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Review: Open Drive turns cloud storage services into one big file sharing network

Open Drive If you are looking for a document or a template, you would normally Google for it. But a lot of people keep these things on their cloud storage services, and are willing to share. Open Drive indexes them...

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You can keep your Google Drive files private, or you can use it as one huge file sharing network. Many Google Drive users allow public access to their files, which means that if they have a certain type of file that you also need, you can request a copy...if you can find it.

Ironically for a company whose core business is based around search, you cannot directly search for anyone else's files within Google Drive, nor can you look effectively for them using regular Google search either. Mcom Multicartes created Chrome extension Open Drive to provide a search interface for these public files so you can find them more easily and efficiently.

Open Drive's search can be slow, but its thoroughness more than makes up for it.

What's more, using Open Drive, you can also simultaneously search other cloud storage systems (such as Dropbox, SkyDrive, Evernote, and Box) and have those files sent to your Google Drive account. Depending on how many cloud services you are searching across, searching may take a few moments for the results to come back, so be patient.

Once you get your results, you can then do one of the following: download it, send a copy to your Google Drive, get a shortlink to the document (for say emailing, or sending to someone via IM), or simply open it and see what is there.

If you can't find what you're looking for, you can join Open Drive's Google Plus community and request what you need. If another member of the group has it, they can send it to you.

As with any search engine results, there's some dross mixed in with the gold. However, there is still a high success rate in finding relevant files. Searching across so many cloud services at once in the same interface, saving time and mouse clicks is so convenient it borders on amazing.

Note: The Download button takes you to the Chrome Web store, where you can install the latest version directly into your Chrome browser.

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Review: Connectify Dispatch combines network adapters to increase speed and reliability

Beyond the Hotspot software that comprises the bulk of their business, Connectify Inc. makes another utility for laptop enthusiasts: Dispatch.

The adapters list appears at the bottom of the main interface window, and a handy graph provides throughput information over time.

Connectify Dispatch works by simultaneously leveraging the multiple network adapters and high-speed USB ports available on modern systems to boost bandwidth and reliability. Each Internet connection you add to Dispatch's list of active adapters increases potential download speeds and provides automatic failover in the case one of the connections fails. For the most part, this works swimmingly. However, there's a bit of the devil in the details.

Setup is straightforward and largely automatic. Users are presented with a window that lists available adapters and indicates whether or not they are bound to Dispatch. A graph charts the combined bandwidth on tap, and settings allow for customized application routing, bandwidth caps for metered Internet feeds, and various routing strategies that maximize efficiency in marginal networking situations.

The first prerequisite is an obvious one: You need access to multiple, separate Internet connections for Dispatch to work as advertised. The hidden detail here is that combined bandwidth isn't directly additive. Two 20 Mbs connections won't yield a 40 Mbs single-socket download, for example, but they will allow for loads to be balanced and intelligently routed to an available adapter with the most suitable bandwidth. BitTorrents and other software that utilize multiple sockets will allow downloads to reach full combined speeds, however.

Different routing strategies let you maximize performance for asymmetrical Internet connections or emphasize reliability over speed.

Next, your system will need the hardware to make practical use of those multiple internet connections. While most laptops have more than a single network interface, normally only one is wireless. This means getting the benefits of Dispatch requires either cabling up with Ethernet or adding a USB Wi-Fi dongle to your system, complicating matters somewhat, especially on the road. How often do you find Ethernet jacks outside of office environments, where connectivity is rarely an issue?

With a small investment of setup time and money, however, Dispatch's usefulness grows considerably. Adding one or more tiny plug-and-play Wi-Fi adapters (such as EdiMax's Nano 802.11) to unused USB ports dramatically multiplies the performance benefits of Dispatch, especially in bandwidth-starved but Wi-Fi-rich environments such as coffee shops, libraries, and trade shows. Just make sure to have all the login credentials saved before you settle down with your latte.

In fact, it's under these conditions that Dispatch really shows its potential. At home and hooked up to a stable high-speed network, the benefits are largely negligible unless your own Internet service is crummy enough that you're poaching a neighbor's Wi-Fi. But out on the road, a combination of local establishment Wi-Fi, a nearby hotspot, and a tethered 4G smartphone can yield an office-level networking experience in terms of speed and reliability.

Metered usage controls can close the money spigot when downloaded bytes start turning into overage charges.

