DIY network-attached storage

You don’t have to spend hundreds of pounds on a Nas drive to get some extra shared storage for your network.

It’s actually quite easy to take an existing hard disk – either an internal or external model – and connect it your network. The most common option here is to buy an ‘enclosure’ or ‘caddy’. This is simply an empty box that can hold one or more internal disk drives, and which has an Ethernet adapter for the network connection.

Netgear’s Network Storage Central SC101 is one of the most well-known options here. It costs about £70 from online stores such as dabs.com, and can hold two IDE drives for a total capacity of up to 2TB.

Another good option is D-Link’s DSM-G600. This is a bit more expensive, costing about £120, and can only hold a single drive. However, it has wireless capabilities so you can easily connect it to a wireless network or use it to extend an existing wired network.

It also has two USB2 ports on the back, which enable you to add more storage in the form of ordinary USB hard drives. It even supports the UPnP standard, allowing you to stream music or video files to a UPnP-compatible media player, such as Pinnacle’s Soundbridge.

And, for the hardcore techies among you, the DSM-G600’s built-in firmware is based on open-source code, so you’re free to modify it – perhaps setting it up to run as an email or web server.

But perhaps the most convenient option we’ve come across is the Network Storage Link from Linksys, which costs just £58 from www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk. Instead of providing you with an empty enclosure for an internal disk drive, the Storage Link acts as an Ethernet adapter for external USB disk drives.

It has an Ethernet port that allows you to connect it to your network, and two USB2 ports. Any USB hard disk – or other devices such as a USB memory stick – will automatically be connected to your network via the Storage Link.

The Storage Link includes good backup software and some useful extra features, such as an email alert when the disk is almost full. In fact, we wonder why the other Linksys Nas offering – the EFG120 – isn’t equally well designed.

This article is part of a group test of network-attached devices.
See also
Adaptec Snap Server 110
Buffalo Linkstation Multimedia Home Server
Buffalo Terastation Home Server
Freecom Storage Gateway WLAN
Iomega Storcenter Network Hard Drive
La Cie Ethernet Disk Mini
Linksys EFG120
Maxtor Shared Storage II
Plextor PX-EH25L
Western Digital Netcenter 500
Living with NAS

The table of features an be read via our pdf download.