XIMETA NetDisk visible to any OS

Hey everybody! I have a new tech toy that's out of this world and I thought I'd share it with you because it's not terribly well known, and it will probably solve a good number of the restore problems on this forum.

It's an external hard drive (80, 120, 160 or 250GB) with USB2 and ethernet interface. But it's not just network storage: it's seen by any computers on the network as a local drive (like drive E). And this is true even when booting to DOS or any other operating system! (Over its USB bus, it behaves like any other drive - only visible from within Winders).

With my Dell Inspiron, I was having trouble getting DriveImage to see the network when booting from the Linux rescue CD. Now I can see a 250GB drive from any of my computers regardless of how I boot - and it's a shared drive so I can use it to back them up or to share data. And now I can restore Windows from the boot CD!

The drive is hot-swappable and you can connect as many together as you want for infinite storage. You can also get it as an enclosure so you can use whatever drive you want then replace it when it wears out (I notice they use Western Digital). And there's a 250GB version with an 8-port switch/router too!

This sort of technology is truly revolutionary, because for the first time, backing up your system is becoming easy. So far though, only for those of us with networks. However, maybe with a cross-over cable you don't need a network. I don't own a cross-over cable so I can't test it. I'll have to get me one.

http://ximeta.com/products/network_drives/netdisk/index.phpv

 

I saw this unit before, but decided against it due to the reported driver issues with multiple-writes and Linux support (or lack thereof)

Decided to make a homebrew NAS machine. $250 for a RAID5 240GB store. Not too bad, if you ask me.

 

I'm using the Ximeta drive 160 and TI. Here's my work-around for getting it seen by TI.

On my server, which is always on, I share the drive out. TI sees the share on the server and you can image to it directly.

The Ximeta drivers have been problematic in multiwrite. I use this capabilty with great caution. Hopefully, they will straighten this out though I have some doubts. Also, using the multiwrite drive disables the suspend and hibernate modes.

 

I have a new disk and the latest drivers, and the multiwrite capability seems to work perfectly. However, my main use for the drive is backup, on one machine at a time. The multiwrite capability is unimportant. In this backup and restore capacity, it works superbly.

I have four computers on my network. On three of the machines, the TrueImage CD can restore images over the network. However, on my new Dell Inspiron, the TrueImage CD does not see the other machines on my network.

But TrueImage has no trouble at all seeing the NetDisk as a local disk - it works beautifully with TrueImage on a computer that otherwise cannot. I think that could be important to dedicated users of TrueImage, as I am.

Also, when I boot from the WinXP disk to perform disk maintenance, the NetDisk is visible as a local disk over USB.

 

I have 2 questions for NetDisk users, if you would be so kind.

Have you ever not been able to browse to your NetDisk from the TrueImage boot CD on any machine, and therefore not be able to create / restore an image?

Have you ever not been able to see the NetDisk from WindowsXP's CD on any machine, and therefore not be able to maintain / troubleshoot NetDisk files in an advanced mode (such as after Windows crashes)?

My NetDisk can do these things on my 4-computer network.

In my mind, if an external drive can do these two things on all my computers, it has every other drive on the market beat! But I wonder if the NetDisk can do this for you as well.

 

hi,

i just purchased a Ximeta 160Gb disk and it works perfectly. Putting my image on it with TI works fine. However when i boot with the TI bootable rescue disc, i cannot see the harddrive. Whats wrong?

thanks

Matt

 

Hello Gonga and Matt,

Thank you for choosing Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

Could you please try to plug in the NetDisk to the computer via USB and see whether it is available after you boot from Acronis Bootable CD? If so please describe your network configuration in details.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman