I've been working with consumer-level network attached storage (NAS) devices for a couple of years now. The first units I tried out had fairly minimal feature sets. But now that NAS devices are getting popular and new manufacturers are getting into the game, more full-featured devices are coming on-line. In this review, I look at a device with features its designers hope will enable it to break away from the crowd by packing an extensive set of capabilities into a box the size of a small toaster: Synology's gigabit-capable, multi-function DS-106e Disk Station.

Figure 1 shows the back of the device, where along with the power and network connectors, you can see a fan vent, a reset button, two USB 2.0 ports and an external SATA port.

The USB ports are designed for storage expansion with up to three disks or for a printer that can be accessed via the internal print server. On the front of the device, along with a power button and status LEDs, there is an additional USB port below a USB Copy button that is designed to copy data from a device plugged into the front port to the internal drive.

Figure 1: DS-106e Back Panel

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