netgear sc101
November 9, 2007
A couple of months ago i was forced to look for a new LAN server, as my older one was in my cellar on the floor sitting there doing its job nicely with a 500GB HDD in, all my shares set up, music, videos, pictures and a couple of other ones. Then one morning i got up and found that my cellar had flooded. I tried drying out the server but it was pronounced dead, cause of death was drowning. I wasnt worried about the LAN server as such, i was more worried about my HDD that was just about full, it had all of my details on and videos and music that i had collected over the years. I tried plugging it into some of my computers and it wasnt even detected. I even tried it in a USB to IDE converter, but the disc was detected but not accessable. So i decided after about 2 weeks looking on the net that i was going to buy a netgear SC101. I have read some pretty bad reviews about this device but i thought fuck it, it was only £40 off ebay or something like that. It had its advantage this over any of the others, because it had room to fit 2 500GB HDD’s where most of the others could only hold 1. It finally arrived and i had a few problems at first but the thing i wanted to do firstly was test my 500GB HDD in it to see if it could be detected. I had got over the fact that i was going to lose all my data on the HDD. By luck i put it in and the drive was detected, it was only showing up as 460GB but who am i to complain about losing 40GB! Unlike my other LAN server, this has the option to mirror the drives, comes with backup software, and has an auto standby mode to stop the discs over heating. Ive had the device plugged in without turning it off now for 2 months, and still have no problems, i have no idea why people complain about this device, its the best money i have spent. I currently have 500GB and a 160GB HDD in the device. The only problem i thought of at first is you have to have software installed on all the computers that want to have access to the device, but the more i thought about it, surely that is better security? I had problems getting the software working with VISTA, but turns out it wasnt compatable, so a quick browse on the net and came across this site where you can find the software for VISTA, it is only in BETA mode but yet again i have had no problems with it.
