The capacity of USB flash drives has risen steeply, with 16GB becoming common place. The GigaRunner might seem small at 4GB, but this drive has some network-enabled tricks up its sleeve.

Most of us have hard drives 500GB or more these days, so while we might be able to fit a lot of our important files and folders on a flash drive, the ideal of having access to any of our files from another system is still a distant one.

Of course, there's cloud backup and synchronisation services but if you're after anything more than 20GB of space things start getting expensive.

The GigaRunner's 4GB space isn't much to write home about but it's the GigaRunner software which is really interesting. After a quick setup, creating a server on our main PC, we were able to plug the USB stick into another PC and browse and download any file from our main rig.

It worked really well, and the interface made it easy to navigate files and folders from our remote computer.

Files you download and then edit can't be uploaded back onto your main PC. This is where the 4GB capacity comes into play.

Another drawback is that your main PC needs to be constantly on and connected to the internet.

Strong 3G coverage has become an essential requirement for any small business, especially when it comes to important client phone calls. However, many rural areas in the UK still lack even the weakest of cellular signals. While the new 4G network - which promises far better coverage - goes through a tumultuous legal process, Nextivity believes its Cel-Fi RS2 3G booster can provide a solution.

The booster consists of two parts: a 'window' unit, which sits in the area of the building with the strongest 3G signal, and a 'coverage' unit, which goes wherever you want the signal broadcast to.

This isn't the most aesthetically pleasing network equipment - the window unit has the look and feel of a cheap toaster, and peeking inside reveals an ugly antenna array that the Cel-Fi was obviously keen to disguise.

Looks aside, the unit works as intended. Our testbed was an old, semi-subterranean cottage in the Devon countryside - a lovely place, but one where getting a 3G signal usually means calling from a very specific spot in the south end of the house.

With the Nextivity Cel-Fi RS2 extender, we were able to extend the 3G network to the north end, and freely browse the internet and make calls. It's impressively powerful too, and able to beam the signal through the thick walls.

The signal did drop occasionally, but this was more due to the undulating Devon landscape - and undulating Devon 3G signals - than the unit itself. Our unit was locked to Orange and T-Mobile networks, with other units available for other providers such as Vodafone and O2. This could be an issue if your home or business uses different networks for all its handsets.

Verdict

Priced at over £450, it's hugely expensive, and there could be some sense in waiting for 4G to be deployed and simply sticking with a landline or Skype for calls. But there are also a lot of businesses - particularly rural iPhone-centric start-ups - that would benefit from the Nextivity Cel-Fi RS2's technology.

We're big fans of Devolo's powerline networking adaptors, so we had high hopes for the Devolo dLAN 500 AVtriple+. The Devolo dLAN 500 AVplus and the Devolo dLAN 200 AV Wireless N Starter Kit both received glowing reviews from us, and even the Devolo dLAN 200 AV USB Extender was well received.

All of those networking devices might have had their ups and downs, but there were certain things that remained consistent, namely their solid build quality, ease of use and handy software in the shape of Devolo's dLAN Cockpit, which makes it easy to set up and monitor a home powerline network.

In a lot of ways it's a similar kit to the Devolo dLAN 500 AVplus. Speeds between the two adaptors that come with the kit can reach a maximum of 500Mbps - far faster than the standard 200Mbps of a lot of its competitors, but slower than the blistering 1Gbps offered by the Netgear Powerline AV+ 500.

Streaming high definition content to one device was handled with aplomb, and with multiple devices connected and streaming, it hardly wavered.

The key difference between the Devolo dLAN 500 AVtriple+ and the Devolo dLAN 500 AVplus (along with a lot of its other competitors) is that one of the adaptors comes with three gigabit Ethernet ports, which turns it into a very speedy networking switch. It also allows you to connect three wired devices to the adaptor - rather than one - eliminating the need to buy extra adaptors.

Verdict

The Devolo dLAN 500 AVtriple+ comes at a high price, at over £100 in the UK or $160 in the US, so is certainly at the higher end of the powerline adaptor market in terms of cost. But if you're after a speedy network across your home and have a few devices that need to be connected, then it's going to be money well spent.

Western Digital WD Livewire doesn't look like other network powerline adaptors such as the Devolo dLAN 500 AVplus. For a start, it doesn't plug directly into a wall power socket. Instead, it's a small box that connects to the power socket via a cable. It's not as elegant a solution as other powerline adaptors, especially ones that have integrated follow-through sockets - which means you don't have to sacrifice a socket when installing them.

However, it does give you a bit more flexibility on where to place the unit, since the power cable is long enough to tuck the Western Digital WD Livewire out of sight. It was especially useful for installing the Western Digital WD Livewire in awkwardly-placed power sockets where we've had trouble using the bulkier powerline adaptors.

The unique design also offers another advantage that is absent from many of its competitors - both units come with four 10/100 Ethernet ports, where most only have one, enabling you to connect a number of wired devices to the powerline source. This can result in quite a bit of money saved, since it spares you from buying either additional adaptors for each device or from having to buy expensive proprietary wireless dongles - smart HD TVs and original Xbox 360s are particularly bad for this.

Network speeds were very good, averaging around 126Mbps with plenty of bandwidth for streaming standard definition movies from one PC to another. High definition streaming was less smooth, so a faster powerline adaptor focusing on media streaming is going to be a better buy.

Verdict

For decent and consistent network speeds, coupled with ease of use and some good features, the Western Digital WD Livewire is a very good powerline adaptor kit.

We know that the Apple TV represents terrific value for money – but only if you live your life through iTunes. For those of us who have photos and video outside of Apple's walled garden, an Apple TV alternative such as the Iomega TV with Boxee we have here is a better bet.

But often in the past, these streaming devices have been rather lacking in ease of use. We looked at the original D-Link Boxee Box, and, while this Intel-powered Logitech box coped with all the media we could throw at it, there's still a major issue: price. There's no getting away from the fact it's twice the price of an Apple TV.

There are a few massive benefits with having a non-Apple box though. The first is support for 1080p HD video as well as a huge variety of formats (XviD for example), making converting files a thing of the past.

The second is the support for a huge amount of third-party video content from the likes of TED and The New York Times. Third, and most crucially, is the ability to stream from devices such as network storage drives, and not just your Mac.

There's also the ability to plug in and browse a USB hard drive containing video content you want to play. The box connects to your network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, while there's HDMI, optical audio and composite plus two USB sockets front and back for connecting up devices.

Boxee devices are shipped with a remote that also has a QWERTY keyboard on the back. It's not the best, but it sure beats the Apple TV's stilted text input using the Apple Remote.

The interface isn't as good as the Apple TV's and could be considered a bit buggy in places (a problem since the original Boxee devices), but what you get is the flexibility so lacking with Apple TV – if you're prepared to pay for it.

The DiskStation DS411 feels like it's stuck between being a consumerfriendly 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.

Synology's more open approach comes with a host of benefits, though. User-created mods, which you'll find on Synology's forums, can be added to enhance functionality, like downloading torrents and streaming media.

Synology itself also offers dedicated iPhone and Android applications for accessing the NAS drive, which is something we haven't seen from other manufacturers.

Despite its great stakes in the open source hardware world, Synology's drive proved to be one of the slowest in our test. Although this could have been down to our choice of hard drive, it's unlikely. The option to add an external eSata drive is a nice touch, though.

It's obvious that Synology wants to break into the consumer market, but it simply hasn't done enough to provide a decent graphical user interface that explains exactly what you have to do. Those who love tinkering with networks and setting up home IP systems will find a lot to love here – but for everyone else it's just a tad too complicated, and hugely expensive too.

At this price, home users would probably be better off investing in a cheap PC and using it as a Linux-based dedicated NAS.

D-Link has designed the ShareCenter 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. The D-Link ShareCenter isn't the most user friendly of the NAS drives we've tested, but the comparative complexity of the D-Link ShareCenter is the price you pay for some of the better features of this NAS that are absent in some of its competitors.

