The winning unit needs to offer at least 250GB of storage space to accommodate backups and shared data. It needs to be easy to set up and use by someone who is not an expert on Windows networking and doesn't like to tinker with hardware and software. It has to work seamlessly with my Computerworld laptop. And as a small business/small office with no corporate reimbursement for the expense, I want it to be damned cheap.

Those were my requirements. In selecting devices, however, I decided to look at a range of options that include basic units, plus with "nice to have" features such as disk mirroring for fault tolerance, remote access/content publishing capabilities, and printer sharing. While the products I tested differ in features, most vendors offer comparable units with comparable feature sets in each product category.

The lineup

I tested the Buffalo Technologies Inc.'s LinkStation, Iomega Corp.'s StorCenter, Western Digital Corp.'s NetCenter, and Seagate Technologies' Maxtor Shared Storage II. Each configuration varied a bit.

I also looked at Seagate's Mirra Sync and Share Personal Server, which allows you to back up data and then share selected content with other users on your local network or over the Web. It didn't quite meet my basic file sharing needs, but is worth considering for those interested in publishing photos or other online content to friends, family or business associates.