Travel Technology - Ximeta NetDisk

Just purchased a Ximeta NetDisk 160gb and thought I'd share my thoughts.

I was in need of extra gigabytes to store digitial media. While I'm skilled at turning the computer wrench, I didn't really want to open the case on my wifes desktop. So I thought about USB external drives and then networked drives.

Being in the mood for instant gratification after my research, I slogged off to Best Buy and picked up the Ximeta NetDisk 160 (BB doesn't carry 250gb model or I would have purchased that). A $50 rebate helped soften the pain of not purchaseing from J&R.

The NetDisk does USB 2.0 or Ethernet. Multiple netdisks can be connected and appear as a single drive or can be mirrored. I'll probably try that soon. :D

Installation was a snap. I plugged the drive into my 10/100 switch, powered it up and then 10 minutes later, after painlessly installing its driver on two Windows XP machines I had 149gb (formated NTFS) available as if it were a local drive on both machines. It allows simultaneous read/write from multiple machines. It can also be used by Mac's and Linux machines (but not with simultaneous r/w).

Performance is good, even better than I expected. I'd recommend this hardware to my grandmother it's so easy to use.

Have had the the 160gb model for about a month, attached via ethernet.

If you aren't running Windows, aren't running on a network, or don't want to install the network driver, you can natively add it to a machine via USB 2.0 and share it through the attached machine.

It's a great lightweight product. Perfect for USB 2.0 enabled laptops that need extra storage on the road.

^^^

http://www.ximeta.com/

Just a thought:
Most Ethernet Today: 100 Mbps transfer minus some overhead
USB 2.0: 480 Mbps transfer
ATA100 Hard Drives: 800 Mbps transfer
Gigabit Ethernet: 1000 Mbps transfer minus some overhead
ATA133 Hard Drives: 1064 Mbps transfer

My emphasis here is on the Gigabit Ethernet.

Most home computers from Dell and even up to a $1,700 from Sony come with ATA100.

Pretty soon, Ethernet-shared devices will be faster than the most common hard drives and will have comparable speeds to the next level up.

I use mine for documents, mp3's and other files that are small or only need occasional access. I also like the ability to have these files shared across the 3 machines in the house (two of which are wirelessly connected).

So, the 100mbps "limit" is fine for me now.

It will be neat in a few years as gigabit gets traction in the home to have all of your disk outside the chassis... :)

I wish they would add gigabit to these things. How much cost would that add really?

All of our computers for the last three years has had gigabit ethernet out of the box.

I would also like to see a simple HTTP and FTP servers.

Gigabit ethernet would be fairly useless, as even the fastest Serial ATA disk wouldn't be able to keep up with it.

I wish they would add gigabit to these things. How much cost would that add really?

All of our computers for the last three years has had gigabit ethernet out of the box.

I would also like to see a simple HTTP and FTP servers.

Mirra has the Personal Server which includes a built in HTTP server. IMHO it is over priced given its capabilities and storage space.

correct me if i'm wrong:

from what i understand, doens't 100megabit ethernet means a 100 megabit per second throughput, which also equals 12.5 megabyte per second? if that is true, then gigabit ethernet would means a 1000 megabit per second throughput, which also equals 125 megabyte per second? wouldn't that be on par with the throughout of most HDs out there?

correct me if i'm wrong:

from what i understand, doens't 100megabit ethernet means a 100 megabit per second throughput, which also equals 12.5 megabyte per second? if that is true, then gigabit ethernet would means a 1000 megabit per second throughput, which also equals 125 megabyte per second? wouldn't that be on par with the throughout of most HDs out there?

I believe you are correct.

When attached to a shared drive on another one of our computers over gigabit, it is much like using files from our local computer. It is noticeably slower over 100 mb ethernet.