white unit to review, and it works perfectly as a thumb drive alone. It is pre-loaded with the 122MB URDrive software and applications suite which is designed to elevate the thumb drive experience. The site claims “Most USB Flash drives offer passive storage, which simply allows users to store and retrieve their data. urDrive offers engaged, active storage that allows you to easily access and organize your files, photos, videos and music.”

The urDrive is not bootable – it is not an operating system, more like a shell program that allows you to better use and view the files you choose to store on it. When launched from the screen icon or with autoplay, it displays several apps in the main screen, icons on the bottom, and some other scattered buttons or bars like ‘back’ and ‘search’.

The Home Screen

The large app buttons bring up several pre-loaded applications-

• Norton PC Checkup, which needs to be loaded onto your PC.
• Maxthon Browser, which needs an internet connection and can download data straight to the thumb drive.
• vDrive Backup, offering 6GB of free back-up. Needs to install on your PC and requires an internet connection.
• FoozKids Basic, a ‘kid-safe’ zone with educational activities and apps. Installs on the PC and offers a subscription service for more options.
• Games, similar to many on-line games sites, offering a selection of free and ‘for pay’ games.
• A store for apps and music, and apps for YouTube, Facebook and Twitter round out the offerings.

These programs are easily available on-line if you want them and there does not seem to be any benefit to getting them from the drive as opposed to loading them yourself – other than the portability of those that do not load onto your computer. You can also find reviews of each of these apps on-line to help you decide if they might interest you.

The ‘thumb drive shell programs’ are more interesting. Icons take you home, or to your files, photos, music, videos, (Kingston) news, settings, and help. You can use the ‘Import to USB’ button or just drag and drop files into the folder system. One small quirk is that you cannot drag to the Home screen with the apps, but you can to the ‘My Files’ screen. Note that if you drag and drop something like an MP3 there, it will not automatically go to your music file, but if you click on it, it will open with the included player.

The Maxthon Browser

The included players – photo, music, and video – are simple and work great. They seem to be based on Windows Media Player. They are nice enough that I would not mind using them on my laptop since they do such a nice job with such small footprints, but I suspect they actually use your computer’s copy of Media Player to do the job. When playing music or looking at photos, you can click on an icon for ‘Library View’, which taps into the entire media library on your computer – not just that on the thumb drive. This almost feels like a ‘back door’ since you cannot do this elsewhere in the urDrive, and I didn’t find a comment about it in the help.

The Music Player

The urDrive suite is nicely done – attractive, flexible, intuitive, and does everything it does nicely. I am not convinced it is helping me see my data in an new and exciting way, but it is sort of nice to have an on-board set of tools… even though I still have access to the needed tools on the main computer since this is not a bootable system. I suspect most Gadgeteers who are interested in this already have a thumb drive loaded with tools from places like PortableApps.com, which offers a wider range of customization, security, privacy, etc. (Just FYI- there does not seem to be anything in the urDrive that offers more security or privacy than what the Norton or other apps offer.) Regardless, the Data Traveler 109 is a pretty sweet drive!

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: Flash Drive, Flash Memory, Security, USB Drive

Kingston Data Traveler 109 with urDrive Software Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 17, 2011 at 5:09 pm.

When it comes to being able to duplicate hard drives efficiently StarTech has been on the cutting edge of that technology.  I was recently given the opportunity to review StarTech’s new 1:3 Standalone SATA/IDE Hard Drive Duplicator Dock.  This dock is perfect for anyone who has the need to duplicate one hard drive onto 3 other hard drives simultaneously.  This dock is perfect if you are needing to make 3 exact copies of one hard drive without the need of a separate computer connection.  I have not had many times when I have needed to make a copy of a hard drive on 3 others, but I can see where this dock can be handy, especially for computer repair or computer retail shops to make exact copies of hard drives for backup purposes or upgrades.

The top photo is courtesy of StarTech.  The other photos in this review can be clicked for an enlarged view.

