Looking to gain a foothold in the increasingly popular home network storage market, Netgear has announced a new device aimed at everyday users who want to centralize and share data without breaking the bank. The new "Stora" is a $229 NAS system with a 1TB SATA hard drive built in and a second open SATA slot, allowing users to easily add a second drive in the future for a RAID1 mirrored configuration.
The device is compatible with PC, Mac or Linux systems, and like most network-attached storage solutions can act as a server for iTunes music as well as DLNA and UPnP devices like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. There's also a single front-mounted USB 2.0 port, an online interface to remotely access stored content from any web-enabled device, and an optional $20 per-year premium service that supports remote access and third-party service integration such as Flickr, Picasa, YouTube and mobile phones.
While the new Stora offers a nice balance between features and price, Netgear also caters the business and "prosumer" markets with their better-equipped ReadyNAS line starting at around $329.