For example, the D-Link ShareCenter is able to email you with updates about its status, including whether it has reached a temperature that might cause it to become unstable.

File transfer speeds were around 11.6MB/s, which was around average for the NAS devices we tested. Not fantastic, but good enough to copy movies and other media to the device for streaming. Backing up entire hard drives to the device will prove time consuming with those speeds though.

In the end the D-Link ShareCenter does what it says it will, but it seems to be an awkward mix of complicated concepts and features aimed at home users without adequate explanation. A missed opportunity.

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.

Installation involves visiting the Cloudstation website and going through the easy to follow step-by-step walkthrough. It took us just a couple of minutes to set up the device, and the majority of settings were dealt with behind the scenes.

However, we had to wait for an activation email to be sent before we could start using the device, and it took quite a long time for it to be sent. While we were waiting for the confirmation email, we downloaded and installed the desktop application that allowed us to view and browse files stored on the Cloudstation Duo without having to trawl through the various Windows networking options.

You can also map the device so that it appears in Windows as an installed hard drive, though we had a few problems when we tried this. We received an error 'Remote Default Share is Missing' – a seemingly common problem that requires some fiddling to fix.

Copying files to the device is quite slow, averaging about 11MB/s, so large backups are going to take a while. Features like an online browser for remote computers and a built-in torrent downloader are welcome, but the Buffalo Cloudstation Duo isn't quite as easy to use as it should be.

Virtually every internet service provider will supply you with some kind of free or cheap modem when you sign up with them. However, unless you're paying a premium for your internet service, 'cheap' is likely to be the most important word: the quality of the hardware, software and performance isn't likely to be stunning.

If you want to maximise your net connection, then, or if your old device simply gives up the ghost, a decent quality modem/router is a worthwhile purchase. And there's no bigger name in network equipment than Cisco.

The Cisco Linksys X3000 is the higher-end model in a new range of routers. Supporting both cable and ADSL 2+ connections, it's a sleek-looking thing. It's thin and small, yet comes with a full complement of four Gigabit Ethernet ports, support for 802.11b/g/n, and a USB port that lets you connect and share storage.

Setup is simple. Cisco has created some configuration software specifically for the Mac (dubbed Cisco Connect) which actually works really well.

Performance, too, was good. We compared the Wi-Fi strength using 802.11n with an Apple Time Capsule, and the X3000 consistently delivered higher signal strength and therefore speed. Connection speed over ADSL 2+ was always solid and reliable, with no line drops.

Overall, the X3000 is a well-made, easy-to-use router with all the features you're likely to need. Its one issue is that it's a little on the pricey side, but you can at least see the quality you're paying for.

The Buffalo AirStation N450 USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter WLI-UC-G450 is a companion to the fantastic Buffalo AirStation N-Technology HighPower ADSL2+ Modem Router. One of the standout features of the router was the design, which helped to focus wireless network signals and resulted in a stronger, more consistent wireless connection. Thankfully the Buffalo AirStation N450 USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter WLI-UC-G450 continues this design ethos - Buffalo calls it 'beamforming' - to focus and direct the wireless signals.

The results were highly impressive. Paired with the Buffalo AirStation N-Technology HighPower ADSL2+ Modem Router, we were able to put three doors and a floor between our test laptop and the router before all signal was lost. Even our Wireless G-only router remained visible for a longer distance than the laptop's built-in Wi-Fi receiver.

As you'd expect from a wireless N receiver, connecting to a wireless N router, transfer speeds between the two were great, and high-definition movies streamed from one PC to the test laptop in the same room didn't suffer from stuttering.

Word to the wise when installing the drivers for the Buffalo AirStation N450 USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter WLI-UC-G450: make sure you tick 'Always trust software from "BUFFALO INC."'. It'll save you having to click 'Install' on a lot of windows.

Verdict

On the whole the Buffalo AirStation N450 USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter is a great investment if you've got a wireless N router and you want to give your wireless network a boost.