Digital Trends

Ximeta NetDisk 80GB September 9th, 2003 | by Ian Bell

Introduction

Small business owners and home networking enthusiasts usually are stuck with peer-to-peer or domain based networks in order to store, share and transfer files between networks and computer systems. This either meant that your computer has to be left on for others to access it in a peer-to-peer networking environment or you have to invest considerable time and money to get a domain controller and server setup for central storage, not to mention a server admin to administer it. Enter Ximeta's NetDisk external hard drive. What separates the NetDisk drives apart from smaller plug and play based servers is that it is essentially a portable hard drive with both a USB 2.0 port and a 100Mbps Ethernet port and is recognized as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive. Ximeta is primarily targeting the small business user with this drive, but because the price is competitive at $199 for an 80GB/7200rpm unit, the NetDisk is a very attractive product for the home consumer market as well. Today we are reviewing the Ximeta NetDisk NDU10-80 model with an 80GB, 7200RPM internal hard drive which is ATA 33/66/100/133 compatible. Ximeta also offers 120GB and 160GB versions priced at $229.99 and $299 respectively.

Features and Design

The aesthetic appearance of the drive is very appealing due to the sleek aluminum housing. There is no FireWire support on the NetDisk drive, but there is a USB 2.0 and 100BaseT Ethernet ports located on the back of the drive. The great thing about this is that you can use the NetDisk drive as a personal external hard drive by connecting it directly to your computer or as a networked drive by connecting it to your network via a router, switch or a hub. Ximeta recommends that no more than 20 users use it while connected to a network for best performance.

Currently the NetDisk drive is only compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP operating systems, so if you are a Mac or Linux user, you are out of luck. This is due to the NetDisk's software package and not any limitations associated with the drive. In order for a computer to see the NetDisk drive on the network using the Ethernet interface, you must have Ximeta's software installed on that particular computer. There is a down side and an upside to this. The downside is that if you have a rather large network (corporate size for example) then implementing their software across the network would be a huge task for any IT staff. The upside to all of this is that there could be added security because anyone wanting access to the drive in the first place must have their software installed. Ximeta currently has Mac and Linux drivers in the works, so check their website often for updates.

The NetDisk drives are compatible with Wi-Fi LAN's which means your wireless laptop will be able to see the NetDisk on your network, and are hot swappable using the USB 2.0 interface. The NetDisk drive measures 4.7” inches wide, 8” inches long and 1.4” inches tall. The 80GB version features blue aluminum housing while the 120GB is white and the 160GB version is red.

On the hardware side of things if you have read our previous external hard drive reviews, there are a couple areas where the manufacturers could improve upon their external hard drives. Maxtor's external personal storage drive for example is a fairly large unit, and despite their cooling efforts, it still puts out noticeable heat, not to mention noise and vibrations. We have seen this in a number of external hard drives ranging from Maxtor's person storage drives to LaCie's pocket drives. Unfortunately Ximeta has not been able to cool their NetDisk drive any more than the other manufacturers; however the NetDisk drive is incredibly quiet and considerably smaller in size than their competitors. We were unable to open the unit itself to see what brand hard drive the NetDisk uses, although the outside of the packaging says the sides easily slide open for upgradeability. We have heard that the NetDisk drives use Samsungs newer fluid bearing hard drives, but we do not know for certain.

For HTPC (home theater PC) users or those with a networked home, Ximeta's NetDisk opens the door to unlimited possibilities. For the home theater PC application, imagine wirelessly stream music or video from the NetDisk drive to your system without worrying about excess noise. And if you need more storage space, simply add another NetDisk drive to the network. The one problem we see with a home network is the introduction of televisions and DVD players with an Ethernet connection because you have to install Ximeta's software on the system accessing the NetDisk.