What’s included in the package:

• SATA Duplicator Dock
• USB 3.0 Cable/eSATA Cable
• SATA to IDE Adapter/40-pin IDE Cable
• 44-pin to 40-pin IDE Cable
• SP4 to LP4 Power Adapter
• 3 Power Cords
• Instruction Manual

The hard drive dock is designed to be rugged and has all the connections you need on the back side of the unit.  The unit has dual, variable speed fans for controlling the temperature.  The dock is actually quiet; the only noise I noticed was the hard drives being accessed to get the data to and from.  On the back side of the unit you have the fan controls to allow you to cool the hard drives at different speeds, the eSATA and USB 3.0 connection and the power connection.  All of the ports are laid out nicely with adequate room to access all of them.

As you can see from the picture everything is easy to access, and the fan controls are a nice touch, especially if the hard drives start getting too hot.

The dock comes with adapters to hook up IDE drives as well.  I didn’t have any IDE drives to test with this unit, but it appears that everything is included with this kit to allow you to duplicate any hard drive.

Now onto the nitty-gritty details of this duplicator.  As you can see the dock can duplicate up to three hard drives at once.  Each drive slot has a indicator light/ring, one side lights up blue and the other lights up red.  The blue light stays on all the time to tell you that you have power on the unit, the red light only comes on when the drive is being accessed.

Also you will notice a LCD screen on the unit.  I am really impressed by this unit’s ability to duplicate drives without the need of a computer.  Everything can be done from this one screen; just use the up, down, ent and esc buttons to choose the mode of operation required.  Go into duplicator mode, plug the hard drives into the correct bays, and you are ready to go.

The speed of the unit is anything but subpar. I only used a 40 GB hard drive for my testing purposes, but the hard drive had a factory image on it.  I was able to duplicate the hard drive onto another drive in 18 minutes.  As you can see from the image above, the LCD screen will show you how long it has taken to complete.  It also shows you the progress of the duplication.  While I was monitoring the speed of the duplicator, I noticed that it started out at 45-47 MB/s and never went below 30 MB/s during the duplication.  I ran this test 3 times on the same hard drive and each time the speeds were within a few seconds of each other.  After duplicating the hard drive, I then placed the hard drive into the computer and was able to boot from the drive without any problems.  Besides being able to duplicate whole drives, you can also use the unit as a external hard drive when you connect to a computer.

This screen shot just shows the progress of the duplication, this is a very nice feature of this unit.  This unit can also be used as to access up to 4 SATA hard drives simultaneously.  From the LCD screen, you can access the built in quick drive erase and Secure Erase.

This device is a great compliment to anyone needing to duplicate hard drives and not have to hook them up to a computer.  This standalone unit is solidly built and has the speed to keep up.  If you have the need to duplicate more than one drive at a time I would definitely recommend this unit.  I didn’t test the unit in PC mode, the only thing I was interested in was the standalone mode this unit has to offer.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Reviews

Tagged: Duplicator, External hard drive

StarTech SATDOCK4U3RE 4 Bay USB 3.0 eSATA to SATA Standalone 1:3 Hard Drive Duplicator Dock Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 10, 2011 at 9:59 am.

With the my-Ditto from Dane-Elec, you’ll have access to your files from anywhere.  It’s flexible and powerful enough for personal or business use.  Simply connect the my-Ditto to the router, plug the provided key (looks like a USB flash drive) into a PC or Mac and wait while your files are backed up to the my-Ditto.  Now you’ll be able to access the files on the my-Ditto anywhere by plugging the key into a PC or Mac and entering your password.  You can connect up to 30 keys to the my-Ditto.  There are even free Android and iOS apps that give you remote access to platform-appropriate files. You can also use the my-Ditto as a media server for your music and videos.  The my-Ditto is available as a diskless bay for $110 or with 500GB to 4TB of storage for $150 to $370.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: External hard drive, Network Storage

Protect and Access Your Data from Anywhere with my-Ditto originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 1, 2011 at 1:00 pm.

