Zetera

Zetera is a company that doesn't make things - they make ideas. And with their partner Netgear, they hope to make storage and networking a whole lot easier for the home user.

The process of storing your movies, digital pictures, or shared documents over a home network can be a nightmare for anyone who isn't MCSD certified. Most people end up just plugging in a USB NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive to one of their computers and then are forced to leave it on so that it can be accessed by the other computers in the home.

But with the technology and networking concepts Zetera provided Netgear, soon their Storage Central device will allow you to plug in drives directly to a router, which assigns them an IP address. With an address for each user-configured amount of drive space, computers can access the data faster, and drives can appear to Windows as a local drive.

The device also doesn't use the TCP protocol with its high overhead, so it can transfer data at incredible speeds - reportedly it will be able to stream 4 DVD quality movies along with some mp3s over your network simultaneously. We are looking forward to getting the Storage Central in our labs soon to give it a test drive; expect it on shelves in July.