Netgear SC101 Storage Center Network Attached LAN HDD Enclosure

[funboy6942]

Linkage

Just got mine in and it is soooo tiny and cute

Suposedly refurb direct from Netgear, looks brand new. Nothing really much in these that can go wrong. If your looking for storage to put away from prying eyes, only computers on the network that can see the unit is thoughs with the units drives installed on them, this is the box for you.

Now I am able to get my rated R movies and games off the shared network with my kids and never have to worry about them watching something they shouldnt be watching, for all the nasty stuff will be going on the Hard drives in this thing, and only my PC's im on will have access to it.



BTW holds 2 Hard drives.

OK
After playing with it for almost 24 hours I have found myself loving this thing more and more. I was able to get it going on another pc by going into setup on the first pc I set it up on and shared it. I also found out I can password protect the drive from anyone who thinks they can just install the driver and have rights to it. Not so, need the password after installing the driver to get into the drive letter Im sharing. On top of that you can "partition" the drive into several drive letters. Meaning my one 250 gig drive, I can make 2 100 gig partitions, and one 50 gig partition, and each one will show up as a separate drive letter under my computer, and I can set a password for each one. This works out better then I hoped for because it holds 2 drives, with I believe no limitations in size, that I can have run 24/7 sucking up 12 watts of power, then my pc running all the time using upwards of 500 watts as it runs everything connected to it.

Transferring files to it is NO where near as fast as it is when Im transferring from HD to HD within my pc, but once the files are on it, it plays movies, and music at the same time with no lag. And when I mention the transfer I mean the initial stuff I wish to dump onto it, over 50 gig+ at a time. Once on there its all good for I didnt pay all that much for what all it now does or me. So I can live with it being a tad bit slower.

ALSO you can have it mirror, and save you important files on its own, so if a HD does decide to puke out, all you had on it was saved on the other hd. Put in a new one, and the program after you set up will back up you files again as if it never happened.

So this is what I have learned it can do, and I dont know why it got such a bad rap when I looked it up. Its doing everything I could ask of it and then some, and the reviews on it, aside of it being kinda slow, but wtf, its a 10/100 line, you cant buy it and expect it to be blazing fast other then that I have yet to have a single problem in loading the drivers, to firmware updating it, to running it on different computers with more then one letter drive made with passwords for each.

Im buying another one asap, or some larger then 250 gig hds to run instead in this one I got. As long as you dont expect it to transfer files like a rocket, anyone should be happy with this and the protection it will give of your files over a network.

If anyone has any questions shoot them to me, im feeling good today, and be happy to test more stuff with this thing.

 

[mundane]

I picked up a similar model when it was on sale at Fry's without reading up on what "SAN" entailed in this context. I expected SAMBA shares (but should've known better at that price); instead, it relies on a proprietary driver installation on any guest systems, which effectively limits it to Windows machines.

 

[flxnimprtmscl]

Meh, PATA only. Neat product, though.

 

[uhohs]

just letting people know this unit has horrible reviews all over the internet.
amazon reviews
newegg reviews
pcmag user reviews
pcworld user reviews
another review
etc.

 

[onza]

beginning to think funboy doesnt work and all he does is find deals

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: onza
beginning to think funboy doesnt work and all he does is find deals

You hit the nail on the head. I got hurt on the job and have become disabled for life, as well as my health going to pot, so at times when Im not hurting to bad, to pass time, I mess around on the net looking for ANYTHING to keep me busy and my mind off bad thoughts

So Im hoping not to many mind that I do this when I come across this stuff, or buy the stuff and give my viwes on what I put up Its all I got left to do in my life till SSI goes through. I know its trivial, but this does sorta make me happy, and love answering questions as well. When you get to a point like I am where you cannot afford to go places, and you are not able to go no where, not just because of money for gas but because the POS van has a broken fuel pump, the smallest of things can put a smile on your face, give you some sort of purpose, and something to do other then sit here in pain 24/7, thumb up the ass, waiting to die And even after I get on SSI my life wont really change much just because there isnt much I can do that wont put me in 400x more pain then Im always in, and there is NO drug or operation they can do to me to relieve it for me.

Alright im going to quit right here for I can go on and on about this and Im sorta in a good mood right now, so there it is. I will post later how well this will actually work once I get done moving some stuff around to open a drive or two I can put in this thing.