Mimo Monitors has just announced their Magic Touch 10.1″ Capacitive Touchscreen.  While a touch screen is nothing new and neither is video via USB connection, the Magic Touch manages to combine both and can be connected using a single USB 2.0 cable.  Running  a resolution of 1024X600 it’s only fully touch compatible with Windows 7 and while the panel  is technically capable of four-point multi-touch, you’ll only get single touch. The screen can be removed from its base dock easily and used independently as a tethered tablet or for mounting via a standard Vesa connector.

Aimed at applications like retail POS, healthcare, manufacturing and education, the Touch could also be used to declutter your desktop and get things like IM, chat and other functions off your primary monitor.

Available for preorder from Mimo with shipping around December 12, the Magic Touch is $299 while the Magic Touch Deluxe which adds 2 USB ports ( you’ll need an additional AC adapter to power them if required) is $329.99

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, News

Tagged: monitor, USB devices

Mimo Magic Touch – Capacitive Touchy Feely for your PC originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 22, 2011 at 10:00 am.

Environmental friendliness and sustainability are pervasive topic these days and “green” is a term that is being applied in countless areas. How about your computer? Recompute has developed what they call the “eco friendly computer workstation.” And it’s made of cardboard. Blasphemy! you scream? Brilliant! you squeal? Either way, it’s an interesting concept—check out this video for a run though. The case is made from multiple layers of food-grade, die-cut, C-flute corrugated cardboard, laminated together with waterproof non-toxic white glue, then treated with a non-toxic UL tested flame retardant. The intent is for the hollow spaces in the corrugated cardboard to dissipate the heat generated by the internal electronics.  Linux OS, AMD Athlon II Quad-core 3.0 GHz processor, 500Gb hard drive and 4Gb RAM, among other specs. 2011 model starts at $599.95 USD and depending on options, up to $999.95. Recompute gives a fourteen day trial with a full refund if not satisfied.  I’m a Mac guy, but I have to admit that this is intriguing—anyone else?

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, News

Tagged: Desktop, environmentally friendly, Green, PC

Is your PC made of cardboard? This one is. originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm.

The iTwin, “two ends of a cable, no cable”. The idea for iTwin came about with the belief that remote access to a second computer was found to often be too complicated for most users.  USB drives, on the other hand, are pretty simple to use for almost all users. They do have the pitfalls of not enough storage to share an entire computer hard drive or do not have enough security.  Thus, creation of iTwin.  Let’s give it a closer look.

iTwin requires Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7 (32 bit and 64 bit), broadband internet connection, and two online computers.  The iTwin website states that iTwin has an upgrade to be compatible with Mac too.  I have read that this is a beta version and support is so-so.  The latest version of the iTwin is fully compatible with OSX on Mac computers too. iTwin has limitless storage as a plug ‘n’ play USB device and allows you to easily store the contents of your computer’s hard drive.

The iTwin has the two connecting ends, two USB ends, and there is an iTwin activity indicator that is illuminated when plugged into your computer.  The indicator lights are located on the sides of the two halves.   The light is blue when functioning normally and red if there is a problem.   The blue light flashes when data is being transferred.  It looks like a dual-ended USB flash drive when the halves are placed together.

Installation of the iTwin is quite easy.  You do need admin access to install the software.  You need both halves connected together and plugged into an online computer.  After installing iTwin (software is contained in iTwin), you register your e-mail address and receive a message that will contain a unique code and URL that will allow you to remotely disable the connection between the two halves of the iTwin as a safety measure in the unfortunate event of losing one half.  This step is very important because you can not remotely disable the connection between the two halves if you do not register your e-mail address!  All data is accessed with AES-256 encryption, safer than cloud storage.