It's a shame that Dispatch comes in at a sizable $45 for a lifetime license or $12 a quarter for subscription-based licensing, each of which is twice the price it should be. No free versions exist. The extra hardware and effort required to make the most of Dispatch means the investment doesn't stop with Connectify's charges, either.

Nevertheless, people who spend most of their laptop time in the field will want to take Dispatch for a spin and give it careful consideration.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Upgrade your home network with a media-streaming, backup-ready NAS box

If your home network lacks a NAS box, you’re missing out on two counts: First, network-attached storage (NAS) is the easiest way to back up connected PCs. Second—and more enjoyably—a NAS box can store your media libraries and stream files to any PC or networked audio device in your house (examples include devices in the AirPlay, NuVo, and Sonos product ecosystems). You can also stream your favorite movies and digital photos to your smart TV (or to your dumb TV, if you have a streaming box or home-theater PC connected to it). Better NAS boxes make remote access possible, so you can access your stuff from—and stream your media to—any device anywhere you have Internet access.

You needn’t pay big bucks for an expensive multibay model designed for small businesses, either. Would you buy a Lamborghini strictly for driving to the corner store? Barring a spectacularly successful PowerBall encounter—probably not. Follow the same principle when shopping for a NAS box. One caveat: Though single-bay NAS boxes are cost effective, they provide no data redundancy. If you store anything on them that you can’t afford to lose or can’t re-create, back them up.

With frugality and practicality in in mind, we put out a call for reasonably priced ($200 or less) NAS boxes that provide at least 1TB of storage, support remote access via the Web (ideally with mobile app support), and can act as both iTunes and DLNA-certified media servers. Four vendors stepped up to the plate: Buffalo Technology with its LinkStation Live; LaCie with its CloudBox; Seagate with its Central; and Western Digital with its My Book Live.

The hardware configurations proved to be surprisingly similar: Each box uses a 3.5-inch mechanical hard drive, a gigabit ethernet interface, and an external AC adapter; and each is about the size of a medium-format trade paperback. However, each manufacturer added widely different features and amenities on top of the hardware. You'll find the nitty-gritty details at the end of this article.

Buffalo’s LinkStation Live ($140) is a capable media streamer with the strongest feature set of the four boxes we looked at. Unfortunately, it fell off the pace in copying files, its UI was rather slow to respond, and configuring many of its features—including remote access—proved to be less than intuitive.

Buffalo Technology's LinkStation Live is packed with features, but it's not the fastest performer.

The 2TB LinkStation Live delivers shared folders, user accounts, workgroup and domain support, AFP and FTP file sharing, and—of course—iTunes and DLNA-certified media servers. You also get BitTorrent downloading, integrated Eye-Fi service (so you can copy photos from your digital camera to your networked storage using Wi-Fi), Flickr integration (so you can automatically upload photos stored in a designated folder on the LinkStation to your Flickr account), NovaBackup (for backing up PCs to the box), an on-board routine to back up the LinkStation’s files to other locations, and remote access via BuffaloNas.com (where you can manage and share files via the Internet).

Like the LaCie CloudBox, the LinkStation Live will automatically open one of your router’s ports for remote access, provided that your router supports UPnP port forwarding. If your router doesn’t, you’ll have to do it yourself. (The LinkStation Live expects to use port 9000.)

The LinkStation Live suffers from a sluggish user interface.

Buffalo’s box was the second fastest in our roundup at handling a 10GB mix of files and folders, writing them at 17.5 MBps and reading them at 29.9 MBps, but the LinkStation Live’s performance with our large 10GB file fell well below the curve: It wrote that file at 22.7 MBps and read it at 49.1 MBps. On both operations, that’s a good 10 MBps slower than the performance turned in by next slowest drive.

All was well on the streaming front: The unit spooled our 40-mbps, 1080p files to three PCs with nary a hitch. It was also the only box in the roundup that transcoded MKV files on the fly, so they would play in Windows Media Player via DLNA. It didn’t list playable WAV files in iTunes, but otherwise that server was up to snuff. You should have no qualms about using this unit to stream movies around the house.

In setup and configuration, the LinkStation Live was the least user-friendly box we examined. On the other hand, it lacks nothing in features and it streams very nicely. Users with the technical chops, or the patience to learn some new skills, could swing with the Buffalo product.

The LaCie CloudBox is a shiny white, Neil Poulton-designed rectangular a NAS box that looks nice alongside iMacs and the like. It is extremely white, however, so it will stand out against black A/V equipment. The 2TB CloudBox can be tricky to configure for remote access, but it boasts top-notch features, good all-around performance, and carries a moderate price of $150.