 

[foolish501]

Don't want to threadcrap, but have to let people know about this awful enclosure. Bought one of these for $25 @ Circuit City a few months back, and worst computer product i ever bought. No support for Vista x64, and netgear say there won't be any support because it's not their product, they just rebadged it. Took beta drivers to get it working in Vista with SP1, and caused blue screens until the drivers were uninstalled. The thing was so slow, took 1 1/2hrs to copy over a ubuntu iso.

 

[funboy6942]

Im not running Vista, but on their site they have the software and irmware updates to fix all the problems you are mentioning, at least thats what it says on the website.

I saw a lot of people complaining about the unit, mostly because you cannot take the hard drive out of it once it formats it and put it in your pc for it wont see anything, and the fact you must run the driver on every pc inorder for that pc to see it.

All of which I can live with for what I plan on using it for. But check out the website, there is support for it, 90 days free through netgear, and there are updates for the product if they havent done it all already before you get it.

Im still in the process of moving my files around to open up a 250 gig drive to put in it. Aftrer I do, I will for sure be mentioning how it goes and how it works out. But I dont see myself having to many more 'problems" then what I already know, and if I dont, hoping that I can fix it with updates. I do know for a fact though, I saw the update to run it on Vista when ever that time comes for me.

Link to Netgear support page for this unit.

 

[funboy6942]

OK, got my unit up and running and Im happy. My only regret so far is not buying it sooner!

I installed the software, using the link I gave. after it installed it asked if I wanted to update, my unit was not up to date so I allowed it to. After it was finished doing that it proceeded to install the drivers on my PC. Unit rebooted and took about a minute before it came on line after all that, then asked if I wanted to do a list of like 12 things. I just did one disk, made a name, how big, or much, of the space I wanted to use, used it all, 232 gigs. After that was done it now shows up under my computer as drive F.

Im dumping my files to it right now, 45gigs atm, and it says it will take 2 hours for 45 gigs, which I dont think is too bad considering its going through my pc, then my hub, and then to the unit on a 10/100 line. I knew before buying it transferring huge files was going to be slower then if I did it from HD to HD in my PC, but for the price, and once all these files are on it I wont need to be transferring large flies no more just passing pic, music, and videos from it to my pc in my room here, and the one in my bedroom. My main thing with it, for me, was being able to move the stuff my kids didnt need to see if they decided to go into folders on the network they shouldnt be going into.

For $35~ shipped, im more then happy and thinking of buying another one to put the just the kids stuff on to get those hard drives out of my pc taking up space. Im very sorry I cannot comment on running it with Vista, maybe if someone else here buys it running vista can chime in, Id like to know if I will be able to update later down the road to it and still be able to use this myself if someone wouldnt mind.

 

[kgokal]

Is the Just Deals site down, i keep getting blank page?

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: kgokal
Is the Just Deals site down, i keep getting blank page?

I just tried and got the product I linked to.

 

[ChunkiMunki]

anybody ever just share it via Windows? without the SAN software? I'd like to use this as an external drive just for my computer.

 

[foolish501]

Originally posted by: ChunkiMunki
anybody ever just share it via Windows? without the SAN software? I'd like to use this as an external drive just for my computer.

there is no way for it to work without the software

 

[Throckmorton]

About the bad reviews, I think a lot of these things get bad reviews because people don't know what they're doing. I bought an Iomega NAS despite the bad reviews, and I have no problems. It was difficult to set up the first time because the instructions sucked, but it's working perfectly.

 

[uhohs]

I didn't read through all the reviews, but isn't this the netgear enclosure that had issues with heat dissipation and cooking hds? or was that another netgear enclosure that looked like a toaster?

 

[bucd]

Originally posted by: uhohs
I didn't read through all the reviews, but isn't this the netgear enclosure that had issues with heat dissipation and cooking hds? or was that another netgear enclosure that looked like a toaster?

This one does get hot. With 2x250GB 7200RPM drives, it's really hot. I'm not even using this enclosure any more due to heat.

So far I've had better luck with Buffalo brand as well as the Maxtor Fusion drives. Both of which has internal fans to keep them cool.

If you only use one hard drive in these, they will run a little cooler, but still heats up too much for me.

Good luck to those who has these.

-D

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: bucd

Originally posted by: uhohs
I didn't read through all the reviews, but isn't this the netgear enclosure that had issues with heat dissipation and cooking hds? or was that another netgear enclosure that looked like a toaster?

This one does get hot. With 2x250GB 7200RPM drives, it's really hot. I'm not even using this enclosure any more due to heat.

So far I've had better luck with Buffalo brand as well as the Maxtor Fusion drives. Both of which has internal fans to keep them cool.

If you only use one hard drive in these, they will run a little cooler, but still heats up too much for me.

Good luck to those who has these.

-D

About the heat.
Mine shuts the hard drives down if it has not been used for around 15 minutes, the whole thing shuts down and goes into a sleep mode. I also had it running so far from the day I got it till now, and its not hot at all, nor is the hard drive in it for I just opened it, and it was cool to the touch, not warm at all.

I dont know what unit you got but this thing not only looks like a pig, but the case is made of aluminum with plastic sides and feet, and the outer middle, upper and bottom shell, looks like a huge heatsink. My pc right next to it has been on the same time as this thing, with a WD matching 250 gig drive in it, with no cover on the case, hard drive sitting on top, as Im cleaning it to drop in the little piggy, and its hotter then hell.

So to recap, mine, with the newest firmware, an aluminum inner core with heat radiating fins on it like a heat sink top and bottom, is not hot at all, not even really warm to the touch be it the unit, or even the hard drive in it, and shuts my hard drive down if not being used saving my drives from unnecessary usage letting them spin all the time like my pc(s).

I will dump some stuff to it in just a few minutes as I am about to put in my second matching WD 250 gig drive in it, and will let you all know it it starts to heat up like an oven then as it will be transferring files, and not shut down due to being inactive, and see if it really does get hotter then what I just felt my drive as. OH better yet I will get out my digital laser temp gun so that way it will be dead on nuts accurate between the 2.

As or using it for extra storage attached to the pc. I was wondering the same thing. Why one couldnt install a Nic card in a open pc slot, and attach this to it. I would think it be as fas as hooking up a external enclosure to the usb2 port, but should be a bit faster, hold 2drives then one. Yuo will just need to use the software for the pc to see it, but after that its hooked direct to your pc so shouldnt be seen on the network. I dont know this for sure, but I sure as hell am going to try it when I get another one.

 

[JimKiler]

Originally posted by: funboy6942

Originally posted by: onza
beginning to think funboy doesnt work and all he does is find deals

You hit the nail on the head. I got hurt on the job and have become disabled for life, as well as my health going to pot, so at times when Im not hurting to bad, to pass time, I mess around on the net looking for ANYTHING to keep me busy and my mind off bad thoughts

So Im hoping not to many mind that I do this when I come across this stuff, or buy the stuff and give my viwes on what I put up Its all I got left to do in my life till SSI goes through. I know its trivial, but this does sorta make me happy, and love answering questions as well. When you get to a point like I am where you cannot afford to go places, and you are not able to go no where, not just because of money for gas but because the POS van has a broken fuel pump, the smallest of things can put a smile on your face, give you some sort of purpose, and something to do other then sit here in pain 24/7, thumb up the ass, waiting to die And even after I get on SSI my life wont really change much just because there isnt much I can do that wont put me in 400x more pain then Im always in, and there is NO drug or operation they can do to me to relieve it for me.

Alright im going to quit right here for I can go on and on about this and Im sorta in a good mood right now, so there it is. I will post later how well this will actually work once I get done moving some stuff around to open a drive or two I can put in this thing.

Sorry to hear about becoming disabled. Definitely keeps your thoughts on the happy path. That is great that you can help out this forum with good deals.

 

[bucd]

Originally posted by: funboy6942

Originally posted by: bucd

Originally posted by: uhohs
I didn't read through all the reviews, but isn't this the netgear enclosure that had issues with heat dissipation and cooking hds? or was that another netgear enclosure that looked like a toaster?

This one does get hot. With 2x250GB 7200RPM drives, it's really hot. I'm not even using this enclosure any more due to heat.

So far I've had better luck with Buffalo brand as well as the Maxtor Fusion drives. Both of which has internal fans to keep them cool.

If you only use one hard drive in these, they will run a little cooler, but still heats up too much for me.

Good luck to those who has these.

-D

About the heat.
Mine shuts the hard drives down if it has not been used for around 15 minutes, the whole thing shuts down and goes into a sleep mode. I also had it running so far from the day I got it till now, and its not hot at all, nor is the hard drive in it for I just opened it, and it was cool to the touch, not warm at all.

I dont know what unit you got but this thing not only looks like a pig, but the case is made of aluminum with plastic sides and feet, and the outer middle, upper and bottom shell, looks like a huge heatsink. My pc right next to it has been on the same time as this thing, with a WD matching 250 gig drive in it, with no cover on the case, hard drive sitting on top, as Im cleaning it to drop in the little piggy, and its hotter then hell.

So to recap, mine, with the newest firmware, an aluminum inner core with heat radiating fins on it like a heat sink top and bottom, is not hot at all, not even really warm to the touch be it the unit, or even the hard drive in it, and shuts my hard drive down if not being used saving my drives from unnecessary usage letting them spin all the time like my pc(s).

I will dump some stuff to it in just a few minutes as I am about to put in my second matching WD 250 gig drive in it, and will let you all know it it starts to heat up like an oven then as it will be transferring files, and not shut down due to being inactive, and see if it really does get hotter then what I just felt my drive as. OH better yet I will get out my digital laser temp gun so that way it will be dead on nuts accurate between the 2.

As or using it for extra storage attached to the pc. I was wondering the same thing. Why one couldnt install a Nic card in a open pc slot, and attach this to it. I would think it be as fas as hooking up a external enclosure to the usb2 port, but should be a bit faster, hold 2drives then one. Yuo will just need to use the software for the pc to see it, but after that its hooked direct to your pc so shouldnt be seen on the network. I dont know this for sure, but I sure as hell am going to try it when I get another one.

I have the same unit. And yeah, if you spin down the drives when not in use that would work, and only if that's you don't use it much. I have stuff downloading 24/7 and people sharing off of them. So that's not an option for me.

If you leave it running 24/7 and check out the heat then, I think you would get the same results. But it's good that you don't have heat issue with the way you are using it. everyone will use them differently.

-D

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: bucd

Originally posted by: funboy6942

Originally posted by: bucd

Originally posted by: uhohs
I didn't read through all the reviews, but isn't this the netgear enclosure that had issues with heat dissipation and cooking hds? or was that another netgear enclosure that looked like a toaster?

This one does get hot. With 2x250GB 7200RPM drives, it's really hot. I'm not even using this enclosure any more due to heat.

So far I've had better luck with Buffalo brand as well as the Maxtor Fusion drives. Both of which has internal fans to keep them cool.

If you only use one hard drive in these, they will run a little cooler, but still heats up too much for me.

Good luck to those who has these.

-D

About the heat.
Mine shuts the hard drives down if it has not been used for around 15 minutes, the whole thing shuts down and goes into a sleep mode. I also had it running so far from the day I got it till now, and its not hot at all, nor is the hard drive in it for I just opened it, and it was cool to the touch, not warm at all.

I dont know what unit you got but this thing not only looks like a pig, but the case is made of aluminum with plastic sides and feet, and the outer middle, upper and bottom shell, looks like a huge heatsink. My pc right next to it has been on the same time as this thing, with a WD matching 250 gig drive in it, with no cover on the case, hard drive sitting on top, as Im cleaning it to drop in the little piggy, and its hotter then hell.

So to recap, mine, with the newest firmware, an aluminum inner core with heat radiating fins on it like a heat sink top and bottom, is not hot at all, not even really warm to the touch be it the unit, or even the hard drive in it, and shuts my hard drive down if not being used saving my drives from unnecessary usage letting them spin all the time like my pc(s).

I will dump some stuff to it in just a few minutes as I am about to put in my second matching WD 250 gig drive in it, and will let you all know it it starts to heat up like an oven then as it will be transferring files, and not shut down due to being inactive, and see if it really does get hotter then what I just felt my drive as. OH better yet I will get out my digital laser temp gun so that way it will be dead on nuts accurate between the 2.

As or using it for extra storage attached to the pc. I was wondering the same thing. Why one couldnt install a Nic card in a open pc slot, and attach this to it. I would think it be as fas as hooking up a external enclosure to the usb2 port, but should be a bit faster, hold 2drives then one. Yuo will just need to use the software for the pc to see it, but after that its hooked direct to your pc so shouldnt be seen on the network. I dont know this for sure, but I sure as hell am going to try it when I get another one.

I have the same unit. And yeah, if you spin down the drives when not in use that would work, and only if that's you don't use it much. I have stuff downloading 24/7 and people sharing off of them. So that's not an option for me.

If you leave it running 24/7 and check out the heat then, I think you would get the same results. But it's good that you don't have heat issue with the way you are using it. everyone will use them differently.

-D

OK, well I have put the other 250gig WD identical drive in and set it up the same exact way as the first one. I have been transferring files between the 2 hard drives to the other separating my adult stuff with the kids things.

I got a temp of the hd just sitting ontop my case out in the open of 40.9 C
Now that these are installed, and both running full speed taking files from the one drive to the other non stop for a hour so far the top of it is at 39.8 c, and the drives themselves have a temp of, wait for it, 40.9 C temp taken off the back of the drives where the cables go in. The temp was taken in the same place when the drive was in my pc running ontop the case, and actually at idle, NOT transferring files off it at all, just at idle at 40.9.

Im using a Atomik Microtemp to get the temp off them all. And when these are not being used they are cooler then my skin.

But this is what Im getting between them in the pig, and the temp sitting at idle ontop my pc case, and they are identical in temps. I will need to start transferring files with my 3rd exact WD 250 gig drive and see if it gets any hotter while its doing file then just sitting there at idle.

If your not using yours and want to sell it, I may be interested in doing so

 

[mikeford]

Maybe this isn't obvious, but how hot it gets depends a lot on how much heat the drive throws off, and some run MUCH hotter than others. Don't use a hot drive and maybe its just fine. I'm thinking about one just to park a couple of old drives in it, but I don't care for the proprietary formatting which keeps me from moving drives directly back and forth between a PC.

 

[funboy6942]

Thought I would post up that because these drives show up under my computer as actual drive letters, as if they are in my case, I can share a game across the net work. Like for instance I have Aironics, I installed it to my H drive which is the drive in the unit. Now not only am I playing the game, by my kids and wife and can play the game 2 without having to install it on their pc. So if you have games that play without needing a cd, just in a folder and you can click on the exe icon, then they can access the games as well from any pc while this is being shared on the network.

I hope this makes sense. All I know is the network drives can be shared to everyone connected on the network as i these drives are in thier pc, so my wife has a 10 gig drive, and use the H drive, the pig, and when she installs games, instead of putting them to her c drive, can have it go H:\\Program Files\......, using the drive on the network as her own personal storage space, and games will run that way, and others on the network can go into that folder, click on the game exe, and the game will start provided the game has no protection, nor requires you to install anything further for it to play. Its one central hard drive, for all pc's connected to it.

This thing just becomes more bad ass, IMO, the more I get to mess with it.

 

[CosmosRewind]

Friends in IT have had really bad experiences with these units. The fact that it needs a special driver is just asking for problems. PATA only stinks too.

 

[mikeford]

Price is down to $24.95 and shipping, but I am so glad I visited netgear support forums first, what a freaking nightmare.

 

[funboy6942]

I have read all the nightmares on this unit, and I personally have yet to have one single problem people have said it is to have, and I have 2 now with a 3rd coming very soon.

When it goes into sleep mode you have to wait half a second for the drives and my computer to show and drives in your computer, but it has yet to completely lock up my system.

yes it is kinda slow to transfer files from my pc to it, but when I was done moving the large files to them, it doesnt take all that long to send them to it one at a time, and can live with it being kinda slow for the price I paid, in order to do what it does for me is well worth the wait, I can put more then one transfer at a time to it. I did like 20 at once coming from 3 different pc's and it took over night to complete, which was no big deal I was sleeping anyway.

I have 2 WD 250 gig hard drives, and 2 Seagate 500's in another, and works fine with no problems. IN FACT I got in a tread a dead 320 gig WD, and it noticed it, and game me the warning lights that it was dead and what port it was hooked in to on BOTH the units for I didnt want to believe it was dead so tried it in every spot in each unit.

I can mirror my drives if I want if I should have a hd failure.

I guess what Im saying is I took what was written with a grain of salt and have thought what it was these people who bought them were thinking they were buying or even how to use it, or put the right drives in it. Not to mention their pc specs, or any viruses they may have on their pc that was causing the problems listed, for its been about 2 weeks I have used them, on 24/7, and yet to have one single problem I would even consider a problem.

A friend of mine bought one as well, and he has yet to have any problems with his too.

In fact Im able to do alot more with these then I was thinking I could do with them, Im happy, but to each their own.