Sorry that there was nothing new posted today, but I spent all day grinding through the Cheap Draft 802.11n Router Roundup that will go up sometime Friday.

Tags: Site stuff,

You may have been experiencing problems reaching the site over the past few days. We're having some hosting problems and are trying to work through the issues.

In the meantime, if you reach a blank or error page, you haven't done anything wrong! Just try the page again and you will probably reach it.

Thanks for your patience and we're sorry for the problem.

Update 4/7/08 5PM E.D.T. We think we have found the problem and things should be running more smoothly. But please let us know if you experience any problems.

Tags: Site stuff,

Bill Meade's Build a Cheap and Fast RAID 5 NAS How To has continued to be one of our most popular articles, even though now it's almost two years old. But with the price of ready-to-buy RAID5 1 TB NASes as low as $500, does it still make sense to roll your own?

Tags: BYOD, How To, NAS, RAID,

Over the weekend, we've tweaked the NAS and Router Charts to increase your product comparison pleasure.

Tags: Charts,

I've seen posts in the Comments of a few RAID NAS reviews that complain of failed recoveries. In some cases, the RAID array suddenly becomes available, but there is no drive failure and the array needs to be rebuilt, destroying all data. In other cases, there is an actual drive failure, but the array becomes unavailable and data is again lost.

Has something like this happened to you? Has RAID let you down? Let me know by posting a Comment below. No registration is required. Thanks!

Tags: NAS, RAID,

I've been meaning to review backup software, but never seem to get around to it. So I'm turning to you all for ideas.

So what application do you use for backup? What do you like about it and what do you think could be improved?

Just post a comment below. No registration is required. Thanks!

Tags: Backup, NAS,

Nilay Patel's take on Apple's latest variation on the Airport Extreme:

Hardware: Basically an Airport Extreme with a hard drive inside.

Performance: Hogs the network when it's backing up.

Features: Backups only. Can't use as a general-purpose NAS.

Full article.

Tags: 802.11n, Apple, NAS, WiFi,

The response to my previous post looking for bloggers was completely underwhelming. So let's try a different approach.

I'd like to know what other sites and blogs you regularly visit for networking news, reviews, gossip, etc. I have a few, but I'd like to know where you go.

Just post a Comment below. No login is required. Thanks!

And please put links to the sites you like in your comments!

Tags: Site stuff,

SmallNetBuilder is fortunate to have a talented and faithful audience. Our best contributors have always come from our readers, and I'm always looking to tap that vast wealth of experience.

But good people also tend to be busy people who don't have the hours that it takes to research and prepare they kind of in-depth articles and reviews that we do. On the other hand, you do have the time to visit SmallNetBuilder regularly and I'd like to have fresh stuff for you to read each time you visit.

Tags: Site stuff,

It has been SmallNetBuilder's policy to not publish articles written by vendors. The reason is that most vendor-supplied articles are basically advertising in a different format.

But sometimes the articles really are informative, even though they carry a built-in bias toward the author's company's product. So I'm thinking of trying this out.

These articles will have the author's company affiliation clearly identified and carry a short disclaimer so that readers will know that the views expressed are the vendor's and not SmallNetBuilder's.

So what do you think? Should we let companies contribute articles? Let me know by leaving a comment below. Thanks!

Tags: Site stuff,