After registering and when the iTwin window appears, the two halves of the iTwin are “paired”.  The two halves can find each other across the internet when plugged into any two online computers.  You can then take off one half of the iTwin and take it with you, anywhere in the world.  The local or host computer must be turned on and connected to the internet before plugging in the second half to your remote computer.  You can connect through almost any firewall or proxy.

iTwin allows you to remotely edit your files and folders.  Transfer speed is only limited by the speed of your own internet connection.  When I was going to add files to share, I kept getting prompted to install an upgrade.  I had to uninstall iTwin and then re-install for some reason and I selected to not do the upgrade.  I was then able to select my files to share off the host computer, which is my desktop, for viewing and editing with the other half plugged into my laptop.

The iTwin is a sharp-looking plug ‘n’ play device that has a suggested retail of $99. It has a 30 day money back guarantee and a 90 day warranty.  iTwin has secure end to end encryption and no other fees once the device has been purchased.  The only downfall with the iTwin is that you can only connect two online computers at one time and not more.  Learn more by going to the iTwin website.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews

Tagged: remote connectivity

iTwin Secure and Private Internet File Access Device Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 7, 2011 at 11:00 am.

Does your MacBook double as your desktop workstation, requiring you to manually plug in a full-size monitor, keyboard, printer, external drives and other peripherals every time you sit down to use it?  Henge Docks has come up with an elegant solution.  Slide your MacBook down into the Henge Docks Docking Station and bam, you are up and running as a desktop.  Decked out in Apple-esque white, it includes port replicator connections that allow you to use your own cables and only the ones you need.  Check out this video for a quick run-through.  A model is available for each type of MacBook, from the white plastic MacBook to the aluminum 17″ MacBook Pro with prices ranging from $59.95 to $74.95 depending on your model.  Anyone out there use their MacBook in this fashion?

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: docking station, Macbook

Elegant Henge Docks MacBook Docking Station originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 1, 2011 at 9:00 am.

Last December, Andy reviewed the K750 and loved it. The only problems with it were the lack of a Mac specific version that could take advantage of the special apps required to view charging info and the special function keys didn’t work. Those problems are now history because Logitech has just announced a Mac version of the K750 that’s available today for $59.99. Now Apple fans can fully enjoy the K750 wireless keyboard which uses light to keep it powered (even indoors).

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, News

Tagged: Keyboard, OS X, Solar, Wireless

Logitech’s K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard is now available for the Mac originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 26, 2011 at 5:04 pm.

I have been a mouse guy my whole life. I have had a contentious lifelong relationship with the touchpad on my laptops and have always gravitated to the mouse. I tried several trackball devices over the years thinking that perhaps I was missing something.  But the mouse always tugged at my heartstrings and pulled me back. My current mouse that I have used for over a year, and which I love, is the Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse.  This is the mouse that all others will be judged by in my opinion, so when I was sent the Wireless Touchpad from Logitech to review I looked at it much like an old man looks at kids who are playing in his yard. Was I going to be won over?  Let’s go see.

I don’t know what I was expecting but the box looked awfully small to me when it showed up. When I took it out of the box I was taken aback. Wow, this thing looks really nice.  It’s got curves, and honestly, it looks like an Apple product.  Now, the plastic construction will tell you that it’s not an Apple product, but it isn’t poorly built. Quite the opposite. It is nicely put together and the plastic makes it light and easy to transport.  And the small rubberized feet on the bottom keep it steady on my desk as I swipe my fingers hither, thither and yon.

On the back is the on-off switch, as well as the battery compartment, which I discovered already contained 2 batteries. Nice touch, Logitech.

On the top of the device is the 5-inch touchpad area surrounded by about a 3/4 inch frame all the way around it. There are slightly viewable lines on the surface of the touchpad that designate the corners of that 5 inch touch area, but you can’t really feel them when you are using the Touchpad because the active surface is smooth all the way across.

At the bottom on the front are 2 mouse buttons that cover the entire width of the device, with an indicator light in the middle.

The USB dongle that comes with it is Logitech’s “Unifying receiver” which is a pretty cool little trick if you use all Logitech products. That little dongle will allow you to connect up to 6 Logitech wireless devices and only use 1 USB port. Nice. You can see in the picture that the dongle is about the same size as a dime, which means you better watch it or you’ll lose it!

Now let’s look at one more picture of the device before I yell at it to get off my lawn.

As I slowly moved my mouse over to the side to make room for the Touchpad, I felt a pang of guilt. ‘I’ll be back’ I silently told my mouse. And I hesitantly began to use the Touchpad. I don’t know why the experience is so strange for me because I have a touchscreen smartphone, and 2 tablets that all use 100% touch for their interface. So why is the thought of using touch so weird on my laptop? Perhaps it is the presence of the keyboard? You know, like peanut butter and jelly, a keyboard just goes better with a mouse. Mac users are publicly mocking me at this point while pinching and zooming on their Magic Trackpads, but I can take it. Mac users just can’t help themselves. But I digress.

Here is what I like:

I like that the Touchpad is so much bigger than my laptop touchpad. The 5 inch touch area is monstrous compared to my laptop touchpad, and the large buttons on the Touchpad are solid and responsive.  I love the shape and the angle of the Touchpad. It fits perfectly for my hand as I use it sitting on my desk. The gestures available on the Touchpad are responsive and easy to use. Once you learn them, it is second nature.  For everyday computer use… email, surfing, etc, the Touchpad is great. And the price ($49.99) is right for me.

Installation was crazy-easy. Plugged in the dongle and in about 20 seconds I was ready to go. Turn it on and I am in business. And it looks really, really nice. Dare I say it looks sexy? Well, maybe not Apple-sexy, but Windows-sexy. There you go.

Here is what I don’t like:

There aren’t enough gestures. What is the first gesture that comes to mind when you think of a touch device? That’s easy… pinch to zoom… spread to zoom. Well, that’s missing on the Touchpad. I suspect that has to do with the limitations of Windows 7 and I feel sure that Windows 8 will address that.  But for now, it aint’ there.  There are good gestures available, but I felt limited in what I could do. You can use the traditional 1-finger tap for things.  You can use two fingers up and down for scrolling. You can use 3 finger swipes left and right for advancing back and forth in the browser. And you can use 4 finger swipes left and right to tab between open apps, and up and down swipes to get to the desktop and back to your apps. But I want more. There’s also no turning your fingers to rotate things in the apps that would support it, like photo apps or graphics editing apps.

The only other thing I didn’t like was the fact that there is no tactile feedback when you have left the 5-inch touch area. Aside from the lines that appear on the surface that show you where the touch area is, there’s nothing that tells you have ‘left the area’. And of course, you aren’t looking at the device when using it so those lines on the surface are basically useless. Occasionally one of my fingers is outside the area and I don’t know it and my gesture isn’t what I want to accomplish because of that.

Bottom line

I have tried to become proficient with the Touchpad in Photoshop, which I use daily.  I can’t quite get comfortable with it because the detail work requires me many times to get down to the pixel level to manipulate images.  I jump back to the mouse to accomplish these types of tasks.  But for general computer use the Touchpad is great. Logitech says the batteries last 4 months, and if that holds up then that isn’t bad. The Magic Trackpad is probably the ruler by which other touchpads will be judged, and it does have more gestures, higher quality materials, and of course is Apple-sexy. But you must have a Mac to use it, and with the Logitech you must have a Windows computer to use it. So perhaps it isn’t fair to compare the two.

So if I had to give the product a rating of 1 to 10, I would give it a 7.  With this thing I won’t use my built-in touchpad on the laptop, and that’s a very good thing.  I don’t hate Touchpads quite as much now. Maybe I’ll let the kids play on the lawn after all… but just for a little bit.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Reviews, Wireless

Tagged: magic trackpad, Mouse, TouchPad, Wireless

Logitech Wireless Touchpad Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 19, 2011 at 3:00 pm.

