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Ximeta NetDisk properties

Ximeta Netdisk Explorer view

Once Plug n' Play detection or driver installation is complete, the NetDisk 80GB External Drive is instantly available since it comes already partitioned by Ximeta. You can access the drive via Windows Explorer to view the system properties or change the drive assignment via the Administrator Tools section in Windows 2000/XP. For this particular review unit, the Ximeta NetDisk 80GB External Drive was already pre-formatted with an NTFS partition.

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The bundled Software Installation CD includes two separate guides for configuring the Ximeta NetDisk 80GB External Drive in Single User Mode (Ethernet) or NDAS mode. In Single User Mode, the only requirement for installation is attaching the included Ethernet cable to any free network port on the back of a computer. In NDAS mode, the Ximeta NetDisk 80GB External Drive can be connected to a wireless network access point or Fast Ethernet Hub. NDAS or Network Direct Attached Storage is a technology developed by Ximeta which allows a standard hard drive to be connected to an Ethernet LAN without implementing a network server to manage access to the disk. In NDAS mode, the NetDisk acts as its own storage component on the network and is accessed via an application called the NetDisk Administrator.

NetDisk Administrator console

Installation of the NetDisk Administrator is a straightforward process and can be completed in less than 5 minutes. In order to gain access to the NetDisk 80GB External Drive, you first register the NetDisk on the network by entering in the NetDisk Name, NetDisk ID and NetDisk Write Key. Both the NetDisk ID and NetDisk Write Key are located on the bottom of the unit and are unique to each NetDisk product. Each workstation on the network will require the installation of the NetDisk Administrator software in order to have access to the NetDisk unit on the network. The administrator is the only one that can grant read and write access to the drive and users are restricted to only one person writing to the drive at one time. For administrators who want to add a level of redundancy; the NetDisk Administrator software offers both Mirroring and Aggregation features. Mirroring continuously creates and saves a copy of data in real time onto a second NetDisk when ever data is written to the first NetDisk. Aggregation allows multiple NetDisk units to be recognized as one large drive.