LaCie definitely had the prettiest NAS box in this roundup.

The CloudBox runs the full version of LaCie’s Dashboard operating system, which the company has gradually crafted into a feature-rich offering. In addition to expected features such as user and shared folders, FTP, workgroup, you’ll find a BitTorrent client and a full browser-based file manager. The CloudBox ties with Western Digital’s My Book Live for best backup features in this foursome, starting with a version of Genie Timeline for the PC, Intego for the Mac, and box-to-box backup via rsync (so you can back up the contents of the NAS box itself).

Out of the box, the CloudBox is ready to go on your local network. If your router lacks UPnP (Universal Plug-n-Play) port forwarding, however, you might need to configure it yourself to get remote access—and that can be a challenge. (In most cases you’ll find a router’s port-forwarding settings under its gaming features: Forward port 8080 to the CloudBox’s IP address.)

The CloudBox performed well in our tests. Both the DLNA and iTunes servers functioned perfectly, and the unit effortlessly streamed our 40-mbps video to three PCs simultaneously. File-transfer performance was very good for a low-priced box, and the CloudBox took first place on the task of reading our 10GB mix of files and folders, with a speed of 33.7 MBps. It wrote those files at 16.5 MBps, and it wrote and read our single 10GB file at 31.6 MBps and 63.5 MBps, respectively.

LaCie's Dashboard operating system is rich in features.

LaCie provides dedicated remote-access apps for iOS and Android devices, but not for Windows Phone 7 or 8. The app isn’t as attractive as Seagate’s handsome Dashboard OS, but it does the job. For Windows Phones, you can use a third-party DLNA- or iTunes-compatible client such as cPlayer (for Windows Phone 7 and 8).

LaCie is unique among the four manufacturers represented here in offering a free 10GB/one-year subscription to its own Wuala online storage service. Add that to the BitTorrent client, plus good performance and looks, and you have an all-around attractive deal in a household NAS box.

The Seagate Central is the big easy of NAS boxes. All you have to do to to set it up for remote access is to surf to the unit’s configuration page; enter your name, email address, and password; and then respond to an email message that links to a create-an-account page. Your name becomes your local network login, your email address is your remote login name, and your password works for both. It may take 30 minutes or so for everything to propagate, but once it’s done, it’s done.

The Seagate Central is nearly silent, thanks to its passive cooling system.

You can use the included Dashboard software to open the aforementioned configuration page (Dashboard also takes care of PC backups), or you can manually surf to the unit’s URL. Seagate automatically maps the Central’s public folder to drive Z in Windows Explorer, which displays the URL. Remote access is via Seagate’s SeagateMedia app for iOS, Android, and Kindle, or a Tappin-powered website where you can play, manage, and share your files.

Thanks to its fine mesh lid and perforated base, the Central sheds heat without needing a fan. The unit’s near-silent convection cooling, plus its quiet drive, means that you can plop the Central next to your home-theater setup without adding appreciable noise. On the other hand, the Central's decidedly retro resemblance to an older cable or DSL modem may not be welcome in your living room.

Priced at $170, the 2TB Central is the only unit in this roundup that comes with a USB port. The port is for storage only, but any drive you attach will appear on your network as a separate shared folder, so you can copy files to it as you would to any other network resource. The Central is an always-on device with no power button; but as is true of the other boxes’ drives, its drive spins down when not in use, to save power.

Seagate developed a simple and easy user interface for the Central. Basic features include device setup, user accounts, and enabling or disabling remote access and the multimedia servers. One feature allows you to back up on the Central any pictures posted to your Facebook account—but that’s it for frills. Though the Dashboard software backs up PCs to the box, it doesn’t provide any means to back up the box itself. That’s a major omission for a single-bay NAS box, given its lack of data redundancy.

Seagate designed a very elegant user interface for its Central.

The Central performed well in our tests, but it displayed some files in iTunes that wouldn’t play (tracks encoded in Ogg and FLAC), and it failed to display some WAV files that iTunes is capable of playing. To its credit, the box streamed our large 40-mbps video file simultaneously to three PCs, without a hiccup; and it was the only entrant in the group that served up Ogg Theora video.

File-transfer performance was very good for a low-priced NAS box, registering 16.9 MBps while writing our 10GB mix of files and folders, and 20.1 MBps while reading them. It did even better with our large 10GB file, writing it at a roundup-best speed of 40.3 MBps and reading it at 75.2 MBps.

