Customer Reviews

SimpleShare 500 GB Network Attached Storage with iShare Remote Access

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

All in all, the drive works great. As with any browser based setup, you need to adjust to the interface, but once you have things set up, it works without a hitch. We will see what kind of life expectancy we have; I cannot testify as to longevity.

I have a hardware VPN set up, and give the SimpleShare a static IP address. I can read and write to the drive all day long. Very nice.

This is a very simple device, with less features than many other NAS systems, but what could be expected for a price so low?

I have a few gripes:

1) The help refers to a different version of the software that isn't loaded on the device, and features that don't exist.
2) All the folks getting error 53 on Windows (and cannot connect via the MAC) need to format (by erasing) their drives and reboot the system--the services won't start until there is a filesystem on the disk. Of course there is nothing in the help about this.
3) NFS doesn't work correctly, the daemon is enabled but security not configured--so you cannot mount via NFS on Mac or Linux.
4) The vendor website is a joke. I hope I never need their help. All the links to their website on the device lead to missing pages, likewise with the documentation.
5) The software version is listed as a release candidate from 2006, and the downloads on the website are an even earlier version. I get the feeling this is an abandoned software project.

Why did I still rate the drive four stars? Well, despite all the shortcomings the thing works, and has a few features I like:

External drive support, and the power saving features--some of the NAS devices don't allow you to park the drives when not in use.

The main reason I bought this was to save money. I have been storing all my files on an old computer running Linux. I bought a kill-a-watt and measured the power usage and discovered that it was using 150 watts!

At 9 cents a kilowatt hour that comes out to $118.26 a year to keep my file server turned on. Replacing the file server with this device will save me roughly $100/year. It will pay for itself very quickly. I haven't measured this device yet, but it is rated for a maximum usage of 36 watts (actual usage should be much lower after initial startup) and with the power saving features it should only use a couple of watts while not being actively used.

For a good price, I got a large-capacity shared storage at home. Set-up from Windows XP PC was pretty straightforward and easy, and network drive was assigned to the PC almost automatically as far as I can remember.

Once set up, it can be accessed from all computers at home, but the access from Mac was a bit tricky (going to Finder menu, "connect to server", select workgroup, etc., etc.), so I decided to run the setup CD on Intel-based iMac to have a shortcut installed.

Here's the only glitch that I've found so far. The setup is apparently written in Javascript so the setup program is a local file in HTML. Safari, the standard web browser for Mac OS X, seems to be case sensitive when referring to other files. So the setup did NOT run off of the CD supplied, saying "error in finding file *&*&.htm" or somesuch, whereas *&*&.HTM is indeed on the CD. I copied the content of the CD to HDD, and changed the filenames to lowercase, which seemed to be the way they refer each other. In fact, all it took was to change "*.HTM" to "*.htm".

After starting the setup from the HDD, the setup ran on Mac without a problem. Now the shortcut is installed on the desktop of the Mac for convenient access.

One thing to remember... 100Base-TX.

While it is fast enough for everyday use for most people, can be painful for transferring large amount of data.

When I first installed, I copied ~170GB of data from the PC.

It was before I realized that 100Mbits/s gives 30~40GBytes/hr.

It took a long time to complete the move of data, but it had been done when I woke up in the morning. (Therefore I was not able to measure the average throughput.)

I can play .mpg movies smoothly from both PC and Mac, so the transfer rate is not my complaint, but if you are planning on many tens of GB of transfer daily, consider one with faster network port. (and make sure your PC has one.)

My box did not come with the "User's Guide", although the QuickGuide mentions it to be included. The User's Guide can be downloaded from the mfr's site anyway, so I'm ok with it.

You can't beat 500GB for less than $200. It was fairly easy to setup. I've got a couple of Linux machines on my home network and I can browse the SimpleShare easily thru the web interface (you just have to pick the IP address out of the instructional diagrams). Setting up my Linux machines to view the SimpleShare directories via NFS was a bit of a chore though. That could be made simpler.