BytePac, a company based in Germany, offers a new way to enclose and even archive hard disk drives.  Internal drives are cheaper than external drives, but you can’t use them unless they can fit into your computer or you have a some sort of case and connector.  The BytePac Kit comes with a SATA/USB connection kit and three cardboard enclosures that will allow you to use internal disks as external drives.  You can use the hard drives while they are in the cardboard enclosures, and you can unplug from the connection kit, close up the box, and archive your data on the hard disk.  The BytePac Kit comes with three cardboard enclosures and one connection kit.  You can buy extra boxes and labels, or you can even buy a Ready To Store Kit with a hard drive of your choice included.  Although the company is in Germany, they show prices in other currencies, including American dollars, so I assume that means they ship to the US.  The BytePac kit is $55.93, the Ready to Store Kit is $125.93, and extra enclosures start as low as $19.59 for a 3-pack.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: External hard drive, HD connection kit

Easy and Smart Hard Drive Storage from BytePac originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 17, 2011 at 8:17 am.

At least I wish I could use the Rapoo Keyboard with my iMac. This skinny wireless keyboard from Brando has a sexy look and cool features that include a touchpad that can be toggled to a number pad. Unfortunately it is only compatible with Window 7 / Vista / XP computers. It’s available now and is priced at $60.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, News

Tagged: Keyboard

Rapoo keyboard makes Apple Wireless keyboards jealous originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 14, 2011 at 3:00 pm.

My daughter recently spilled water on her computer and killed it.  She was devastated because she didn’t know how she could do her schoolwork without a computer.  Luckily, hers was repairable, but we could have been facing a considerable expense if we had to replace it.  Kid Computers understand how important computers are to education, and they understand how the cost can be prohibitive for many families.  They offer a line of computers that are designed to withstand the rigors of school and library use, and they have a line of more cost-effective computers for home use.  For example, their Wonder Computer Lite PC desktop (shown) sells for only $299 (monitor not included).  They have other desktops, laptops, netbooks, and all-in-ones will give you the computer your child needs and will fit a variety of budgets.  During October, they’re including a free software package ($200 value) with the purchase of their all-in-one computers.  While you’re checking out their computers, make sure you also check out their line of keyboards, mice, computer furniture, and other accessories designed for children.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: Computer for kids, Computer Software

An Affordable Computer for Kids from Kid Computers originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 30, 2011 at 2:00 pm.

Having reviewed Network Storage Devices for the home and small office I was asked by Cirago, a relatively unknown designer and manufacturer of storage and network storage devices to review their Network USB Storage Link+, 2000, or NUS2000.  This is an updated version of the same product that was released a few years ago aptly named the Cirago Network USB Storage Link, 1000.  The purpose of the product is two-fold:

1. Create a shared storage device on your network from any standard USB storage device, and
2. Make your USB printer shareable by all of the computers on your network

The Cirago Network USB Storage Link+ 2000 is available on Amazon.com for $79.99

For more information from Cirago on the The CiragoLink+ NUS2000 please visit their product page.

I opened the box, which is tiny, at just over the size of two play cards stacked side by side, to find a nicely laid out package including the NUS2000 product, 5V AC Adapter, Ethernet Network Patch Cable, and an instruction manual.  The NUS2000 is small, and lite, just a bit bigger than a pack of cards, measuring 4.4″ W x 3.5″ L x 1.0″ H and weighs in at under a pound.

The front of the NUS2000 has a pin hole to rest the product, an eject button, and set of six (6) activity lights, including the following:

• Power
• LAN Activity
• USB 1-4

On the back of the NUS2000 is the following:

• Power Connector (5V DC)
• 1000/100/10Mbps Ethernet Connector
• four (4) USB 2.0 ports

I quickly read through the six page instruction pamphlet and found the setup to be very simple.  I think Cirago could save a few trees and pennies by dropping the pamphlet style instruction manual and going with a single short index card that has three pictures on it showing the connection of power, network, and USB device, followed by a Web Browser with the URL for the device to access the management console.