Easy setup and quiet streaming make the Seagate Central a particularly good fit for A/V systems. On the other hand, we wish that it had an on-board self-backup capability, BitTorrent support, and the ability to interface to more social sites than just Facebook.

WD’s My Book Live isn’t spectacular in any one particular area. But taken as a whole, it achieves the best balance of performance, features, and price ($140) in the roundup. It also delivers the easy remote access setup that the LaCie and Buffalo lack.

Western Digital's My Book Live was our favorite consumer-oriented NAS box.

The My Book Live, like other NAS boxes, can be accessed over a local network without any configuration—just plug it into your router. But WD has created useful shares (publicly shared folders) that make life easier. There’s a public share, with music, picture, and video subfolders; and there are shares dedicated to backups (including Time Machine Backup for Mac users and WD’s own bundled SmartWare). For backing up the box itself, WD provides an on-board routine that creates “safepoints,” which are much like Windows Restore Points, but constitute a full backup.

WD supports most video codecs—except for Ogg Theora—and the My Book Live’s streaming performance was smooth as silk. We did encounter a minor glitch with the WD’s iTunes server that created listings for unplayable WMA and WMA Lossless files. On the other hand, this was the only drive of the four that transcoded FLAC files for playback on a client PC running iTunes. If you’re an audiophile, you probably have a player than can support those files natively. Other people in your household might not be as picky, or they might prefer the familiarity of Apple’s player.

Western Digital has a terrific Web portal for remote streaming.

The My Book Live performed extremely well overall, though it struggled more than the other three drives when reading our 10GB mix of files and folders, delivering throughput of just 16.4 MBps. Conversely, it was considerably faster than any other box when writing those same files, clocking in at 26.9 MBps. Go figure. And the My Book Live excelled with the single 10GB file, writing it at 32.4 MBps and reading it at 77.1 MBps.

WD has the best app coverage of any of the four drives we tested, with versions of its WD2go media player for iOS, Android, and even Windows Phone 7. You can also establish remote access using a browser, via WD’s slickly-rendered, Java-based www.wd2go.com.

Western Digital wins this competition with a combination of great performance and a solid set of features.

The Seagate Central’s superquiet operation, speed, and USB port make it a particularly good fit for an AV setup, though Seagate might have made it even more appealing by adopting a more modern look. The LinkStation Live is a viable media streamer, but it lagged behind the rest of the field in file copy performance and ease of configuration. The LaCie CloudBox performs well, has a nice feature set, and is a strong product at a nice price. In the end, however, Western Digital’s My Book Live delivered the best combination of low price, performance, features, and ease of setup and use. That earned it the extra half-point it needed to take the top spot.

Rsync (for NAS backup), Genie TimeLine (PC), Intego (Mac), Time Machine supportSeagate Dashboard (no provision for NAS backup)Safepoints (for NAS backup), WD SmartWare, Time Machine supportAndroid, iOS, Web, Windows Phone

We measured each box’s file-transfer performance by copying first a 10GB collection of small files and then a single 10GB file (a read test). Then we copied those files back to the NAS box (a write test). We repeated each task several times and then averaged the results.

We paid special attention to each box’s ease of setup and use, media-streaming capabilities, and remote access. To evaluate media capabilities, we used the media server or servers (DLNA and/or iTunes) on each box to stream music and video encoded in various file formats to iTunes, Windows Media Player, and XBMC running on Windows clients. We also streamed 40-mbps, 1080p MKV files to three separate PCs simultaneously, to test each box’s ability to serve multiple users at once.

Yes (extra feature: transcodes for Windows Media Player clients)

Note: The file formats listed in the charts above indicates the box’s ability to stream a format, not the client’s ability to play it. XBMC and iTunes can play audio streams encoded in Apple Lossless, for instance, but Windows Media Player cannot. Windows Media Player, meanwhile, is one of the few media players that can handle WMA Lossless tracks.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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T-Mobile’s 4G LTE Network to Launch This Month, First Test Results

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New Social Network Trades “Likes” for “Hates”

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LaCie 2Big Network 2 2TB Review: Attractive Design, Basic Function

The LaCie 2Big Network 2, with its aluminum fins and too-big blue front status indicator/sleep button has unique style. Beyond that, its best aspects are its stylish, well-written HTML interface and its ability to connect either to your router (via ethernet) or directly to a PC (via USB--an unusual trait for a network-attached box). Performance, on the other hand, though adequate for streaming media, is strictly middle-of-the-road.

