The cell phone and Ethernet are 40 years old this year and both are omnipresent in our digital lives. Like many elements of today's consumer tech, Ethernet was developed at XEROX PARC and then commercialized elsewhere. Ethernet came to the PC in 1982, with a bandwidth cap of 10 Megabits per second; most consumers and small businesses are now operating at 1Gb/s speeds. That will change soon to 10Gb/s, if the NETGEAR XS708E 10GbE Switch is any indication. Its eight RJ-45 ports are designed to interface with common Cat 6 wiring, and it also has one SFP+ port to handle fiber optic connections. Benchmark Reviews brings you an inside look at a break-out offering in the NETGEAR ProSAFE Plus Switch line, which brings 10GbE connectivity down to the masses.

Everybody needs a NAS, I'm convinced. Maybe if I described what the modern NAS has become - a Private Cloud, then everyone would agree. Years ago, when Benchmark Reviews started reviewing NAS servers, they were made to sit on your network as a sort of file server and you used proprietary, vendor supplied backup software. Today, as we all know, everything is wide open. Access anything, anywhere, with any application is not just a dream anymore. Hardware is still important, but the depth and breadth of the software is becoming more of a differentiator. The ASUSTOR AS-604T NAS Network Storage Server uses a familiar hardware platform - Intel Atom and a Linux distro, but the design team didn't stop there. There are some fundamental improvements that were ready to be solved from a slightly different perspective. Join in, as we see how this new 4-bay device compares to its competitors.

All digital storage technologies are susceptible to data rot. Just ask the multimedia giant Pixar, who saw dozens of critical files disappear before their eyes, during production of the movie "Toy Story". Modern hard drives are remarkably reliable devices, but most have an average uncorrectable read error rate of 10^14. That means one read failure for every 12TB of data. The drive doesn't "crash"; it just gives you corrupted data every now and then. The only way around this is to continuously test the data, and scrub the errors as they occur. The storage industry deployed this technology in large data centers, and now Infortrend is making it available to consumers, with their new EonNAS series. The Sun-based OS in the EonNAS Pro 850x also has some other tricks up its sleeve, like data deduplication. Read on to find out more.

Until recently, there were only two types of network switches, un-managed and managed. Today, there is a new class, called Smart Switches. A blend of the two previous extremes, they're targeted to both corporate users and what the industry politely calls "ProSumers". Switches aren't reviewed by the press that often, but they are a necessary part of many home and SMB networks, so we need to look at what's available now and then. NETGEAR is a major player in the networking market, and today Benchmark Reviews looks at the GS110T, one of the less expensive offerings in their ProSafe SmartSwitch line. It's got enough GbE ports to future-proof most home installations, plus two fiber optic interfaces.

Data Rot! Every time a compact disk gives up the ghost and you some files, you've experienced it. All digital storage technologies are susceptible to data rot, AKA bit rot. Benchmark Reviews recently highlighted reliability issues that SSD users are experiencing; their flash memory failures have been an eye-opening experience for consumers. We all know how a hard drive "crashes", but we're not so clear on how electrons disappear. Large data centers have been acutely aware of this problem, and the industry devised ways of eliminating it. Now, Infortrend is making that technology available to consumers, with their new EonNAS series. The key to data integrity is in the ZFS file system, that's part of the Sun-based OS installed in the EonNAS 1100. Plus, it performs data deduplication on the fly! Read on to find out more...

Next generation wireless routers are now firmly in the marketplace, and Benchmark Reviews has had the opportunity to take a closer look at one of NETGEAR 's current flagship routers, which is the NETGEAR R6300 Gigabit Wi-Fi Router. Having Broadcom's 5G Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11ac chips on-board, The R6300 is capable of delivering speeds of up to 1300Mbps when connected to other 802.11ac devices, and speeds of up to 450Mbps when connected to 802.11n devices. Some have suggested that it has, "a face that only a mother could love," but, personal preferences aside, the design of the R6300 is not indicative of this router's performance and capability. It is packed with great features, such as READYshare, that are designed to address your personal and professional wireless needs. Whether you want to stream HD video, sit down for an extended gaming session, or even do a number of tasks simultaneously, the NETGEAR R6300 can handle it.

The Thecus N5550 NAS Server is aimed right at the typical small business owner or advanced home user, by virtue of its size and form factor. It benefits from a recent tech refresh of the Intel Atom product line, has 2GB of DDR3 installed, and uses an interesting SATA/RAID controller solution. The Local Display feature means you can hook up a keyboard, mouse and video monitor directly to the NAS, for setup or media streaming duties. With five bays you can have capacity and redundancy, with RAID 5, 6, or 10, plus a hot spare. Dual GbE network ports are standard, as is a single USB 3.0 port on the front panel. Benchmark Reviews has tested several NAS products lately, ranging from simple two bay units, up to an 8-Bay NAS for the storage needs of large businesses. Let's see how this 5-bay device compares to its competitors.

The NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+ v2 is aimed right at the typical small business owner or advanced home user, by virtue of its size and form factor. It benefits from a recent tech refresh of its hardware and software, becoming the v2 model in the process. With four bays you can have both capacity and redundancy with RAID 5 on a three or four disk array. RAID expansion and migration are easy, with X-RAID2 software that manages all the hard work of expanding and migrating from a single disk to RAID 1, and then to RAID 5. The NV+ v2 uses a Marvell 6282 CPU, running at 1.6GHz and 256MB of DDR3 system memory. A single GbE network port is standard, as are two USB 3.0 ports on the back panel. Benchmark Reviews has tested several NAS products lately, ranging from simple two bay units, up to an 8-Bay NAS for the storage needs of large businesses. Let's see how this 4-bay device compares to its competitors.