By default the NUS2000 registers with DHCP and gets an IP address as well as registering the NUS2000 host name, which is the out of the box default host name.  You can easily change the host name from within the management console. Once connected, I logged into the NUS2000 and got to work setting up a new share for my trusty 500GB portable USB 2.0 Hard Disk Drive from Toshiba.  My 500GB disk drive is my travel drive that I keep a copy of all of my important data on and I have always wanted to be able to share it with all of the computers in my house.   I usually get back home from a trip and copy any new files that I have created while on the road to my NetGear ReadyNAS+ that I wrote about in the 13 Things to Consider Before Buying a Digital Media Storage System blog post earlier this year.

The NUS2000 supports a variety of protocols, including:

• CIFS/SMB – for connecting Microsoft Windows and MAC computers to the shared storage
• NFS – for connecting Linux and UNIX computers to the shared storage
• iTunes Server – for sharing your music and videos with iTunes connected systems
• BitTorrent, and – for receiving BitTorrent Content
• UPnP – for sharing media to UPnP compliant devices such as game consoles and Blu Ray players

Additionally, the NUS2000 has a Cloud Storage offering, CiragoLink, that is very similar to the PogoPlug cloud offering that I reviewed as part of the Buffalo CloudStor offering.  CiragoLink creates a virtual private cloud by opening your network up through a secure connection to access your content on the NUS2000 remotely.  In my testing I would not recommend the CiragoLink+ as it was painfully slow to copy files or view media.  If you are looking to share files with friends I would strongly suggest looking at an online file sharing site that has agents for working with your local files.

The NUS2000 can support 32 user accounts, which is a good deal more than competing products in this space, each with its own unique userid and password.  Once a user is setup you can easily define a share from your USB connected storage devices.  I tried both a USB 2.0 Hard Disk Drive and a USB 2.0 8GB Memory Key and they both worked flawlessly, albeit a bit slow.  These kind of devices will never offer the performance or response times of devices that have more processing power, memory, and multiple disk drives combined together, but they do offer a quick and easy way to share content from USB storage devices.  I couldn’t get an accurate speed test as I ran several copy jobs only to find some real inconsistencies with the performance of the NUS2000.  Not sure if it was my testing routine, or the hardware in the device.  I will need to get in touch with Cirago and ask some questions about the hardware and software platform embedded in the NUS2000 to find out more, but I expect that it is a Linux base with Open Source components for iTunes, BitTorrent, and UPnP support.

Streaming media to iTunes and my LG player with UPnP support worked well, but not great for High Definition content as the NUS2000 simply can’t keep up with the demands of a 10-12Mb/s stream of data coming off a single USB 2.0 drive.  Even when I tried to put the video file on a USB memory key it still struggled with the HD content.  This kind of device is best used to share documents, such as those created in Microsoft Office or your other favorite desktop productivity tool.

The web based management console of the Cirago is an exercise is simplicity with it’s streamlined approach to major configuration and management tasks.  The management console takes a page from Microsoft Explorer by providing expanding and collapsing icons that have common tasks grouped intelligently.  Also, there is context sensitive help at each step that is simple to understand.  Even with all of this help, the user still needs to understand how to create a share for remote network users to connect to the USB storage.  This is a bit of a challenge as the paradigm of creating shares is one known only to NAS proficient users and the regular population would much rather have a default set to share the entire drive when inserted as they will be controlling access at the physical network layer.  This additional feature would speed up the setup and avoid some missteps, but sacrifice some security.

Each USB port on the NUS2000 is treated as a separate entity so one can not stripe across them to increase performance and one needs to “eject” the USB device through the management console when finished using it.  In my experience with the device this is a simple and straightforward process and the LEDs on the front of the device are very helpful in avoiding any missteps.