The 2Big Network 2's supplied ports are a cut above the standard-issue consumer NAS configuration. You get a single gigabit ethernet port, a type B USB 2.0 port for attaching the drive directly to PCs or Macs, a type A USB 2.0 port, and an eSATA port for attaching fast external storage. The two drive bays, accessible from the rear of the unit, contain trays that are easy to remove and keep drives firmly in place with screws.

LaCie ships the 2Big Network 2 configured in RAID 0, which increases performance slightly and uses the drives to their full capacity, but leaves all data on the box at risk. Drive failure does happen, so keep the box backed up or consider switching to the supported RAID 1 mirroring configuration for data redundancy. We tested the $350 (as of March 23, 2012) 2TB version; LaCie also sells a 4TB version.

The 2Big Network 2's performance is adequate for streaming media and light home use, but not for businesses moving lots of data or backing up more than two or three PCs overnight. The unit read our 10GB mix of files and folders at 34.6 megabytes per second and wrote them at 20 MBps. It wrote our single 10GB test file at 32.1 MBps and read it at 53.9 MBps. Those numbers reflect merely average performance for a two-bay NAS box.

LaCie's HTML interface is attractive and (for the most part) well thought out, though features such as multimedia serving would have benefited from more-prominent placement. One other minor complaint: I'd like to be able to step back and forth between pages using the browser buttons; but at the moment, you must return to the main page by clicking on the Home button or the 2Big Network logo. On the plus side, the interface shelters you from some of the unnecessary complexity that boxes from QNAP and Synology may expose you to.

The 2Big Network 2 has all the software features that most users need: file sharing, iTunes and DLNA-compliant media surfing, backup, and the like. It's also one of the most Mac-friendly boxes we looked at in our roundup of 11 NAS boxes (many of LaCie's products target the Mac community), supporting Time Machine and harmonizing visually with Mac hardware. It can back up to other boxes via Rsync.

One of the 2Big Network 2's nicest design flourishes is its fail-safe power switch. The worst thing you can do with a NAS box is to cut off the power without giving the box time to close files properly. In contrast, switching the LaCie's power button to off simply initiates a polite shutdown sequence. If for some reason the box locks up, you can always pull the power cord.

For a significantly lower price than you'd pay for a Synology or QNAP box with drives, the LaCie 2Big Network 2 nails the essentials. Performance is fine for home use, though not for businesses or for situations that entail handling lots of simultaneous access.

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LaCie 5Big Network 2 Review: Large Capacity, Mediocre Performance

The LaCie 5Big Network 2 offers a lot of features and capacity for comparatively little cash: $900 (as of March 23, 2012) for 5TB. And despite the unit's extremely large blue status button (or maybe because of it), the 5Big Network 2 is quite a bit better looking than most NAS boxes. Regrettably, though, it delivers slow, barely consumer-grade performance.

Unlike its 2Big Network 2 cousin, the 5Big Network 2 does not attach directly to PCs, so you won't find a type B USB port. LaCie does supply a wide complement of other ports, however: two USB 2.0 ports, two ethernet ports (supporting failover and aggregation), and two eSATA ports. The five drive bays are accessible from the back via slide-out trays, which lock in place with thumb-screw mechanisms. The bays are numbered, which comes in handy when you're configuring the drive. Another amenity is the unit's fail-safe power switch, which initiates a safe shutdown, not a sudden power-off.

The 5Big Network 2 has all of the essential software features for network-attached storage: file sharing, iTunes and DLNA compliant media serving, backup, online backup, and Rsync for synchronizing the box with remote servers. The interface is nicely rendered and--with the exception of having to hit the home button to back out of sections--easy to use.

The 5Big Network 2's only real drawback is unfortunately a major one: performance. It finished dead last in three of our four tests and second-to-last in the fourth, out of 11 NAS boxes tested--among them some consumer-grade two-bay boxes such as LaCie's own 2Big Network 2. Configured in RAID 5, the 5Big Network 2 read our 10GB mix of files and folders at 34.2 megabytes per second and wrote them at 17.4 MBps. It read our single 10GB test file at a marginally respectable 57.5 MBps, but wrote it at only 28.6 MBps. With a 1.2GHz Marvell CPU and 512MB of memory on board, those numbers should have been better.

The 5Big Network 2's software features and style points would place it near the top of the multibay NAS box chart. But its performance doesn't equal that of competing models, including such low-cost alternatives as the Western Digital Sentinal DX4000 and the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2.

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