BYTECC ME-850 Aluminum 3.5" Ultra ATA/133 Ethernet External Enclosure ( Share and store data through LAN )

Pros: 1. Inexpensive
2. Very solid, well-designed ventilated, fan-free aluminum construction that will extend your drive's life while keeping noise to a minimum.

3. Reliable, good performance, easy to assemble and use

4. Spins down your drive when not in use -- something USB enclosures do not do. Perfect for backups or casual access.

Cons: 1. IMPORTANT!!! The AC adapter it comes with may not have enough power to spin up your drive. I have a Seagate 7200.8 300GB, and had to use a 3rd-party 12V adapter that was lying around. I plan to call BYTECC and see if they'll send me a higher power AC adapter.

2. FAT32 file system has a max file size limit.

Other Thoughts: I have spent months wrestling with Netgear's SC101 "toaster" (total garbage), and another few looking for a USB enclosure that would spin down the drive. This device is perfect -- for a bit more than the price of a USB enclosure you get an really well built, networked unit that does what it's supposed to, and does it really well. My drive stays cool and only spins when needed. Kudos to BYTECC -- just wish it shipped with a better AC adapter!

Pros: quick to set up easy to install

Cons: Does not support OS X like the instructions say. I have tried Many times to connect to my I-Book and it will not connect.

Do not get good Tech suport either.

Other Thoughts: I'll be returning it because of the OS X connectivity issue

Pros: Been using now for several months. I've finally started doing larger file transfers. Many transfers are 25GB to 30GB ins size involving 7 to 8 thousand files at a time. No crashes as of yet.

Cons: None yet.........

Other Thoughts: As I mentioned in my first review this is no speed demon. However it continues to be a reliable network storage device.

Pros: The device is easy to setup and has a solitaty monolith sort of appeal. It has no Fan but seems to be architected in a way that makes the air flow around the drive without the extra noise.

Cons: I purchased two of these thinking that at a minimum you could store files on them and retrieve them reliably. Not so. I've had nothing but trouble with both in transferring large files and full directories to the unit. Apparently I'm not the only one who has had issues. There are a couple posts inthe usergroups discussing the problems with this device.

Other Thoughts: The Hardware in this device is also used in the Triton Simple NAS device. Which sufferes from the same exact problems the Bytecc does. Triton is a little farther along in their firmware which seems to be compatble with the BYTECC but will probably void your warranty should you have problems loading it.

Pros: Very quiet, easy setup with clear directions. I can now back up from any of my four wired or wireless computers without having another computer online to back up to.

Cons: None that I have encountered. If you've done your homework on this than you know what to expect or not expect.

Other Thoughts: This unit worked like a charm right out of the box. It took me ten minutes to install a 320 gig WD hardrive and connect to my home lan. I was able to connect directly to my router and do the setup easily through IE by following the directions. I did not find it necessary to setup from an individual computer first. Once setup, all four of my computers were able to recognize it and access it.

As all the web articles state, this is not a speed demon. File transfers that normally take me four minutes computer to computer probably run about six minutes when transferring to the bytecc. I have done many 3-5 thousand file transfers with no problems encountered. No crashes as of yet. I would say that reading the files is almost as fast as if they were on my computer's hardrive.

I have not run into the date modified timestamp problem that a previous reviewer had.

This is a diffent breed of cat than a regular external hardrive. Do your homework to make sure it is right for you.

Comments: GREAT idea...terrible product.

There are several problems with this product that made it useless for me.

1. When copying several thousand files totalling about 8GB of data to the Landisk, it invariably crashes requiring a reboot of the Landisk (happened all 4 times I tried this).
2. ANY access to a file on the Landisk (i.e. even just to READ a file) updates the MODIFIED timestamp, which should not occur. This wreaked havoc on my backup scripts.
3. The Landisk would periodically forget the custom hostname I had assigned to it.
4. Landisk only supports the FAT32 filesystem, which limits individual file size to 4GB. If using this to store large backup image files of hard drives (as was my intent) it won't work due to the FAT32 file size limitations.

Nice idea, but it needs more work before it's really ready to be a commercially useful product. I'm returning it.

Comments: As previous user stated, the FTP SUCKS! If you're looking for massive control over the FTP, then look elsewhere.

Comments: The assembly of the unit with a Hitachi 160 GB HD went well. No issues to speak of. I hooked it up to my LAN and then ran the utilities to configure it. Best bet is to just hook it up directly to your computer first. Setup takes a few minutes to get working. I used a fixed IP address on my net. I then hooked it up to my intranet and got it working. PROS: Seems rather fast, not as fast as internal storage though. Installation went relatively smooth, but BE SURE to read teh directions - this is different than normal drive installation.

CONS: I set up the FTP Server with 3 user IDs and passwords. I then accessed it from work and found out that ALL my stuff was accessable on the ME-850 without a need for password or user name. Their FTP implementation sucks! I have written their tech group but no answer yet.