After the initial setup, I plugged the Master Key into my USB hub, which mounted as “USB DISK.” On the Key, there are Windows, Linux and Mac OS versions of the my-Ditto application. I checked the Win version with a virtualized Windows 7 Professional SP1 install on my Mac and, as the experience is almost identical, continued testing using the Mac version. Upon launching the Mac application, I received a notice that an update was available, which I downloaded. Once the download completed, the application informed me that it had to upgrade itself and to leave my-Ditto powered up. After a couple of minutes, it was back on–line, at which point I re–ran the my-Ditto application. The app informed me it also needed updating and, I let it take care of that automatically as well and, after all that housekeeping, it was ready for use.
A small scale NAS is a convenient and versatile computer hardware resource. Hanging off the wired LAN most everyone has, NASs can store, share and protect all of your files. In addition to the yeoman storage and retrieval duties one would expect, many NASs act as media servers and my-Ditto is no exception. The my-Ditto application has a basic music player built right in. Your music and movies can also be streamed locally or remotely, and my-Ditto acts as a server for USB–attached printers. It runs an iTunes music server so, if you’re on your LAN, your music shows up right in iTunes. my-Ditto is also a UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) MediaServer, which means it can stream audio and video content to UPnP clients, including hardware like Roku as well as many software packages such as Windows Media Player and the popular MediaMonkey and foobar2000 players for Windows, and VLC on Mac OS. As a BitTorrent server, it can provide 10 torrents simultaneously. To complete its rather complete list of services, my-Ditto acts as a proxy server and provides basic backup services.
Many folks would buy a my-Ditto to supply capacious storage for all their files. my-Ditto supports two RAID levels, 0 or 1, plus SPAN and JBOD modes.
This SPAN/JBOD business brings up a bone I must pick. In the my-Ditto application that is your gateway into the product, Dane-Elec labels their JBOD mode “Separate Disks” and their SPAN mode “JBOD.” This backwards labeling is just plain wrong and, more importantly, quite confusing. For more info on RAID, see Disk RAIDers below…
Article comments
1 - OMas
Correction y’all: Dane-Elec advised me that, despite what Roku’s marketing verbiage sez, “the Roku player is not (yet) DLNA or UPnP compliant.” We may see that Roku functionality by year’s end…
2 - Andrew Ryan
Great review. Its about time we got our own network storage devices. I was getting tired of moving all my files, manually swapping hard drives, or starting clean every time i purchased a new computer.
-andy
3 - stubble_pudge
Good review, I've had mine for over a year an have had no problems. I just upgraded from a 1TB (RAID 1) to a 2TB (RAID 1)setup but I found the compatible hard drive list rather limited. I took a chance and ordered 2 WD Red WD20EFRX drives and didn't have any issues installing them. The even seemed to bump my transfer speeds slightly over the original HDD's that came installed. Even so, it still is not as fast as I'd like (topping out at ~55Mbps for transfers with backup routine being much slower). That aside, I'll deal with the slower speeds because of the simplicity and ease of use this unit brings. Its not that I can't setup a more complicated unit, I just have about a thousand other things to do that are way more fun or interesting :)