Recommendations

All of the units performed capably, so the type of unit you choose really depends on your needs, the price you're willing to pay, and which features you prefer.

The 500GB Iomega StorCenter was only unit I tested that supports Linux clients. It also supports disk mirroring, which can help ensure business continuity for small office environments. In the mirrored configuration, the cost per gigabyte for the US$439.95 device is about twice that of a single, 250GB shared disk. Still, that's not a lot to pay if you need fault-tolerant storage. Mirroring has another benefit: like most shared storage devices, the StorCenter saves file version histories when backing up. If it fails, you lose access to your file version histories. Mirroring helps preserve that data.

With a street price of about US$200, the 320GB Buffalo LinkStation is aggressively priced and has the most sophisticated security configuration options for small office environments. It doesn't include a print server function though, nor media streaming support.

If you want media streaming, the Maxtor Shared Storage II supports UPnP, as does the StorCenter, but the latter uses an older-style, parallel ATA disk interface rather than the newer, faster serial ATA in the Maxtor unit. The Shared Storage II was also the only unit I tested that doesn't support older, Windows 98 machines.

The Western Digital NetCenter model I tested shows how tempting it can be to upgrade to a larger drive. The 500GB NetCenter has a list price of US$399.99 but street prices are around US$275 -- that's just US$75 more than what the 320GB Buffalo model sells for online.

Because I want to store shared data on the network storage device and maintain data on local PC and Mac machines as well, the capability to do bidirectional backups is important. Both the Iomega StorCenter and Western Digital NetCenter, with EMC Retrospect Express, met that requirement. Client licenses to back up all of my workstations, however, will require a US$49 upgrade to Restrospect Professional 7.5 (the regular cost if you're not upgrading is US$119). That covers three client licenses. I'll need two more, at US$37 each.

The backup software included with Maxtor's Shared Storage II doesn't require additional licenses. Unfortunately, while it can back up all clients to the shared disk, unique data on the shared disk can only be backed up to another, USB-attached storage device. Memeo, which came with the Buffalo device, doesn't support the iMac.

You could easily use the Backup utility that comes with Windows XP to set up bidirectional backups with any of these shared drives. However, I wanted the more advanced features in Retrospect, such as the ability to restore from a file version history, and I wanted to use one consistent utility that could back up both the iMac and Windows machines.

For my requirements, therefore, the Western Digital NetCenter gets the nod. One possible concern is the network speed - 100 Mb/sec. Ethernet versus 1,000Mb/sec. (1GB) for other units I tested. With my daughter getting into more streaming video and audio, I suppose that this could possibly make a difference -- if I had standardized the rest of my network on Gigabit Ethernet. I haven't, however, and I suspect that most home and small office users haven't either.

In fact, most home offices are using 802.11G wireless Ethernet, which runs at 54Mb/sec. at best. And with wired Gigabit Ethernet routers and adapters still selling for a premium, most users with wired Ethernet are still opting for 10/100 Ethernet devices, according to my local computer dealer. Finally, while multimedia files in my network are likely to be backed up to the network storage device, they will be played from the local disk drives on the OS X and Windows machines.

The 500GB NetCenter model I tested has more room than I need, and with a US$399.99 list price (US$275 street) it's at the high end of my budget.

Backups of all data and configuration information for the five machines in my environment come in at less than 30GB (According to Seagate the typical business user has less than 50GB of data). I don't plan to do full system backups, which would require more space. So for this household, even the 160 GB NetCenter (US$199) would do fine today. That said, my teenage daughter's video and audio files are building up rapidly. My best choice is to split the difference and go with the 320GB NetCenter, which retails for US$249 and sells online for about US$220. With the backup software upgrade that puts the total cost just under US$350.