Let’s face it, many of us have quite a lot of USB 2.0 external storage solutions around the house, which we use on a daily basis for transferring files between computers, because, in many cases, it’s simply easier than to employ a NAS. However, the guys over at Addonics have come up with an affordable solution that will allow one to easily turn any USB 2.0 HDD, SSD or flash drive into a network-attached storage device.
The NAS 2.0 adapter represents the second generation of the small and portable Addonics NAS adapter and provides a transfer rate of approximately 15-20 MBps when connected to a Gigabit network, double the data rate provided by its predecessor.
Moreover, the NAS 2.0 Adapter provides FTP access for up to eight simultaneous users with Internet connections anywhere in the world and the NAS 2.0 adapter can also be used as a bit-torrent downloading appliance for direct download to the attached USB storage device. Plus, besides the ability to convert any USB 2.0 hard drive or SSD into a Network Attached Storage device, the NAS 2.0 adapter has two high speed USB 2.0 ports: one for connecting USB 2.0 / 1.1 mass storage devices and one for connecting USB printers to share over a network.
The new adapter, which is lightweight and simple to install, can be set as a UPnP AV server to share photo/music files stored on the file server with XBOX 360 video game consoles connected to the LAN. Last, but certainly not least, it’s also worth mentioning that the NAS 2.0 adapter supports both SMB (Server Message Block) and the open source Samba network protocols. This allows cross-platform access of all shared data for most versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and various Linux distributions.
As we’ve said right from the start, pricing for the Addonics adapter is a very interesting one, since the device retails for just around 60 US dollars, which might turn it into a fairly interesting solution for many people out there.