The user guide has instructions for Windows and Mac but nothing for Linux. Which is surprising because internally, the SimpleShare's firmware is Linux! So hey guys, there's more and more of us Linux PC users out here and we wouldn't mind being catered to. Someday, maybe.

Ok, back on topic. The iShare remote file-sharing feature is easy enough to setup. iShare's web GUI interface could use some improvements though (directory links on every page would help). But it's free which really helps (Western Digital external drives run their remote file-sharing thru Mionet, which charges a fee).

To get the iShare feature to work, I had to put my SimpleShare machine in the DMZ of my wireless router (i.e. no router firewall protection) so I'm a little uneasy about what protections and security features are built into the SimpleShare device (beyond simple user name passwords). This is not explained or detailed in the user manual.

A feature that is not there and I hope that they add sometime is encrypted file transfer. Especially for remote file sharing.

All in all, this a quality product at a great value.

I'm straddling the idiot fence so I needed something that would be relatively simple to install. I was fortunate enough to have read the helpful reviews in this section and by doing that I think I avoided the major problems with installation. First, the product I got was the one in the picture. Also, it is quiet. It does have a low hum but it's inaudible from a couple feet away (you want loud, listen to my laptop's cooling fans). The quickstart guide was fine to a point, then it seemed to get off track. The process wasn't difficult to figure out though. Make sure you disable your firewall first, just to save time. Also, as one person recommended, before I mapped the drive letter I skipped to turn off print sharing using the SimpleShare html interface (funny, it was already disabled). I assume that this is why I did not get the error that so many people have mentioned but I did decide to reconnect my CAT5 printer cable to my wireless router (somebody call the tech support guy and clue him in). I think that the wrong HP printer driver was being installed because when I tried to print I either got bupkis or I got gobbledygook. I turned of print sharing through the NAS, removed the USB cable, and reconnected my printer directly to the router. Complete installation took about an hour for me, some of which was due to disabling my firewall on my ancient (read: 5 year old) Dell laptop. Once I got through the process, I ran it on my wife's laptop in 3 minutes and voila! I have a real network. Very cool. Sorry to hear that others have had problems but this has been a relatively good experience for me.

I actually have the 250gb version of this drive. I used it as a back up and a share drive for my small home network. It also was a port to share my two printers. For the past year it has worked great and then just like that it died. Ironic since it is also my back up drive. The tech guy said that since I had it on for a year straight I was really putting it to work. Whatever, I did not realize that I should have turned it off now and then.

So beware, don't keep it running at all times. Makes sense I guess but kinda a pain.

so three stars because it failed after one year, at least there is a warranty and lucky for me I backed up my back up drive. crazy...

This was so easy to setup: Connect the drive and run the disc.

A very good price for a 500GB NAs drive with a built in Print server. Awesome deal with the 3 year warranty.

I have had for about 2 weeks and i have no complaints. The drive is fast, and does not make a noise.

The unit powers up but the drive never spins up. I assume that either the drive is defective or the controller card. Online help is useless. I called SimpleTech support and no one answers... their "after hours" message says that they are open from 6:30 AM but they are still not open for calls 2 hours later. Maybe their clocks are also broken? Interestingly the sales department also does not answer even 1 hour after their business hours begin (after 7:30 AM).
Don't buy this -- they have no support at all.

This drive has lots of storage space and sets up easy. Don't think you can make your printer work on it though. I had high hopes of it functioning as a printer server but aparently my HP 1020 is not network friendly. I have a COOLMAX CN70 that actually got the printer drivers loaded and printed a test page but I could tell that it was going to be cranky and not always work. The SimpleShare wouldn't even load the printer drivers. So I am back to using the main computer as printer server. Dissapointed with Simple Share in that regard.

Heat is my main concern... The drive runs HOT, I mean very hot... There's no built-in cooling mechanism except the auluminum case to radiate the heat and it's not adequate... I had to open the case, drilled a few dozens holes and attached a fan to the outside of the case to draw out the heat... After all is done, the drive runs much cooler, but also noisy because of the fan... But I rather having it a bit noisy and knowing that it's not going to fail due to the heat.