I did not test the printer sharing capabilities of the NUS2000 as all of my printers are network shared already, but I would expect the NUS2000 to provide a good solution here as well as the print server functionality of the Linux stack is a proven solution that has been in the Open Source community for several years.

I did have an opportunity to call Cirago Technical Support on a Saturday only to have the phone unanswered and be told by an answering machine to send an email to a support site that was unrelated, by name, to Cirago.  For most home users, weekend support is a requirement because it is when they will be home and working on their content.  While I did not have any issues during my review, I would expect the Cirago team to provide RMAs versus trying to repair the issue remotely, it is where the world is going – disposable technology.  Regardless, I still would like to reach a human being and get assistance.  Finally, the website is void of support information and there are no user forums to share information.  The warranty for the device is one year, manufacturer’s replacement by mail.

While I would not recommend the NUS2000 for anything but the most basic of content sharing tasks, it does make sharing your current USB storage devices simple and easy.  Unfortunately, where it misses is the performance and capabilities of some of the more well known products in the market, as well as the price.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Reviews

Tagged: NAS

Cirago Network USB Storage Link+ Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 7, 2011 at 4:56 pm.

Seagate has upped the ante for desktop external hard drives with their new FreeAgent GoFlex Desk External Drive that is available in a 4TB capacity. That’s currently the highest capacity hard drive in the industry. The 4TB version ships with USB 3.0 connectivity, but it is possible to upgrade it to use a FireWire 800 connection with an optional adapter kit. These drives are compatible with PCs or Macs and are priced at $249.99 for the 4TB version.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, News

Tagged: Hard Drive

Seagate Announces 4TB External Hard Drive originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 7, 2011 at 12:33 pm.

It might have a goofy name, but the Cideko Air Keyboard chatting looks like it might be a worthy input device for your home theater computer. It’s a wireless keyboard with an integrated 3D motion sensing mouse, earphone, and microphone. It’s rechargeable and is compatible with both PCs, Macs and Linux computers.  Instead of using arrow keys or a trackball, you just move the keyboard around in the air to move the on-screen cursor. It’s currently available from Amazon for around $87.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Desktop Computer Gear, Gaming Gear, News

Tagged: Keyboard

Cideko Air Keyboard Chatting – Wireless typing and chatting for your PC originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm.

This new Touch Mouse from Microsoft is designed to let Windows 7 users use multi-touch gestures to control their screens.  The buttonless mouse uses a nano-sized USB receiver that lets you mouse up to 10 feet away.  You’ll use one-finger gestures to scroll, flick, or pan within a page, two-finger gestures to snap two windows side by side or to minimize and maximize, and three-finger gestures to show all open windows or reveal the desktop.  The Microsoft Touch Mouse uses BlueTrack technology so it will track on most any surface.  Amazon has the Touch Mouse for $66.99, about 16% off suggested list price.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: Mouse

Microsoft Touch Mouse for Windows 7 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 23, 2011 at 8:19 am.

Epson has announced the latest entries into their wireless all-in-one range, the Artisan 730 and Artisan 837.  Both of these printers have fast print speeds of 9.6 ISO ppm black and 9.1 ISO ppm color single side or 4.9 ISO ppm black and 4.7 ISO ppm color two-sided pages.  They feature automatic double-sided printing to save paper.  They can print a 4X6 photo print in about 10 seconds, and they can use Claria Ultra Hi-Definition inks that produce photos that last up to 4 times longer than lab photos.  These printers, when used with the free app, can even print from your mobile devices.  And they are wireless, so every user in your home can print, scan, and use the card reader.  If you’re looking for a little color in your life, the Artisan printers will help;  they are midnight blue.  The printers will be available in September.  The Artisan 730 will be $199.99, and the Artisan 837 will be $299.99.  Read the full press release after the jump.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, News

Tagged: Printers, Wireless

Epson Announces Two New All-in-One Artisan Printers originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm.