Best NAS drive: Overview

NAS (network attached storage) devices certainly aren't the most glamorous gadgets you can have in your home. A network-connected hard drive might seem like a remnant from a home office – a backup necessity for over-paranoid users and not much more.

Early NAS devices – and even some new no-frills budget ones – do little more than allow any computer that's connected to a network to access an external hard drive as if it was physically installed in the computer. However, a lot of new NAS devices have some great features built in, which can completely transform what your home network is capable of.

Not only can they act as media servers throughout your house – letting your devices access and stream music and videos to any device on the network – they can also be used be used to stream your media across the internet, letting you access the files from anywhere in the world, and effectively allowing you to create your own version of Spotify or Netflix.

As for cloud backup and synchronisation services, while you could pay Dropbox the equivalent of $9.99 a month for 50GB of space, with a NAS device you could have your own service with huge amounts of storage (some NAS devices accept hard drives of up to 3TB) without monthly fees or the need to trust your private data to a third party. We've gathered the best NAS devices on the market to find out just what they are capable of.

Buffalo Cloudstation Duo - £240
www.buffalotech.com

Western Digital My Book Live - £147
www.wdc.com

Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 - £423
www.netgear.co.uk

Buffalo Linkstation Pro LS-VL - £129
www.buffalotech.com

D-Link ShareCenter - £60
www.dlink.com

Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - £274
www.iomega.com

Netgear Stora MS2110 - £130
www.netgear.co.uk

Synology DS411 - £485
www.synology.com

Best network storage: 1-6

1. Buffalo Cloudstation Duo

There remains a lingering feeling that setting up a network attached storage device can be complicated, time consuming and fiddly. Buffalo aims to dispel these preconceptions with the Cloudstation Duo, a NAS kit designed to be as user friendly as possible without losing any features or functionality.

The device itself is compact, though quite heavy. Flicking open the front gives quick access to the two 1TB hard drives that come installed. Removing the drives is a bit fiddly at first, but the process is certainly a lot easier than with many other NAS drives.

The fact that the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo is supplied with two large hard drives already installed and set up in a RAID 1 configuration is great, and eliminates a more fiddly and complicated part of the setup procedure.

Read the full Buffalo Cloudstation Duo review

2. Western Digital My Book Live

When it comes to hard drives, Western Digital knows its stuff. While the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo is promoted for its ease of use, the Western Digital My Book Live goes even further in its pursuit of simplicity.

For a start, the small case is completely enclosed, so there is no easy way to open the My Book Live up and replace or upgrade the hard drive as you can with the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo. This means that it's not really suitable as a comprehensive backup device – the lack of hot swappable hard drives means you'd have to physically remove the entire thing if you wanted to store your data safely off site.

The 'My' in the title is evidence that this is a NAS device that focuses on creating your own personal cloud, sharing your own media and files across the internet with as little fuss as possible.

Read the full Digital My Book Live review

3. Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4

NAS devices are a speedy, convenient means of backing up data, and units like the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 featured here are also capable of streaming any multimedia files to any device that can accept them.

Each of the ReadyNAS Ultra 4's bays can accommodate a 2TB drive, resulting in a possible 8TB of storage – that's an awful lot of video, photos and music.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 supports various implementations of RAID technology, which trades off available capacity against protection for your data. If one of the drives fails, you should be able to recover your files.

Features like RAIDar and X-RAID 2 help you make the most of this handy feature. Powered by a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, it's speedy and responsive. The onboard DLNA 1.5 media server worked well with a variety of networked players. Even multiple full HD video streams were glitch-free.

Read the full Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 review

4. Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL

Devices like these are becoming the tool of choice for storing a wide range of digital media, including downloaded movies and TV, music, images and CD/DVD/Blu-ray rips. Speed, capacity and reliability are all essential features, and the Linkstation Pro LS-VL has all three.

This 'Multimedia Shared Network Storage BitTorrent Download Box', ships with a power supply, LAN cable and installation discs, and is available with built-in SATA hard drives in 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB sizes. Windows and Mac OS X compatible, the unit is simply plugged into any network Ethernet port or into the back of your wireless router, and is instantly accessible from any networked device.

The device features transfer speeds up to 76MB/s courtesy of a 1.6GHz CPU, which is a big increase from Buffalo's more home user-orientated Cloudstation Duo.

Read the full Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL review

5. D-Link ShareCenter

D-Link has designed its NAS device to be at the centre of your home network, sharing your files and media throughout your home and over the internet – an admirable aim. The installation process is fairly straightforward, though there are a few options that you need to set yourself, and these can be confusing if you're not used to setting up network attached storage devices.

For example, at one point you're asked if you want to enable NTP server, without any explanation of what this is. There's also a step that asks you to enter your email address, along with port number and SMTP server – a pain if you don't have that information readily to hand.

The network drive wasn't mapped during installation – instead we had to run the D-Link Easy Search Utility, which found the D-Link ShareCenter on our network and then let us map it.

As with other aspects of the ShareCenter, the execution was rather cumbersome and inelegant, but it worked.

Read the full D-Link ShareCenter review

6. Iomega's StorCenter ix2-200

This 2TB NAS drive is billed as cloud storage, which means you can access the drive from anywhere with an internet connection. It's nothing hugely new, but Iomega has provided a good web interface for accessing your stored data online.

Unlike some of the other drives in our test, we had to install software to make it appear on our network. Fortunately, the software is well designed and your hand is held firmly through the process, making it ideal for people who have never used a NAS drive before.

From here, every feature of the drive is clearly explained with colourful bold icons, and essential tasks – such as setting up backups – are highlighted.

There's a range of useful tools too, from email updates to let you know if anything's changed on the drive itself, to the rather useful ability to download torrent files. You can also view hardware statistics, such as how full the drive is, and its current temperature. It's ideally suited to a RAID setup, too, and this can be implemented quickly and easily.

Read the full Iomega's StorCenter ix2-200 review

Best network storage: 7,8 and verdict

7. Netgear's Stora MS2110

We had high hopes for Netgear's NAS drive – after all, Netgear's home networking solutions have often trumped the competition in tests like these. However, we found ourselves sorely let down.

As soon as we connected the drive, all other computers on the network lost the ability to connect. It turned out that the drive had been completely locked down to the previous user, forcing us to do a complete hardware reset. That's not hugely unusual, but we're not sure why Netgear insists on you entering a software-style product key for something that's unlikely to ever leave your home or office.

Although the drive is hefty, the build quality is below par. The front panel – which clicks off to access the hard drives – sprang off in our hands. In fact, merely placing it on the floor caused the panel to flop open. Fortunately, the drives inside feel nicely secure, with a latch at the back to eject them.

Read the full Netgear's Stora MS2110 review

8. Synology DS411

The DiskStation feels like it's stuck between being a consumer-friendly NAS drive and a rack-mounted server. It's supplied without any hard drives, and looks like a small PC, complete with thumbscrews at the back and an array of lights at the front.

Synology recommends certain drives for the product, which are formatted on insertion. This isn't an easy process, especially compared to the more user-friendly drives we've looked at.

Hard drives must be mounted and formatted with Synology's software, and then the NAS drive itself has to be configured via a small patch located on the CD. Then any folders you want on the drive need to be added manually. These all seem like features that would be automated on other NAS drives.

Read the full Synology DS411 review

Verdict

This group test proved to be a perfect microcosm of the current state of the NAS market. On one hand you have devices that stick to the old ways of doing things – heaps of functionality, but with little thought of user-friendliness. The main culprits here are the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4, the D-Link ShareCenter and the Synology DS411.

On the other side of the divide are the devices whose manufacturers have acknowledged that there is a growing market for centralised storage in the home, and have tailored their devices to offer easy to use interfaces for creating our very own personal clouds without a single network administrator in sight.

We believe that these devices that will excel in the future, when more homes are equipped with internet enabled devices like smart TVs, leaving the backwards-looking NAS devices in their wake.

Best NAS: Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 - £274

The StorCenter ix2-200 encapsulates everything we were looking for in a NAS device. Its advanced features are wrapped up in a user friendly package that's easy to set up and maintain. It isn't as fast as a professional NAS, but for the internet connected home, this is a great choice.

Best value NAS: Western Digital My Book Live - £147

It's not quite the cheapest NAS device on test here, but the Western Digital My Book Live wins the best value award because it has some great features, is reliable and is easy to use. If you want a relatively cheap NAS device that you can quickly set up and then just leave it to do its job without you having to check on it and tinker every now and then, go for this.

Having taken care of games consoles, smartphone and tablets, Sony reckons that televisions and cars are the next bastion of music streaming.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion TechRadar attended about the future of the digital music sphere, Tim Shaaf, president of Sony Network Entertainment, cited research that suggests 161 million people will be subscribed to a digital music service by 2016.

And alongside hardware bundles and ad-funded enticements, it's televisions and cars that will boost that figure over the next five years.

"It's clear from all our research that people are listening to music at home and in their living rooms, which is why we started this service in the living room," he said, alluding to Sony's Music Unlimited service which is available over the PlayStation Network.

"But getting people used to streaming music through their televisions is the hardest leap to make – we've had so many decades of training about how it works and how it fits into your lifestyle."

Doin' swell

And what of the automobiles? "We're extremely excited about this because customers make choices about which cars to buy based on entertainment. It's a huge opportunity," said Schaaf.

"But it's going to take time as you have to solve complicated connectivity issues, ensure driver safety… but it's coming."

Omnifone, the company that powers Sony's Music Unlimited service (as well as providing streaming for BBM Music, HP and Sony Ericsson), agrees that music streaming is about to hit the road:

"Cars and the next really big movement for digital music subscriptions," said CEO Jeff Hughes. "There's a growing acceptance that you have to pay for music – it's a real parallel with the pay TV market – at first there was reluctance but people got used to the idea of paying for extra television channels."

Gaga for gaming

But Universal is looking to social gaming to publicise its digital music offerings, so look out for more Gagaville-style gaming crossovers.

"Zynga has a huge audience and has really cracked the freemium model," said Oliver Barnes, the director of global digital media business at Universal Music Group.

"What it's done is built a really effective pool of users willing to pay for virtual goods online. We're working with a lot of social media gaming companies because they know how to monetise online."

UPnP Media Server 1.0 is a protocol that removes the effort from getting a media-streaming device to access and play your content.

Acer has announced the Aspire easyStore H341 NAS, offering up to four hot-swappable HDDs to store and stream your digital media.

The Aspire easyStore H341 is designed to store, organise and protect your entire digital media library, and make it accessible not only through computers but also consoles and other DLNA compliant devices.

"What's more, with the new Aspire easyStore H341 you can stream digital media content to multiple applications or DLNA compliant devices, such as console games or TV, making it possible to share games from the server or enjoy music, photos and movies on a big screen TV," adds Acer's release.

Adding drives

Acer has tried to make adding HDDs easy, and the device is driven by an Intel Atom D410 chip.

"Uploading pictures, video or data files on the Aspire easyStore is easy, too," adds Acer's release.

"All you need to do is connect the device through the USB port and press the Copy button. Data is automatically sorted and stored by file type into folders of your choice."

The data can be got at through the internet (as you would expect) with a "user friendly web interface" allowing you to connect to your content from anywhere.

Introduction

We're all going digital and the best thing is that this increasingly means just needing one li'l box sitting underneath your telly to do the whole multimedia dance.

Videos, music, photos; they're all there and ready to be streamed right onto your telly, whether that's in the lounge, kitchen or bedroom. We've got six media boxes, each offering different takes on the media playback conundrum and each at different price and functionality levels.

At their most basic you just get a simple little box that will plug into your TV and playback multimedia data from a couple of sources, such as eSATA or USB.

Step up a little and you're in the realms of network media players. Plugged into the network, wirelessly or via Ethernet, these players will pull content from other devices attached to the network, such as network attached storage (NAS) devices or from PCs you have in other rooms.

Network attached media players are increasingly able to play back video content from the web. Traditionally, this just revolves around the ubiquitous YouTube app many of them come bundled with, which allows you to watch amusing videos of kittens being tickled from the comfort of your sofa, though we can expect more licensed content being accessible via certain devices in the not-too distant future.

Some more advanced media players will have built-in capacity for storage, which usually just requires dropping in a standard 3.5-inch SATA drive, while others offer built-in TV-tuners as well. With both these features together, you've instantly got a complete personal video recorder (PVR) package too.

The bonus of having all this functionality in one, solitary box means that you'll only need one device plugged into your television for that whole media playing malarkey. It also means that you can ditch all the other myriad remotes you've got littered around the living room and hiding behind the cushions of your sofa in favour of having a far more streamlined experience.

There is a battle looming though, and that's the battle between locally stored content, home network or attached drives, and the burgeoning number of content providers setting up through the world wide web tubes.

With the success of home-grown talent such as BBC's iPlayer and Channel 4's 4oD content, the recently-launched BskyB Sky Player, as well as the imminent arrival of America's sweatheart, Hulu, and the in-development SeeSaw, the amount of media we can draw directly from internet sources is growing exponentially.

Few media players have the capabilities or licenses to connect to these services so a fully web-enabled, mini-PC in the living room is surely the only sensible choice then? If you're into that planet-saving palaver though having a single, incredibly low-powered device to manage your multimedia needs is a more sensible choice and that's where these media players come in.

Grab 'n' Go and PlayOn!HD

Grab 'n' Go Full HD Media Player - £150
Manufacturer: Conceptronic
Web: www.conceptronic.net

Conceptronic's aesthetically pleasing machine is all matte-black, heavy duty brushed aluminium and fairly singing the song of weighty technology.

At over £150 it's knocking on the gilt-edged door of the Compro machine in price terms, but simply can't compete in terms of connectivity. Sure it's got the requisite HDMI connector and, like the AC Ryan devices, comes with an actual HDMI cable, but the feature set is rather limited.

It's got a single USB port on the rear, a thoroughly fugly remote control and the ugliest on/off switch I've seen. I initially thought it was a factory reset switch.

The Grab 'n' Go is fully wired up in network terms too, with no acknowledgement of the finer things in life such as wireless connectivity. But it will drag content willingly from your networked media libraries, and from locally attached storage via that solitary USB port.

Fortunately, file support is pretty impressive and it's not too shabby in timings when opening files and videos. Playback was also fairly responsive, offering decent subtitle support too.

The boot time of thirty seconds isn't bad, but it's not the easiest thing in the world to actually use. We had a hell of a time actually getting the device to output properly, with a strict regimen of resetting and hammering the video output button on the remote. Easy access this isn't.

That said though, it's a very capable player, but at this sort of price it's severely lacking, when compared to the far more capable opposition.

Verdict: 73

PlayOn!HD - £133
Manufacturer: AC Ryan
Web: www.acryan.com

This is more like it; this is how we want our media players to be: simple, straightforward, fast and functional. The PlayOn!HD has got all that in spades and does it all without making a great fuss in the process.

Initial setup was an absolute doddle. This larger version allows the installation of a full 3.5-inch HDD and will support flavours up to and including 1.5TB. Now that's a whole lotta storage for your multimedia needs! Okay, that does add a hell of a premium to the price, but considering you can pick up 1TB drives for around £50 it's not out of the question.

This also has the benefit of not having to rely on speedy network connections to facilitate in the playing of the full 1080p experience you can get out of the PlayOn!HD.

The software interface is simple and easily navigable, with a responsive, though chunky, remote control to boot. It was also remarkably quick to get onto my network and quickly found all the media on my network PC with barely any setup required.

Like the ASUS O!Play Air box it also gives you a quick mini-preview of the files you are hovering the cursor over, but like the rest of the boxes, it gives you only six filenames on screen at any one time. This means if you've got a large media library, a lot of time is going to be spent trawling through your files one at a time.

We did find that it was lightening fast to boot from a cold start, in comparison with some of the tardy devices on this test, and suffers from none of the subtitle problems.

Where it does fall down is in the online capabilities. There's a whole host of functionality here though, better than anything else at this price.

Verdict: 88

VideoMate T1000W and O!Play Air HDP-R3

VideoMate T1000W - £179
Manufacturer: Compro
Web: www.comprousa.com

At nigh-on £180 the Compro player is by far the most expensive of the streamers on test, but by the same token it is also the most fully featured.

While there are other devices here that allow you to drop a hard drive inside the machine for some bittorrenting joy and easy video library storage, the T1000W also contains Compro's excellent DVB-T tuner, meaning that you can also record live digital TV too.

It's also capable of both wired and wireless connectivity. Unfortunately, this online connectivity is a little wasted as all it currently offers is a YouTube plug-in and nothing else. We were expecting more to come along in time, but the T1000W has been out long enough for us to suspect there's little in the pipeline.

In local media terms it's fine, with a hugely comprehensive list of compatible formats in both video and audio mode. It's also got a host of input and output options, with 3 USB ports, component HD and HDMI connectors as well as all the audio outputs your amp could wish for.

The GUI is very reminiscent of the PS3's layout, and the bundled remote is thoroughly responsive throughout, but all is far from rosy.

At this sort of price you'd have hoped for a speedier setup time, but it takes an absolute age to boot from a cold start. It also takes a fair while starting up web, local or networked content, which is almost unforgivable. We also had a few issues with some standard subtitle formats, which it purports to support and for this price you'd expect more.

It's a stylish, silent, fairly powerful beast, and could cater for all your media needs, but it might just be a slightly frustrating experience.

Verdict: 83

O!Play Air HDP-R3 - £80
Manufacturer: Asus
Web: uk.asus.com

Asus' new Realtek-powered media box, the bizarrely-named O!Play HDP-R1 is sold as the easiest way to enjoy HD content in the living room and with no setup required aside from choosing the display format and time zone, it's not far from it.

It takes a few seconds to boot into its solid, if visually uninspiring, menu-screen then it's just a question of plugging your media into either the built-in card-reader, USB device or combo eSATA/USB port.

It's got a raft of codecs ready to play too, including the downloader's favourite HD wrapper, .MKV.

The video interface is very neat too, giving a rolling preview by simply highlighting a particular file, and playback is then only a click away and starts up quickly, which is refreshing. For someone into their pretentious foreign subtitled films (like me) the added bonus of .SRT, .SUB, .SMI and .SSA support is fantastic and with the in-video menu-screen you can tweak the subs to your own tastes too.

Network play is less impressive and we had serious problems streaming HD content across a wired network. Sure, it can play all your hi-def, .MKV packed 1080P loveliness without batting an eyelid, off your external hard drive or USB key, but you're going to have difficulty getting it playing smoothly over Ethernet.

The O!Play HDP-R1 isn't going to set the world alight, and I'd rather have some internal storage, but hooked up to a decent NAS device or with a fat USB stick stuck in the side it should fulfil your basic media player needs.

Verdict: 81

PlayOn!HD Mini and Digital Entertainer Live

PlayOn!HD Mini - £87
Manufacturer: AC Ryan
Web: www.acryan.com

All the PlayOn!HD Mini is lacking in comparison with it's big brother is the space for a internal HDD. It's still using the same Realtek chipset and is just as fast.

It comes with a virtually identical operating system and that same chunky remote. In fact, when it's hidden from view you'd be hard pushed to tell from your experience alone which version of the PlayOn!HD you were using.

It is far smaller than its brethren, making it an incredibly neat little package. It's around the same sort of size as the Asus box, but outperforms it on pretty much all fronts despite using the same Realtek chip.

The AC Ryan interface is more useable though this diminutive device still has the same dearth of online content capabilities as the big un. All it has is YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, bittorrent and an almost unusable RSS client.

Considering the otherwise rubbish Netgear device had such a huge amount to offer, this feels like an over-sight. That said this version of the PlayOn!HD is just as functional, despite the removal of the option to add an internal storage. With a decent USB drive this becomes less of an issue, and with the same array of connectivity in the wee beastie as the larger one you can well do without it.

The Compro box may have the double whammy of internal storage and a digital tuner to boot, but if all you need is a decent network media player, then at half the price the AC Ryan PlayOn!HD Mini will take care of all those needs without breaking a sweat, or a decibel.

Verdict: 90

Digital Entertainer Live - £90
Manufacturer: Netgear
Web: www.netgear.co.uk

Things didn't start off too badly for Netgear's li'l Entertainer, unfortunately by beginning with that statement you already know that things don't end up that way…

It's a neat-looking box, with the same low-profile stylings as the Netgear routers we know and loathe. As such it comes with a weighty line up of online goodies.

Straight out of the box and hooked up to the network I had immediate access to a host of live internet streams, such as BBC1 to 4, ITV1 to 4, Film Four, Channel 4 and E4 to name a few.

There's the ubiquitous YouTube plug-in, but you also get access to a fair few other internet video repositories. It even comes with a trial of the paid-for VuNow service which grants access to around 200 other sites, but would seem to be a little irrelevant in real terms. But it can hook up to your Netflix account, though much of the other stand out connections are US-only feeds.

So far so good, but things take a turn for the worse when you actually try and use it as a standard media player. Despite claiming to support HD media the unit refused to cope with the commonplace .MKV file format. It was also a bit of a nightmare trying to get it to talk to my home PC on which sits my media library.

As most of the files are on a separate HDD to my OS drive the Digital Entertainer Live couldn't see it. It also committed the cardinal sin of not playing subs files, which is definitely unforgivable.

Verdict: 68

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Data Robotics has released the latest in its Drobo storage line – the Drobo FS. This time, it's a full-blown NAS device costing a not inconsiderable £551 without drives.

Using the company's own bespoke "BeyondRAID" technology, the Gigabit Ethernet-supporting device can take five 3.5-inch SATA drives and preserve data integrity if one of the drives should fail.

Mac and PC file systems are supported, while there's also UPnP and DLNA technology for media sharing over a network.

Storage is expandable to 10TB, while there is single and dual hard drive redundancy in case of failure. You're able to engage this option with a single click without losing data access.

As with other Drobos, drives can be of any size so they don't all need to match in terms of capacity.

The unit will certainly fill a gaping hole in Drobo's line-up – the older units could be connected to a single machine only, though there was a networking accessory called DroboShare.

The Drobo FS also has a "self healing" function that examines data blocks and sectors on each drive to flag potential issues.

How to install FreeNAS

We've got to that point where most people have more computers in their home than TVs. Who can blame us? TVs are dumb devices, while computers will do everything a TV can and so much more.

It's not a typical case, but it wouldn't be far from the truth to describe editor Alan's house as a laptop graveyard. Turn over a cushion here or a sofa there and scores of the damn things come tumbling out, we're not making this up.

That's the problem, while once we used to have a single desktop, now we've got a host of devices: a gaming desktop, a living room PC, multiple laptops, netbooks and Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices, such as the ubiquitous iPhone.

The principle of convenience is great but where do you start to store all of your documents, files, music and other media? Leaving files dotted around on different machines or USB drives is hardly a good idea.

There's always 'the cloud' but that's not going to work very well for your huge music collection or library of HD movies. There is a better solution… The home server.

Possibly, three of the dullest words you've recently read but stick with us, we're going to show you how one can revolutionise your home. Based around the FreeNAS server operating system we're going to show you how this can be linked with inexpensive hardware to create a perfect centralised storage and media server system.

Wrapped up as a 74MB download this all-in-one OS, NAS and server packs a serious amount of versatility into a tiny package. Just to start its software RAID can span a bunch of hard drives together, so you can pack epic levels of storage into a single shared network drive.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg, as part of the distribution it comes with a host of handy features: it's a UPnP Media server, iTunes server, Bittorrent client and can function as an FTP and webserver.

The base minimum hardware is as simple as a 486-class processor with just 512MB of memory. So any old system or laptop can do the trick, but the best way to learn about FreeNAS is to get on and install it.

Just what is FreeNAS then? You've probably taken a glance at the screen grabs on these very pages and the carnival of BIOS shots mixed with grey, grey browser administration pages must be filling your heart with utter glee right now. While these screen shots might be about as exciting as saying FreeNAS is based on the FreeBSD operating system, it is the brilliant features that beat in its binary heart we love, not the colour scheme.

As a distribution FreeNAS is available from www.freenas.org, go to the download page and grab it with the generic 32-bit i386 version or the 64-bit AMD64 build. Get the LiveCD version as that's what we're going to be employing in this feature.

There are a host of other options such as installing FreeNas onto a flash drive or virtual box, but we're going to keep things as straightforward as possible for this, your first install.

Once you've got the 74MB ISO image you'll need to burn it to a CD. As with other LiveCDs, once you've burnt it, you can technically run the operating system directly from the disc. However, we want to create a permanent installation on a hard drive. We'd recommend that you first sort out the BIOS boot options for your new server hardware and make sure the first boot device is the optical drive.

Once done start up the server with the CD in its drive, if you've run BSD for Linux before the stream of screen nonsense will seem pretty familiar to you.

Ooh a rabbit hole

Eventually the initial run will rest at a text menu with nine options, choose '9' which is 'Install/Upgrade to hard drive/ flash device, etc'. This will present you with the marginally friendlier blue screen with another six install options.

This time select option '3' as this will create a full installation and automatically set up both the data and swap partitions.

First, we must make sure FreeNAS knows some important system settings. You need to select the CD drive for the 'cd0' device, the current optical drive should be the only one listed, unless you installed multiple optical drives, but why would you do that?

The next option is to install the hard drive, this will be listed as 'adx', where the 'x' will be the SATA controller number. You should be able to recognise the drive from its name, if you have more than one installed at this point.

Next, we need to specify how large the install partition and swap partition should be. The installation default is just 128MB and that's actually fine, we also want a swap partition and again the default swap size seems quite low at around 1,600MB, but that's fine.

At this point FreeBSD is installed onto the hard drive; it's a rapid process and once complete a page of important information is displayed. Make a note of the data disk device and the partition number, which will be along the lines of 'ad0, 2'. Also make a note of the swap partition device name, again this should be similar to '/dev/ad0s3'. Exit and choose to reboot.

At this point you can discard the LiveCD and, indeed, the optical drive if you can't see yourself using it again. Allow the operating system to boot and you'll be confronted by a similar text menu as before, but this time there's now no option nine!

We are in fact all but done, we just need to check the network configuration of FreeNAS. Hopefully, if it has automatically picked up the network adaptor, you should see towards the top of the screen 'LAN IPv4 address:' and a sensible looking IP address to go with it.

How to configure FreeNAS

It won't hurt to check your IP. Select option '1' and a list of available network adaptors will be displayed, the device name is on the left and the MAC address on the right, using the MAC is probably the easiest way of correctly identifying the right adaptor.

With a working adaptor selected the all important setting of the IP address can be done. Our personal preference is to allow the home router to dole out the IPs. If you select option '2' the first choice is to get the IP from the DCHP server, which is your router.

The issue here is if your router at some point assigns that IP to another device, as you're not going to be able to remotely connect to the server and that will involve all kinds of merry hell.

So there are two options, many routers enable you to lock an IP to a single device, you may have to delve around but it'll be in there somewhere. The alternative is to set FreeNAS with its own fixed IP address, if you choose not to use the DCHP option you'll be stepped through the various required settings.

First, you will need to choose an available and valid IP address for your network, typically this will be either 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x where 'x' can be a number from 0 to 255. If possible check your router for a list of currently allocated numbers and simply pick out a free one. It's as easy as that.

You also need to know the IP address of your DNS and Gateway plus the subnet mask. The easiest way to find these details is to jump on a Windows PC and select 'Start' > 'Run' > Type 'cmd' > Click 'OK' then type 'ipconfig /all'.

Locate the main Ethernet adaptor and note these details down. Alternatively, you can right-click the active network icon in the Notification area, choose 'Open Network' and 'Sharing Center' > click the 'Local Area Connection' link next to Connections > click Details.

Punch these numbers into FreeNAS as it requests them, the only funny bit is how the subnet mask is specified but for most people this will be the default '24' to correspond to the standard 255.255.255.0 subnet. When asked about setting the IPv6 choose 'No'.

At this stage no matter which option you chose FreeNAS will initialise the Ethernet interface and attempt to secure an IP address. It'll display this IP and how to access its web based interface, so make a note of it.

Getting GUI

That's it. You've set up a FreeBSD operating system. It's criminally easy. Effectively you can now leave your server, disconnect the mouse, keyboard and display, as everything is remotely managed via a web browser. So break out your Ipod Touch, netbook or Wii browser and become your very own server administrator!

Into the browser's address bar you need to tap the IP address of the server, we hope you noted it down. Technically, this should also end with ':80' as this indicates you want to connect via port 80, but you can usually leave this off as by default HTTP request use port 80 anyway.

The default username and password are 'admin' and 'freenas', respectively, and with that you're in! Any connection problems at this point could be related to the router not accepting the specified IP address, it could be the IP has been altered by the DCHP. For both these check your router's list of connected devices.

It could also be the MAC is being blocked if you're going via a wireless router, or an overly aggressive firewall on your PC could be blocking either the IP or port 80 access.

Now we can get on with the good stuff. Welcome to the world of FreeNAS – it's a bit grey. An obvious point, but it is good practice to first change the username and password.

Hover the mouse over the System menu and click 'General'. You can alter the username here, click the 'Password' tab to change that. For the security conscious you can switch the protocol to HTTPS. Whatever you do make sure you don't miss-clicking the 'Save' button positioned by some usability genius out-of-sight at the bottom of the page.

Hard times

It's now time to add in the swap and data partition that you carefully made a note of earlier, right? It's actually a straightforward process, despite the scary names BSD insists on giving all of its devices. We'll go through adding the data partition, but this is a good example of how to add further drives and partitions at a later date.

Select the 'Disks' > 'Management' menu, click the '+' symbol on the right. Now check the details you noted about the Data partition, the top Disk pull-down menu should match this; and should read something like 'ad0' ,for example, followed by the hard drive's name.

Add a description, enable the hard disk standby, plus a suitable Advanced Power Management scheme, enable S.M.A.R.T. and select 'UFS' as the preformatted file system. Click the 'Add' button and on the next page click the 'Apply changes' button. We've now added a physical partition to the operating system, but to access it, we need to add a mount point.

Select the 'Disks' > 'Mount Point' menu and click the right-hand '+'. The type is 'Disk', then select the physical drive from the Disk menu, set the partition type to MBR and, importantly, the partition number is '2'. As '1' holds the operating system and '3' is the swap partition.

The file system is 'UFS', add a friendly mount point name such as 'Files' along with a description. Click the 'Add' button at the bottom and then the 'Apply' button to complete the process.

To add the all important Swap partition select the 'System' > 'Advanced' menu, click the 'Swap' tab, click the right-hand 'Enable' tick box, change the first pull-down menu to 'Device' and enter the device name that FreeNAS mentioned earlier.

It should be the same drive name, but use partition 3, which reads as '/dev/ad0s3', the ad0 number will change depending on which SATA controller the drive is connected to. Click the Save button and that's set.

Establish network shares

Right, we've got an operating system, a network connection and we've got a web interface and storage. It's time to make this home server earn its keep.

The most obvious first step is to establish a Windows network share. Despite all of the cleverness that FreeNAS has to offer, a basic Windows shared folder will enable you to access all your media either directly or through your favourite media library, along with adding in sexy things such as scheduled backups and the like.

Click 'Services' > 'CIFS/SMB' and click the far-right 'Enable' check box. Other than altering the Workgroup name to match your home network and enabling the Large read/write option, you're safe to scroll to the bottom and click the 'Save' and 'Restart' button.

That's the basic service started and we'll be doing similar things for other services. Before you'll actually be able to see anything you'll need to share something, click the 'Shares' tab and the right-hand '+'. This should be pretty self-explanatory, choose a name, select the path, opt to have a recycle bin, click the 'Save' button and then click 'Apply'.

The three other most interesting services are the UPnP streaming, iTunes library and BitTorrent client. These are all activated in a similar way to Windows sharing. Beyond requiring you to configure a few directories for holding your music, video and photos the defaults for these will all have you up and running.

While the address to the web interface for each is listed at the bottom of each configuration page. Putting it together When it comes to the hardware the truth of the matter is that you won't need anything particularly staggering.

If anything the chassis is the most important part of a server, as potentially you might want to cram it full of old hard drives for vast storage. So make sure you check the number of free drive bays. But with most tower cases offering at least four up to seven 3.5-inch drive bays that should be enough to keep you happy.

For a processor anything really will be fine, if you hope to try out the transcoding then you'll want a dual-core processor. Personally we have a Windows server running on an ageing 2.4GHz Pentium 4 and that's perfect for file serving.

The same for memory; our test FreeNAS system running 512MB only showed 19 percent memory usage. For a complete list of compatible hardware take a gander at the huge list here.

It entirely up to you how much or little you utilise your server, at the very least it's a useful way to centralise all of your storage needs. It's also a great way to run a convenient download box that isn't your thundering gaming desktop and best of all it can help share your home media to all your family.

If seemingly imminent plans by Apple to buy a small online music specialist from California go ahead, it could signal the end of music downloading as we know it.

The apparently solid rumours that Jobs and co. are set to snap up Lala, a cloud-storage music website, suggests that Apple is either looking to add streaming music to iTunes or build something even more innovative.

No offline tracks

Lala's ability to make entire music collections available from the cloud obviates the need for users to keep downloaded copies offline on any of their own media, whether that's a portable player or a computer hard drive.

Should iTunes eventually morph into a music library in the sky, as many observers are speculating, then both downloads and music copying could disappear.

What's left?

After all, when companies like Apple are merely selling the right to listen to music stored remotely on hardware with permission to access it, then there won't be a lot left to copy.

Introduction

What can you make from a laptop that has a broken screen (other than an oversized and rather ugly paperweight)?

The cheapest and easiest option is to put the lappie to good use serving up delicious files. Sure, that option is about as sexy as most people find a furry in spandex pants, but a file server can be damn handy.

You can stream music and video from it, use it to download that 2GB Batman demo, or just merrily torrent your socks off.

Meanwhile, print servers are even more dull but genuinely useful, or you could just use it as a discrete, low-power second system that can be tucked away on a bookshelf.

In addition, as long as it has an external monitor output and working LAN port, you can set up and use the laptop as a remote desktop system or connected to a HD-ready TV as a direct media centre. The latter is only really an option if your machine has enough grunt to manage your video requirements, though.

Most versions of XP and Vista have Remote Desktop pre-installed, but XP Home users who lack this can get it here.

As you'd expect, the Microsoft Remote Desktop implementation is unsurpassed. VNC is fine, but it isn't a patch on the speed of Remote Desktop.

In our pursuits, we're also going to make use of Wake On LAN (WOL), so we can put our server to sleep and remotely wake it up when needed, even from an iPhone.

And if you find your decrepit laptop's storage capacity to be a little paltry, you could consider getting hold of an external USB drive or even upgrade its internal hard drive – they're relatively cheap and could make a big difference.

Once you've lived with your new server for a week, we reckon you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Walkthrough: How to make a remote server

1. First off, your laptop is going to need a working external video output, plus a LAN port (or USB port that you can use with an external LAN adaptor).

2. Next, we'll activate Wake On LAN (WOL), which is often done via the BIOS. Check the 'Power' section for WOL and LAN card options. On recent systems, these options can sometimes be found in the Device Manager entry for the laptop's network adaptor.

3. You also need to add a suitable user account. Open 'User Accounts' in the Control Panel. Make sure 'Guest' is activated and create a new account, giving it a password.

4. Remote Desktop is blocked by default, so right-click on 'My Computer', select' 'Properties' and choose 'Remote'. Allow Remote Desktop connections then pick 'Select Remote Users'. Click 'Add > Advanced' and 'Find Now' then choose the account you created.

5. For Remote Desktop and WOL to work, you'll need both the IP and MAC address of the device. To find these in the Classic Control Panel, open 'Network Connections', right-click the connection, choose 'Status', click 'Support' and then 'Details'. The MAC is listed as the Physical Address.

6. Now activate Remote Desktop by going to 'Start > Programs > Accessories > Remote Desktop Connection'. Enter the IP or name of the remote computer and away you go.

7a. For the ultimate minimal sever, detach the laptop's bust screen.

7b. This is done by removing any upper façade and keyboard to provide access to the connector.

8. There are loads of WOL utilities, but we'd recommend PowerOff from tinyurl.com/na62k6. It's small, installs as a service and offers scheduled shutdowns.

9. Got an iPhone or iPod Touch? Grab a copy of Winadmin (£5) for Remote Desktop functionality and NetAwake for WOL (it's free).

10. Of course, you could use the laptop as a Media Center hooked up to a HD-ready TV, but it can still be a desirable remote server since its power consumption is a fraction of even a low-power desktop PC.

For years, Microsoft has been trying to convince us that we need to have not just a PC in the living room to serve up our media, but a full-blown installation of Windows too.

Linux is brilliant at serving files. It's this ability that keeps the enterprise world turning to Linux for its heavy lifting jobs and that keeps the world Googling 24/7.

These are interesting times for the film industry. In spite of the economic uncertainties of the past nine months or so, Hollywood seems to be weathering the storm pretty convincingly.

And so the Parrot and Philippe Starck Zikmu speakers that TechRadar ridiculed in December have been launched in the UK.

We wouldn't normally revisit such a niche product, but the latest press release featured some priceless blather by design icon Starck that's well worth sharing. And some tech specs.

"We were not aiming to create just another speaker," said the designer. "Our design focused more on making the air vibrate."

I'm not sure what hi-fi you've been listening to, Philippe, but all the speakers we've ever heard - in fact, everything we've ever heard - made the air vibrate. That's kind of how acoustics work.

'Formidable' tech

"There's actually a three-dimensional feel to the vibration, meaning that the air is palpable, almost humanlike in presence, like a fragrance," he went on.

Right. Lost us there. This could be a reference to the 360-degree output of the speakers, or it could be an unfamiliar figure of speech. And who wants speakers that smell of people, anyway?

"These speakers are thoroughly modern, because they represent the least possible," explains Starck. "They feature the most extreme and formidable technology with the fewest possible materials to deliver maximum effect: that is the magic."

And like French underwear, the less you get, the more you pay for it. The Zikmu speakers will be available this spring for the price of £1,200. Paul Daniels would be proud.

Just to round things off, here are those techy details: 100W RMS output, 50Hz-20KHz frequency response, A2DP Bluetooth and b/g Wi-Fi.

TechRadar has just got back from a meeting with Jérôme Vashist-Rota, founder and VP creative, brand and community of DivX, where we were given an overview of the company's new hi-def iterations of its codec – DivX 7.

The new technology means that you can use DivX to encode your HD files, which can be played on future DivX HD + certified players.

Currently, when it comes to DivX on consoles, it is just Sony who has signed up for the official codec compliance for the PlayStation 3.

TechRadar asked if DivX can see other console manufacturers teaming up with the company in the future, and Rota was quick to respond with regards to the Xbox 360:

"When it comes to DivX branding, we have had a hard time with Microsoft. Obviously we would love for some sort of partnership to happen.

"Currently, Microsoft does support DivX, which is fantastic, but the company has brought in some third-party support for the Xbox 360, and we are not very happy with that."

All about branding

Rota has had something of a chequered past with Microsoft. A major part of DivX's inception began in 1998, when Rota (then known under the alias Gej) extracted code from Version 3 of Microsoft's MPEG-4 codec and reverse-engineered it to be compatible with his video portfolio.

With DivX now a major legitimate player in the codec market – over 100 million devices are DivX-certified – a link-up between Microsoft and DivX could be lucrative for both companies.

"It's all about branding," says Rota. "And branding can work both ways, so it is not just us losing out with the Xbox 360's lack of official certification."

On Tuesday, I explained how to archive all your data from old PCs. Now I would like to make your life even simpler by vastly cutting down on the amount of data that you need to preserve. Here are some things you do not need to keep:

All 4 virtually identical photos of every subject, snapped in burst mode on your digital camera. Choose the one that is in focus and throw the others away.

All the virtually identical photos of your child's birthday party. Pick one of them opening a present, one of them playing with it and one of them blowing out the candles on the cake. Put those on a single album page and throw the rest away.

All the virtually identical years of birthday party shots. Your child doesn't change much between 4 and 8 years, or 12 and 15. Keep years 1, 2, 3, 8, 15, university graduation and Christmas at age 9. The rest you can discard and regenerate later with morphing software, if necessary.

Any photos of children younger than 12 months, whether yours or someone else's. All children look virtually identical at this age anyway. This picture will do perfectly well to represent them all.

All video footage of anything involving family members. If anyone falls over or reveals their underwear, send it to You've Been Framed. Everything else goes straight in the Recycle Bin. You may keep some CDs labelled "Cousin Stacey's Wedding" to appease your wife, if you like but these can be blank because they will never actually be watched.

Any porn. This is already archived perfectly satisfactorily on the internet and leaving it there until you actually need it causes much less trouble in the long run.

Any mp3 files of songs not currently on your iPod. You might have a thousand CDs in your collection, but that's just because you never throw anything away. You only ever play tracks from your 20 most recent purchases and Pandora (assisted by Hotspot Shield, if necessary) will cover you for anything more eclectic.

Any software you have the original discs for. You can just reinstall this.

Any software you don't have the original discs for. You can just "borrow" the discs from Dave, like you did last time.

All letters. Nothing you write is worth keeping for posterity.

All emails. Especially the ones to Suzie in Accounts.

Any files not covered in this list. They are probably just viruses and Trojans anyway. Especially all that junk in Windows\System. You can delete that right now.*

*Don't do this.

Gadget makers from Apple to Toshiba are fond of telling us how their gadgets can put the style into 'lifestyle', but only at one tech show does that really hold true - the UK's annual Custom Electronic Design and Installation (CEDIA) Expo. Here's why:

1. It's about true convergence

Custom electronics is all about the total integration of everything from plasma TVs to multi-room hi-fi. You don't end up with a dozen remote controls vying for space on your coffee table. CEDIA Expo 2008 is a showcase for the latest, greatest techniques in how to do that, and the kit your custom installer can use to help you get the home of your dreams.

2. Home automation doesn't stop at TVs and hi-fi

CEDIA Expo 2008 covers the whole gamut from heating, ventilation and air-conditioning control (HVAC), right through to custom lighting and home security.

3. Custom install is getting cheaper

For years custom installation has relied on expensive, proprietary systems from home automation specialists like AMX and Crestron. That's changing with the arrival of systems that use Konnex (aka EIB/KNX) - an open source protocol that anyone can develop for. This gives you a much wider choice of suppliers, potentially saving you a fortune on hardware. You'll see some great examples at CEDIA Expo 2008.

4. It's an exotic high tech bazaar

You'll see tech here you just can't find on the high street: imagine a home media server that can deliver any one of the hundreds of legally-ripped DVD movies to any part of your living space; or what about a system that enables you to login to your house from the office and switch on the heating and lighting so you get a warm welcome when you go home. It's all here.

5. it's a vision for the future

CEDIA Expo 2008 shows the shape of things to come. Many of the techniques being shown off here eventually make it into mainstream technology and so into ordinary homes: Sky Multiroom, Slingbox and Philips' Streamium range of wireless audio systems are just three great examples of concepts we're used to now that started life in custom install.

6. Even gadget haters love what's on show

Custom install is all about hiding the 'oily' bits, leaving you with elegant interfaces that are easy for anyone to use. Don't like seeing that 60-inch plasma TV on the wall? Press the power button when you finish watching and to see it magically disappear. Can't see where the sound is coming from? That's because the speakers have been stealthily hidden in the walls and ceilings too.

7. It puts a little luxury in your life

Whether you want to watch TV while taking a shower or entertain guests at a garden party, someone at CEDIA will come up with a solution to that meets your needs. They may even exceed your wildest expectations.

CEDIA Expo 2008 is a trade-only event and runs from Tuesday 24 to Thursday 26 June at ExCeL London. We'll bring you all the highlights from the event later this week.

Pretty much everything in the world of tech these days is being hacked, either unofficially - in the case of iPhones - or with the manufacturers' blessing, as in the case of Intel and AMD.

Intel's 'Bad Axe' motherboards, for example, make it easy to overclock your CPU, and AMD-owned ATI provides an overclocking tool called OverDrive with its Radeon graphics cards.

Meanwhile Apple admits that 1.45 million of its iPhones are 'missing in action', which means they've almost certainly been hacked to run on other phone networks or to run unapproved applications.

The company has tried to fight the trend by 'bricking' iPhones - issuing software updates that disable hacked phones altogether - but it can't hold back the hacking tide. As soon as Apple has disabled a hack on the iPhone, the race is on to hack the firmware again.

It seems that if you can't beat 'em, you need to join 'em. Apple has already demoed its iPhone/iPod Software Development Kit (SDK), which will enable developers to supplement or replace the iPhone's standard applications. The hacking community has already unlocked it.

Meanwhile Google and Intel are offering eminently customisable, Linux-based platforms for phones and PCs in the form of Google's Android OS for phones and Intel's Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform for small portable PCs. Things are getting interesting.

Personal computing gets more personal

The open source Google Android platform brings the DIY/customisation ethic to mobile phones, a platform previously famed for the networks' strict rules on what applications handsets could run. Personal technology, it seems, is about to get even more personal.

Don't like your PC's performance? Hack the CPU. Wish your phone was a better games machine? Hack it and install an emulator. Don't like the way the web works? Install Firefox's Greasemonkey add-on and bend the entire Internet to your will. Reckon Half-Life 2 would be better if it featured a virtual Eamonn Holmes doing handstands? Build your own mod.

In many cases hacking can make an existing product even more attractive and boost sales. Some products have even been improved. TiVo devotees, for example, added Wi-Fi to the company's first-gen DVRs; while coders added applications such as My Movies and MCE Customiser to Microsoft's early Media Center software builds.

On a very basic level, how many of you hacked your DVD players to unlock its region coding? Sites like DVDexploder exist for precisely this reason.

Hardware firms now know that if they don't support the very lucrative modding market, their rivals will. Software developers know that community-created add-ons and extensions can make their programs more compelling.

And websites and services know that the more goodies they can offer, the more people will use their services - which is why Google and Yahoo! encourage developers to build 'mashups' from their various online services, Facebook offers an application development platform to annoy users more efficiently and publishing platforms such as Wordpress use 'widgets' to integrate popular services such as Flickr or Google AdSense.

There goes your data

When you install a widget built by Google or Microsoft you can be confident that it's not up to anything dodgy, but can you say the same for a third-party website add-on from a developer you've never heard of?

The risk from malicious online applications is fairly small - the very nature of the Internet means any dodgy deeds would be quickly exposed and widely publicised - but there are real concerns over data privacy and security.

For example, if you install a third-party Facebook application you'll be warned that Facebook doesn't screen or approve application developers and cannot control what they do with your data. As application developers are global, it's safe to assume that they neither know nor care about the Data Protection Act or other UK-specific legislation.

Website mashups - such as combining mapping services with other sources of data - are a particular concern, because by aggregating multiple data sources they can create worrying new applications.

As Tom Owad describes on AppleFritter, it's relatively easy to combine mapping data with Amazon wish lists. As he demonstrates, once you've done that you can see where, say, people who want to read 1984 live - and zoom right in to have a look at their house.

Add in someone's Flickr photos, the classified ads they've posted online, their Facebook news feed and the electoral roll data used by sites such as 192.com and you've got an extremely comprehensive picture of someone's life.

Middling security

Another concern about mashups and third-party applications is what's known as a man-in-the-middle attack. As IBM Research's Paul Karger told the 2007 IEEE Web 2.0 Security and Privacy Workshop, "With mashups, the presence of a man-in-the-middle is totally legitimised. The operator of the mashup might be trustworthy, or the operator might be an evil attacker, and the end user has no way of knowing the difference."

Even if the middleman is legitimate, that doesn't mean your data is secure. No matter how well various websites and services protect your data, if the site that combines them doesn't take security equally seriously then it's a very weak link in the chain - and a potential goldmine for the various villains that infest the Internet.

For most of us, though, the risks of open platforms and online data are massively outweighed by the benefits. After all, if it weren't for openness the Internet as we know it wouldn't exist. Would you trade today's Internet for the walled garden days of CompuServe and AOL? No, neither would we.

Apple could walk away with 'billions' if the company releases an Apple TV DRV, says American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu. His comments were made in response to the recently uncovered patent filing of an Apple TV DVR boasting recording and playback controls of live programming.

Wu believes the DVR features outlined in the patent filing could be found in the third or fourth iteration of the Apple TV. They would finally turn the device into a profitable business venture instead of the 'hobby' Steve Jobs was quick to call it when it was first introduced last year, he said.

Apple TV is a 'minor contributor'

"We estimate Apple TV to be a very minor contributor today at 0.3-0.4 per cent of revenue or $100-125 million (£50-60 million) annually," Wu wrote in a note to clients. "We believe adding the ability to watch and record live TV could turn this into a billion dollar, if not multi-billion dollar business."

Wu contends that adding DVR features to the Apple TV would increase the cost of the product by a "negligible amount". He believes it fits into Apple's plan of upgrading the device on a more consistent basis with features that consumers have been asking for all along.

Apple declined to comment on the possibility of an Apple TV DVR, but judging by the sudden increase in rumours surrounding the upgrade, look for more on this in the coming weeks.

Industrial CD-ripping specialist Ripfactory has turned its attention towards the home audio server market with the launch of a new automated burner that doubles up as a 1TB Network Storage Device. No, that wasn't a typo: this little ripper really can store one terabyte of music. That's around 250,000 individual MP3s at 4MB a track.

Called the Ripserver, it looks much like any other square black box, but plugs into a network connection and can be used to automatically rip CDs to a user-selected bitrate in either FLAC or MP3 format. Simply insert the disc and it’ll do the rest, adding all freshly ripped content to the media library before gently spitting the disc out when it’s done.

Rip Van Winkle

The device runs on a Linux operating platform and is configured via a simple web browser interface. In addition to the actual music, it’ll also store useful metadata including album covers. A USB port also allows secondary or backup storage devices to be attached.

Taking care of media server duties, the Ripserver’s integrated UPnP server includes both Twonkymedia and SqueezeCenter for media serving to any network-connected audio device.

Compatible with a host of media server devices from the likes of Buffalo, Escient, Sonos, Logitech, Netgear, Sony and Philips, the Ripfactory Ripserver is available now. It'll set you back £599 for the 500GB model and £699 for its 1TB big brother.  

The six-million dollar system is called the Kipinis Studio Standard, and its owner proudly claims that it’s the “Greatest show on Earth.” With no fewer than 16 18” Snell sub-bass units, 30 McIntosh MC-2102 Amplifiers, eight Snell THX Music and Cinema Reference towers, a Sony SRX-S110 4K projector capable of producing 4096 x 2160, and a giant 18 x 10-foot Stewart screen it’s certainly an impressive beast.

In addition to screening movies from Blu-ray, HD DVD or standard DVD (up-scaled, naturally), the KSS can also be used to watch TV, browse the internet, view photography slideshows, or just listen to music with. It really can do everything bar wash the dishes. Better still, its many functions can all be accessed from a single, touch-screen tablet.

Naturally a home cinema this big is going to require some sophisticated housing and so it is with the KSS. According to its owner the KSS sits inside a custom-built 2250 square foot, two-story hall with a vaulted ceiling. The floor is one-inch-thick solid maple flooring on four-inch tall pine studs, which sits on a solid 16-inch reinforced concrete foundation isolated on solid steel girders all the way down to bedrock. Clearly, Mr Kipinis doesn’t like to do things by halves.

While most journalists who’ve been lucky enough to receive an invite have been wowed by the KSS, the system is not entirely without its critics. No online article about the KSS is complete without more than a few negative comments from home cinema enthusiasts. Many centre on the fact that $6m is simply too much for the benefits, while others have questioned the logic of placing vibration-sensitive tube amps directly in front of 18” sub-woofers.

Whatever your own view, it’s certainly the most over-the-top home cinema set-up we’ve seen and for that alone, Mr Kipinis should be saluted.