[CS-FSLUG] CP Tech, External and Network Storage

[Nathan T.]

Hey everyone

I thought it fair to give you all a warning about some of the  
hardware I've been having trouble with.  The brand in question is CP  
Tech, and the products are their Lan-Disk and their 3.5" Smart-Drive  
products.

The former is just loud, even though it's just a circuit board, hard  
drive, and small fan it manages to make more noise than my desktop  
computers. The firmware update for the thing involves installing one,  
failing it on purpose, and then installing another in order to avoid  
turning the thing into a brick. If that's not ridiculous enough the  
manual is written in Engrish (no, I didn't misspell that), and the  
screws were all to easy to damage. Ultimately I got this one up and  
running and I'll keep it, but I won't be buying another.

The later is also loud, although not as much as it's network-capable  
sibling while it's on; however, when I turn it off the power supply  
starts buzzing and it gets progressively louder and more irritating.  
The case is mostly metal, so it's easy to mistake it for a solid  
product, but the back part where the screws go in consists of a hole  
which another metal piece that receives the screws goes in and is  
held in place thought friction, the screws then go in, and like the  
other model are small and all to easy to damage. Even when screwed in  
the back part can fall out just by turning the thing so the back  
faces down, the weight of the hard drive is enough to push the little  
screw receptacles out of their grooves and bring the whole thing  
crashing to the ground. And finally, the last nail in the coffin,  
there are no instructions on how to put the hard drive in, so I had  
to guess that the jumper settings had to be master single, and the  
instructions on how to use the back-up software were in Engrish  
again. Where this case is concerned I'm going to recover the hard  
drive, see if I can cannibalize the screws to fix the other case, and  
then toss it in the trash because I can't get a defective return from  
the store (over 50$ CAD down the toilet).

I don't know if anyone else here has these cases, but if you don't  
already save yourself the trouble and go with another brand. If  
anyone has some alternative hardware that fills these purposes I  
could use some ideas, because we carry the CP Tech cases at the store  
were I work right now and I'd love to have some good hardware to  
suggest to the lady who does the ordering. I would also like to find  
a better network storage solution for use at home, FreeNAS was  
interesting but it still doesn't support password protection and  
access restriction over CIFS.


Nathan T.