There is a glass ceiling in the world of NAS devices, and like all glass ceilings it's not that obvious until you bang your head against it a few times. The standard-issue network interface in the IT world is a one Gigabit Ethernet connection. Convert bits to bytes and you end up with a less impressive sounding 125 MB/s interface. The ceiling comes into play quickly, because even a single 3TB HDD can push 160 MB/s through its SATA 6 Gb/s interface, when it's running hard. I was a little frustrated when I did an extensive review of the QNAP TS-879U-RP Turbo NAS server last month, because I didn't have a network environment that could unleash its full performance. Now that I do, let's take a look at what it takes to get this corporate animal up to full speed.

Building on the success of the RT-N56 Dual Band WiFi router, ASUS has been hard at work trying to create the next 'next-best' wireless router. Today, Benchmark Reviews brings you the ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router. As you will see in the images that follow, the ASUS RT-N66U certainly looks the part and is different in that way from 99% of routers on offer today. The RT-N66U has three high power external antenna to allow simultaneous 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals to run at up to 450Mb/s concurrently, this allows you to stream HD content to your media devices (5GHz) while you enjoy uninterrupted wireless internet (2.4GHz). On the box ASUS claim that the RT-N66U has "Leading giga-level throughput over 900Mb/s" but as with most claims this doesn't always come true, our testing threw out some good numbers but nowhere near ASUS' claims. The ASUS RT-N66U has two built in USB 2.0 ports that allow you to share printers and USB storage over LAN and WAN, and also allows you to share a 3G/4G internet connection.

Built on the same design slate as the black diamond series, comes the ASUS USB-N53 Dual Band Wireless-N300 USB Adapter. The USB-N53 has two built in antennae and can operate on 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals at up to 300Mb/s. On the box ASUS claim that the USB-N53 has a "Superior antenna design for extensive wireless coverage more than 150%" and this does show through in our tests, our testing threw out some good numbers but nowhere near 300Mb/s which is understandable to a certain extent. The ASUS USB-N53 comes bundled with an adjustable USB cable that allows you to position the adapter for a better wireless connection. If you are eager to find out more jump on in and see if the USB-N53 is right for you.

How much is too much? For those who tend to answer "...it's never enough!" there is the QNAP TS-879U-RP Turbo NAS. With eight 3.5" drive bays available, there is a potential for 24TB of storage and transfer rates of more than 10 Gb/s. That's ten times more data than any home PC can pump through its ubiquitous GbE network interface, and twenty times faster than what the latest generation of SSDs can muster. This is for people who have serious data appetites and deep pockets. The cost to fill this unit up with HDDs, in the early days of 2012, is enough to give some people pause; for most business owners, it's a small and necessary cost.

The first thing that IOCELL wants you to know about the NetDISK 351UNE is that it is not a NAS. It is a network-direct-attached-storage (NDAS) device. It does not function as a server, and there are distinct benefits to that. For one: size, cost and complexity go way down. Two: it does not use TCP/IP to connect to your network, which eliminates all TCP/IP-based methods for hacking your data. Three: it's faster, since there's ess overhead to manage. Sometimes, less is more. Benchmark Reviews has tested several full-range NAS products in the last few months, now let's investigate what advantages a more tightly focused approach can provide.

The official category for the QNAP TS-419P II Turbo NAS is "Network Attached Storage", but in today's environment, think of it as "Connected Storage". By consolidating and providing direct access to your data via cloud services or on your mobile device, it's more about connectedness than the ability to serve up files over 1000BASE-T in your home or workspace. The TS-419P II is the next logical step up from a two-bay device and allows you to implement RAID 5 or 6; a four-bay device is really the bare minimum for a high availability NAS appliance. It's equipped with a faster Marvell CPU running at 2.0 GHz, a 25% increase in clock speed from previous models. Benchmark Reviews has tested several NAS units recently, let's take at look at how this latest unit compares.

Until 802.11n networking was available, a cable was significantly faster and more reliable. The difference between Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) rates at 1000Mb/s and 802.11g rates at 54Mb/s was significant. With the capability to transfer data at up to 600Mb/s, 802.11n closes that gap quite a bit. Wireless N devices are becoming very affordable now. In this article, Benchmark Reviews takes a look at a very affordable wireless network adapter, the Rosewill RNX 180UBE Wireless N Adapter. We are going to attempt to find the best conditions possible for maximum transfer rates with minimal latency. We are also going to put the Rosewill RNX 180UBE Adapter in a variety of places to simulate where you might actually be using it.

Network storage is a concept that many people use without a second thought in corporate environments, but what about at home? In addition, a larger number of people are beginning to utilize cloud services, and most of those services include some storage capability. What if you could implement both, easily and with one device? All that and much more is readily available in a Network Attached Storage server from industry stalwart, QNAP. The TS-219P+ Turbo NAS uses a modern, energy-efficient 1.6 GHz Marvell ARM-based processor with 512 MB of DDR3 system memory to drive this storage server. A single Gigabit Ethernet network interface feeds data to the CPU, and then it's sent to two SATA 3Gb/s drive bays offering single disk, JBOD, and RAID 0/1 configurations. Benchmark Reviews recently examined the QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS in detail, and now we compare the performance of this smaller unit against other network attached storage servers. If your medium-term data needs can be covered by 2-3TB of storage, you're a good candidate for a smaller two-bay unit like this one.