ENCL-1P 3.5" USB 2.0/RJ-45 Ethernet NAS (Network Attached Storage) External IDE Hard Drive Enclosure (Silver/Black)

I've been waiting to purchase a NAS network disk operating off my Netgear WNR834M N-router. Netdisk fit the description with a NDAS system so I picked one up at a nice price. I don't often screw down my disk drives, but this one I should have like they suggested so I can turn over the drive if necessary for numbers there. Enclosure snapped into place but one end had a split level still showing slightly. Otherwise, the enclosure is very similar to a USB enclosure I have. Hooked up the ethernet cable and turned it on and my router was very receptive to it and lit up the #2 port on the front of the unit. Loaded the supplied software on Windows 7 but had difficulty with some "administrator" attribute and had to go to the XIMETA site and download the latest version, 3.72; it loaded fine and did not give me any administrator problems and I was then able to "register" the drive and it appeared as a "local" drive, not a network drive, like they detail on the carton. It is "ip-less" as local, but I could use the ip address for older versions of Acronis. They supplied a "True OEM 9" version of Acronis, but Windows 7 said it had known compatibility problems and blocked it. Went to Acronis for an update but the said to go to the OEM and then IOCELL returned my email with a link to purchase True OEM 10 Acronis for $10 which I will probably do at a later date.Registered and mounted the drive on my wireless computer (on Windows XP and 7) and did not have to re-register or re-mount it again like another reviewer reported he needed a batch file to do. It comes up as a local drive every time.From wired portion of network, ran Microsoft Security Essentials on it to completion without any big file timeouts like another reviewer reported (how big? what functions?). Only transferred a few average sized files on the wireless computer and had no timeouts. Listing out the drive on the wireless computer, I experienced a hang while MSE was running on the wired computer to the drive. Was able to list it out later when the contention was less (advertised to handle access contention well, but what do you expect for $13). Overall 3.72 is running great and I hope to add another drive later as #3 or #4 on the router (I believe they said this option is possible). IOCELL indicated they also have some more advanced Netdisk products I might look into as well, perhaps for gigabit, etc., but this one is just great for the N non-gigabit router I have.10/30/2011 Update:Created a standalone bootable Acronis CD (or can make a 3 1/2) from an XP version of Acronis True OEM 9 and backup my entire system including Windows 7 disks. Backed up nearly the entire system except the Netdisk as I ran out ofspace. Unable to access the Netdisk via Acronis 9 from the wireless computer, but able to from the wired one. Will need to upgrade my backup storage capacity eventually.12/27/2012Dismantled my Netdisk to install the drive elsewhere internally. Had converted to the USB option priorly as I wasgetting Disk Honk apparently on Ethernet but not on USB. USB also seemed faster but I did not substantiate this.Found the mismatching between software versions occasionally tedious and did not like uninstall still leaving oldsetup information that re-appeared later which I think might have caused some of my problems- unsubstantiated though.Had gotten USB support on my Netgear router which made the USB solution more practical.

Pure trash. No wonder it is cheap. It works on USB at least. Nothing else for VISTA. They have no useful documentation on their many versions of drivers. I tried a few and nothing works...TRASH. I will avoid all XIMETA products forever. Junk case, junk plug, junk connectors...junk. I would return it, but the postage is what it costs; not worth it.

I bought one of this to use it as my central storage to share my media files across PCs at home and also cause the speed advertised of the NDAS Technology. I put on it a Western Digital Caviar 500MB HDD inside. Product worked fine (I mean the enclosure), I was able to see the Hard Drive from all my PC.This NDAS Technology is sold as very fast, but really it should be sold as Very Unstable, everytime I try to load a big file to the Disk I am getting errors of "Connection Unstable" this really doesn't work.I tried with all the driver versions on the Ximeta website, but with all of them I got that message on Unstability, so be aware of this when you buy this product, you can check google for NDAS Unstable and you will see many people complaining about this.The enclosure worked fine for me, but the Ximeta NDAS stability is really a fiasco. I will keep searching for another alternative for a centralized storage for my Media Files.

Device works well if you just want to use this as an external USB hard drive setup, it works wonderful. Once you're sure it works; I would recommend filling the tabs inside the top cover so if you need to open the case again otherwise as another reviewer mentioned it is very hard to get open once closed .I have not tried the networked connection being I only use the USB hook up; but be warned they send a funky power plug that was meant to be used overseas and has a adapterplug; but the cord is easily replaced it is a 2 prong female it plugs into the DC power adapter. 2 prong female, the same kind that a older Comcast digital cable box uses otherwise solid product...If it was not for the funky power plug setup I would give 4 stars...3.5" NetDisk ENCL-1P USB 2.0/RJ-45 Ethernet NDAS (Network Direct Attached Storage) External IDE HDD Enclosure (Blk/Sil)

I discovered these enclosures several years ago, when they were the first Ethernet and USB 2.0 hard drive enclosures available. The concept and idea is excellent but requires software and exclusive access to be installed and allowed by each computer on the network, in order to read/write to these drives. I had purchased more than 6 of these units, knowing that eventually, they will update them to 10/100/1000 Ethernet. These will only do 10/100 Ethernet but work very well. I like the idea that you can set these up on your network so everyone can access the external drives without using your computer's USB 2.0 port while others are using the drive. I like the idea that I can disconnect it and take it with me and use it with any laptop or PC or Mac via USB 2.0.For a portable, external hard drive for PCs, this is the way to go. The price is definitely right and what you get is great functionality for the price. I had purchased 5 of these when they were about $60-$70 a piece. The price at Amazon.com is an absolute bargain. I had to buy another one!