Synology

Merry Christmas Eve! CNET social-media expert Caroline McCarthy joins us on this 404 Podcast Yuletide episode where we're wrapping up the year in tech.

The Apple iPad dominated our most-wanted list for the year, but 2010 was a huge year for technology as a whole. From mobile location check-in apps like Foursquare to on-demand video and wireless set-top boxes to motion-control video games and e-books, join us as we recap our personal favorites and reveal what we're looking forward to the most in 2011!

One of the worries about buying technology is the fact that the items you get might get obsolete too fast. However, if you pick carefully, you'll be able to buy products that stay relevant for a longer time than others. And, of course, by relevant, I mean that they'll still be able to satisfy your demands, which tend to grow over time.

Of all products in the networking and network storage categories reviewed by CNET during 2010, the following are those with features that will stay with you well into 2011 and even much longer.

Note: This doesn'… Read more

Kenley is back on The 404 today to announce the winner of our Nerd of the Year contest, and Stupid Andy is the victor!

Stupid Andy is a closet geek, so even though you might mistake him for a regular guy, he's well versed in audio/visual languages which I think puts him in the category of nerd, according to this article comparing the two.

Time has announced its Person of the Year for 2010, and although Justin Bieber, the Chilean miners, and the Tea Party all came close, Mark Zuckerberg clinched the title of the person who Time describes as "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

With Zuckerberg in the cockpit, Facebook has changed the way we communicate and consume news, but we have to question whether the release of "The Social Network" had anything to do with the nomination.

Plenty of Gawker accounts were compromised as a result of last weekend's Gnosis breach, and we learn on today's show that even some of our fellow CNET colleagues were affected by the hack! 

We also take a look at a graph of the top 50 Gawker Media passwords that are now posted online for public consumption. Clearly people just don't care about their commenting passwords on the site, because the first 10 are all lazy keyboard strokes  like "123456," "abc123," and "qwerty." On the stranger side, "monkey," "consumer," "superman," and just the number "0" were all identified as popular passwords.

In the face of disaster, the smart thing to do is adapt and move on, so check out this Lifehacker guide to reassessing your online security measures. The page suggests using a free password manager called LastPass that generates complex passwords for you, stores them on a network, and even audits them to make sure they're not easy to guess.

Narcs around the world have been waiting for a Big Brother app for the iPhone, and now it's here. It's called the PatriotApp, and it deputizes any iPhone user (pending a 99-cent fee) with the ability to report a number of crimes directly to the appropriate governmental agency. It links your iPhone to organizations like the FBI, the EPA, and the CDC so you can report things like government waste, environmental crimes, white-collar crimes, and public health concerns on the fly, but it just seems like a professional tool to snitch on your neighbor. Finally, you can also use the app to post your claims to Twitter and Facebook, so all your friends can be aware of your citizen's arrests.

Remember Daniel, our friend who visited The 404 studio last March? He left us this video voice mail telling us about the current fashion trends blanketing his middle school. Congratulations on your graduation, buddy--be sure to tell all your new high school friends about The 404!

About a month after releasing the beta version, Synology announced today the release of the third major revision of its robust Linux-based firmware for DiskSation NAS servers. The firmware is called DiskStation Manager 3.0 and will work on all of Synology's NAS servers made in 2007 or later.

The new version of the operating system boasts many new features, including the ability to multitask within its Web-based user interface. You can now open the user management function in one window and the surveillance system in another; these windows are kept within the Web interface and you can move … Read more

Editors' note: This post was update at 11 a.m. August 12 to include information that the availability of the beta was delayed till August 16.

Owners of Synology NAS servers, I have some good news.

Synology, the maker of award-winning NAS servers such as the Synology DS209+ NAS server or the Synology Disk Station DS409slim, announced Thursday the beta program of the third major release of its operating system (or firmware) for DiskStation NAS servers, the DiskStation Manager 3.0. The company says that this new NAS OS will bring new features and tools to enhance the remote access experience and simplify network administration. … Read more

Synology, the maker of what are arguably the best NAS servers on the market, announced Monday its new dual-bay NAS server, the DiskStation DS210+. This is the upgrade to the similarly configured DS209+, which won CNET's Editors' Choice award for its excellent performance and vast number of features.

According to Synology, the new DS210+ is designed to offer even faster performance, some 108MBps in reading and 58MBps in writing, and 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) hardware encryption. Other than that, running Synology's DiskStation Manager 2.3 firmware, the DS210+ shares a similar set of features as previous models … Read more

I reviewed the DiskStation DS710+ recently, saying it was the first dual-bay NAS server to get scalable storage when coupled with an expansion unit. That unit is now available for around $500.

Synology announced Monday the Synology DX510, a five-bay expansion unit that can be used with either the DS710+ or the DS1010+ DiskStation NAS servers. According to Synology, the DX510 unit can increase the capacity of supported NAS servers up to an additional 10TB.

This means the RAID volume on the main DiskStation can be expanded directly without having to reformat the existing hard drives. If users choose to use the DX510 as a separate volume, the expansion unit will function as a backup destination.

The Synology DX510 is about 2.5 times the size of the DS710+ and connects to the Synology DiskStations via a custom-designed eSATA cable. Synology claims that this proprietary cable ensures a reliable connection and maximum throughput. The cap speeds between the NAS server and the expansion unit are that of the SATA 2 standard: 3Gbps. … Read more

NAS servers from Synology generally share two things in common: great performance and hefty price tags. The DS710+, for example, is one of the fastest dual-bay NAS devices on the market and costs around $550 without any storage included.

On Thursday, the company surprised us when it announced the DS410 DiskStation, a four-bay NAS server that costs just around $500.

Like all the latest servers from Synology, the DS410 is based on version 2.3 of the state-of-the-art DiskStation Manager firmware. It will share a similar vast set of features as the DS710+ and the DS209+, with a few differences. … Read more

So, you just cannot make up your mind about what kind of RAID configuration you need and how many hard drives your NAS server should have. Synology, the vendor of multiple CNET Editors' Choice-winning NAS servers, has a solution for you.

The company announced Friday its first scalable NAS server, the DiskStation DS710+. The new NAS server starts out with only two bays for two SATA hard drives, but later on can be scaled up to have seven bays. The NAS server is designed to support multiple traditional RAID configurations.

Synology claims that the DS710+ will also come with Synology … Read more