Of all the accessories for the iPad, a networked-attached storage device may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but a NAS may actually prove to be very handy.
A NAS allows you to store all your memory-hogging media cheaply and in one place. Instead of buying the more expensive 64GB iPad, which will soon get filled with movies, music and other media, get the 32GB model and invest $100 in Iomega’s iConnect Wireless Data Station.
The iConnect is perhaps the easiest and fastest way to get an iTunes share on your home or office network.
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The iConnect is a book-sized box that turns any hard drive into a NAS drive, including thumb drives. Simply plug it into your router and plug a USB drive into one of the four USB slots. The iConnect makes the drive accessible via a wired network or wirelessly, giving access to a gigabytes of files as though they were stored on a local drive.
Better yet, the iConnect acts as an iTunes server, streaming music and movies across the network (or syncing them with iPads and iPhones/iPts).
The iConnect offers a host of NAS features. It supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems, shares USB printers, and serves as a Time Machine backup. And it acts as a Bittorrent station, downloading files from the file-sharing network. It doesn’t tie up your machine or slow the network to a complete crawl.
Set up is a breeze, and in several weeks of use it’s proven pretty reliable. I’ve had a few connection issues, but suspect it’s a flaky Ethernet switch rather than the iConnect. Iomega’s browser-based software is fairly straightforward to use, though some features have proven a headache to implement, such as remote access.
You can connect a host of USB drives, printers or hubs using the four USB ports (three on front, one at the back). The USB ports on the front are an unfortunate design choice: connect more than one drive, and you have ugly wires running out of both the front and back.
If you have a big external drive lying around, the iConnect is an affordable way to put it on your network. As a NAS, your drive can store all your memory-hogging media, act as a backup target for Time Machine and a Bittorrent station for all your machines. Easy to use and affordable.
