Iomega iConnect Wireless Station:<br/> NAS server gone superslim
Iomega's unveils its all new iConnect Wireless Data Station at CES 2010.
If you've been intrigued by the idea of Marvell's Plug Computer, you'll probably love what Iomega has to show at CES this year: the iConnect Wireless Data Station.
Despite the lengthy name, this is a tiny network storage product.
Fitting right in your palm, the iConnect Wireless Data Station has no built-in storage. Instead, it comes with four USB 2.0 ports for you to connect your external hard drives or printers to. After that, all you need to do is connect it your router via either its Gigabit wired or 802.11n wireless connection and you have a NAS server.
Its tiny size and its simplicity make the device seem a perfect fit for you to use on the go to quickly share data between a group of people. According to Iomega, the iConnect also comes with features that full size NAS servers have, including:
- Remote access: Users can connect securely to the device from anywhere in the world via the Internet and get full access data stored on the connected USB drives.
- Support for multiple USB devices at a time, including external storage devices (up to four) and printers (up to two).
- Device-to-device replication for data protection: Users can copy or synchronize files to and from the connected USB drives or any other shared storage on your network.
- Time Machine support: Apple users can easily backup any Mac computers running OS X (10.5 or later) using Time Machine.
- Built-in UPnP-, DLNA-Certified AV Media Server: The capability to stream photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices, such as game consoles such as Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, iTunes players, and so on.
- Photo slideshow capabilities: Users can view pictures stored on the connected USB drives in comprehensive way.
- Torrent download support: The iConnect device can download Torrent files by itself without the need of a dedicated PC.
Iomega includes its Protection Suite of software including the Iomega QuikProtect for simple scheduled file-level backup and a choice between EMC Retrospect Express or Express HD to back up your data more comprehensively.
The iConnect works with Windows, Mac, and Linux and costs $100. At this price, this seems a great device. The only question is its performance, which we won't know about until February, when the product is available worldwide.