I came across a review for a new product called the USB Net ShareStation by IOGEAR. This little toy looks interesting enough, especially considering the fact that it allows one to use a 4port USB Hub to add more devices to your network via USB, this seems like a GREAT product. No more need for USB->Network print servers, and now I can use my external USB drives via my network. I am very interested in getting my hands on one of these badboys, and they are currently going for $50 shipped via eBay.
Couple of Con’s:
- 1 major downside, it’s not Linux compatible out-of-the-box, hopefully someone will hack the device drivers to work with Linux soon… If you know of anyone currently working on this please leave me a comment and let me know.
- 10/100Base-T port = Not Gigabit Ethernet
This got me thinking however what about using this as a replacement for the {currently} $200 DroboShare, this is essentially a DroboShare for 1/4 the cost, but would this work with the Drobo? Then of course this leads to a followup question of performance, which provides more throughput, the DroboShare or the ShareStation? I realize the DroboShare has a Gigabit ethernet connection, so this will probably be a major drawback, but I am curious to know what real-life experience/benchmarks between the too show…
Because this product is so new there aren’t alot of reviews that benchmark the ShareStation, but as I collect more information on this I will add it to this post. Please if you have any info on this, leave a comment.
November 24, 2008 at 11:04 am |
Any update on the ShareStation?
February 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm |
I just purchased one. I have plans to use it with a usb media player. At first try, it looks like you run a server on your pc and the usb hdd connects just like it is plugged in to a usb port. (one user at a time) It is not a network share like a real Network Attached Storage.