Ximeta Netdisk Driver For Mac
. The Good: Runs as an ethernet-connected drive or via USB; Easy setup; works with multiple operating systems and disk formats; small footprint; has rudimentary RAID abililities; runs cool. The Bad: Pricey; drive spins at only 5,400 RPM.
The Verdict: An easy way to create a shared drive on a small network without resorting to a file server, and it doubles as an external USB drive, too. style='list-style: none'.
Reviewed on: Hewlett-Packard Media Center m380n Photosmart 3 GHz Pentium 4 PC with 1GB of RAM, DVD and DVD-recordable drives, a seven-way media reader, TV-input/PVR capability, Maxtor 120GB IDE and 250GB SATA hard disks running at 7200 RPM, an HP F1703 LCD panel, a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card, and Windows XP Media Center Edition. Also available for: Windows 98SE, 2000, XP; Red Hat Linux 2.0; Mac OSX 10.2 or better. style='list-style: none' REVIEW: As homeowners become more comfortable with technology, their collections of photo, music and video files are growing. The trick is not just how to store it all, but how to make it accessible to more than one computer in the home. Several companies have come out with product trying to tackle this problem, ranging from USB-enabled routers to special standalone server appliances that can handle external USB drives. They work, but most are cumbersome and complicated. The most user-friendly piece of gear I've come across so far is the NetDisk Mini, part of the NetDisk line from Ximeta.
Rather than creating gadgets that tie separate external USB hard drives into a network, Ximeta has taken a different approach. The NetDisk Mini is an external USB 2.0 hard drive, but it has the server built-in. In other words, string an ethernet cable from a spare port in your router or switch (and some hubs), and plug it straight into the ethernet port on the back of the drive.
Plug in a power cord, install a driver on each PC you want to give access to the drive, and that's the extent of the setup procedure. The white plastic case is small and slick - a little bigger than a deck of playing cards, but with rounded edges. In fact, it reminded me a lot of an iPod without the LCD screen. It comes with a carry case, so that you won't scratch the glossy finish if you take it on the road. It's ultra-portable, too, weighing just 680 grams and measuring 23.5millimetres-by-143mm-by-80mm (although you'll also have to cart along the power supply if you travel, increasing the bulk of the overall package). The case is small, because Ximeta uses 3-by-5.5-inch notebook-sized drives instead of larger desktop hard disks (more on this in a minute).
Despite the tiny footprint, the NetDisk has all the features you'd expect on a standard external USB drive, though. There's a drive activity light, on-off switch, and the ethernet port has network activity lights. Setup was a snap as I mentioned, although I found the lack of a paper manual annoying. You have to run the setup disc to access a PDF file of the manual. The manual is clearly written and easy to understand, though - a rare thing these days. As gear has gotten easier to use, I've found manuals have tended to get so sketchy and poorly written that trying to follow them actually makes things harder for the user in the end. To use the NetDisk as an external USB drive, simply plug it into a spare USB port on your desktop computer or notebook.
The operating system will recognize it as a removable drive and automatically set it up so that you can read, copy or save files between the NetDisk and your computer. Remarkably, the ethernet connection is almost as easy, thanks to Ximeta's own NDAS networked storage technology. You load a driver on each computer that is to be given access to the drive, and there's no need for any complex drive mapping or anything like that - the NetDisk simply shows up as another hard drive in the computer's My Computer box or the Mac Finder. The only decision you need to make during setup is what file system to use to format the disk (it comes formatted for NTFS), and what operating systems will be accessing it. If you run it with older Windows operating systems, on Mac OS or Red Hat Linux, you have to set it up so that only one computer can read and write information at a time. If you format it with NTFS and use it with Windows 2000 or Windows XP machines, though, multiple PCs will be able to read and write to the disk simultaneously. The NetDisk even has some limited RAID-type capabilities.
If you have several Mini drives, you can mirror one to another unit. The software can also mirror data from a PC drive to a NetDisk for ongoing backup purposes. Alternatively, two drives can be 'slaved' together by the driver so that they look to the operating system like one big hard disk.
This is all very handy, but frankly if you need true RAID capabilities, you're better off buying a motherboard with a RAID controller built-in or a dedicated RAID array, since the NetDisk doesn't give you the performance and flexibility of a true RAID system. From a hardware and setup point of view, there's really not much to pick on with the NetDisk. The biggest strike against the Mini is simply price. At $229 (U.S.) for a 40GB external drive, the NetDisk comes at a BIG premium over standard external drives. It's also a slow drive, relative to the ones directly installed in your PC. The Mini uses a notebook drive running at 4,200-to-5,200 rpm, whereas most hard drives used on desktop machines are now at least 7,200 rpm. It also has a small 2MB data buffer (many desktop drives are going to 8MB now).
That means the drive's data transfer time isn't exactly what you'd term 'blazing' - the average read-seek time is 12 milliseconds. But this isn't as big an issue as it might sound on the surface. The drive's data transfer is limited by the speed of either the 480 Mbps USB 2.0 connection or your 10/100 Mbps ethernet connection, so a higher-performance drive's extra speed would be wasted due to the connection bottleneck anyway. In this case, the lower rotational speed is actually something of a benefit. It means the motor produces much less heat than a standard desktop drive, so it doesn't need cooling fans. This is a plus for a network-attached drive that's probably going to be left on much of the time. It will heat up noticeably if you're doing a lot of constant transfers to and from the disk, but when it's idling it keeps its cool.
The performance of the drive was fine for all the basic shared-drive functions I tried. File backups and transfers were speedy - just as fast as you'd expect on a machine-to-machine transfer over a LAN.
Large photos loaded quickly, and I was able to play audio and video files from the NetDisk over my home LAN with no problems at all - no skipping music or dropped video frames. I transferred about 50MB of information from a drive on my PC to the NetDisk in a few seconds. The drive ran without a hitch during my tests, and it proved to be an exceptionally useful gadget. I really, really missed having it on the network when it was time to ship the evaluation unit back to the company. Ximeta NetDisk Mini is a great little product, and it's only the steep price tag that keeps it from being a must-have product on any home network where there are lots of files to share. It's simple to set up, a no-brainer to use, and it looks great without taking up lots of space. Ips display for mac.
Ximeta Windows 10
What more is there to ask for in a small LAN network-attached storage product, except maybe a lower price tag and larger capacity? Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff. We aim to create a safe and valuable space for discussion and debate. That means:. All comments will be reviewed by one or more moderators before being posted to the site. This should only take a few moments.
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Ximeta Netdisk Driver Xp
The NDAS Driver and Utility for Mac OS X. NDAS Hardware, such as the NETDISK by IOCELL Networks is used to connect block devices, to computers via the network. For more information about NDAS usage please visit us on the web: email: support@iocellnetworks.com For NDAS hardware manufacturing licenses or designs, please contact: sales@iocellnetworks.com The files in this repository only pertain to Mac OS X 10.6.6 and higher.
For other Mac NDAS versions, please visit the download section of our homepage. 2012-10-04 History: NDAS was created by Ximeta as a proprietary connection system for Network Direct Attached Storage devices. IOCELL Networks took ownership of all patents and technology rights to NDAS in 2011. From 2012 the connection packages are being open sourced.