^ These were actually big sellers on eBay when I last looked a few months back

With regards to me owning one, it's a long story...

Why do you say forget NTFS with this device?

It doesn't mount as a drive in the normal way. You can't format it from your PC. You need to run propitiatory software to use the thing. If you take the drives out of the toaster, nothing else can read them.

At least, that's what I've read. I have no personal experience of them, but I've always been interested in a low power NAS solution so I've read a lot of reviews

There's a wiki entry. Apparently, the format it uses is called "ZSAN" but it's a little complicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc101

Fcuk, sounds brilliant

I'll probably give it a go at some point just out of misguided curiosity

I think you're confusing this with the old "toasters" that used removable discs that were the size of pieces of bread (hence the "toaster" nickname). This thing is just an enclosure for a couple of IDE drives that happens to look a bit like a toaster.

Just as long as it doesn't keep asking if you want any toast, teacakes, waffles.....

Assuming the Amazon SC101 link is accurate, it sounds pretty similar to me:

Install 1 or 2 IDE* Drives of any capacity from 80GB to 800GB
Offers Z-SAN technology for fast, block-level access
Ensures maximum protection against data loss via mirrored volumes
Keeps pace with your future needs by supporting additional Storage Central systems
Connects to router via Ethernet port
Easily access files through letter drive in 'My Computer'

The main point being the Z-SAN block level access over Ethernet (rather than file level access like with NAS) and the propitiatory software required to access it. You can't read the drives in anything else and it's prone to corruption, which would worry me.

It would also concern me greatly that it only supports 32bit XP and earlier, and if you read the reviews you'll see it's not very reliable. For example, the drive mappings allegedly disappear after hibernation and need a to reboot to get them back.

Oh, here's a story for you:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/rev ... killed-pcs