Saturday, May 19th 2012
Akitio Intros Cloud Hybrid NAS/DAS
Akitio introduced its newest desktop storage device, the Cloud Hybrid. The device can function as network-attached storage (NAS) over gigabit Ethernet, and disk-attached storage (DAS) over USB 3.0. It holds a single 3.5-inch hard drive, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface, up to 3 TB unformatted capacities are supported, as are volumes bigger than 2 TB in capacity. The device supports Microsoft exFAT file-system.
Its maker vaguely mentions that the device is driven by a "300 MHz CPU", with 32 MB DDR RAM, and 2 MB flash ROM. As a DAS, the device likely mounts its hard drive as a mass-storage device. As a NAS, however, most modern features are supported, including UPnP-AV, DLNA, iTunes music server, FTP, Samba, etc. Features such as BitTorrent and WebDAV server make for interesting additions for a device of its class, as is remote access over the internet, via a web-portal. While USB 3.0 (mass storage) posses minimal interface bottlenecks, Akitio assures 60 MB/s transfer-rates over SMB (in a GbE network). It is priced at US $99.
Source:
VR-Zone
Its maker vaguely mentions that the device is driven by a "300 MHz CPU", with 32 MB DDR RAM, and 2 MB flash ROM. As a DAS, the device likely mounts its hard drive as a mass-storage device. As a NAS, however, most modern features are supported, including UPnP-AV, DLNA, iTunes music server, FTP, Samba, etc. Features such as BitTorrent and WebDAV server make for interesting additions for a device of its class, as is remote access over the internet, via a web-portal. While USB 3.0 (mass storage) posses minimal interface bottlenecks, Akitio assures 60 MB/s transfer-rates over SMB (in a GbE network). It is priced at US $99.
8 Comments on Akitio Intros Cloud Hybrid NAS/DAS
And if you have a look at Synology, Qnap and Thecus, you'll notice that none of them support direct connectivity. LaCie is hardly a high-end NAS manufacturer, but then again, this is hardly a high-end product either so...
Not trying to defend the product as such, but for many this is more than good enough and it does at least have half a selling point...
That said, it's by no means impossible, but it depends on what you want from your device at the end of the day, it'll end up being a compromise between functionality/compatibility vs connectivity in this case.
If you've got a good NAS, it's not as if you're going to miss USB 2.0 direct connectivity, but not all NAS products support features like iSCSI and that's something that's almost a must for good file copy performance.
Anyhow, this isn't a product I'd personally buy, but at least it falls in the affordable category at $99...