Another New Level of Home Networking Technology

Businesses, especially larger businesses, and academic institutions have long enjoyed the luxury of having computer networks with shared folders. This shared folders can be a great resource when it comes to sharing data among different users or allowing users to move fluidly among different work stations. That's because these shared folders are accessible from any computer.

For example, if an employee wants to share a document with another employee, instead of taking the trouble to send it as an email attachment or putting it on a floppy disc or USB drive and carrying it over to the other computer, it can just be dragged and dropped from its own folder to the shared folder on the computer's desktop. Then employee number two can just pull it out of the shared folder and use it on his or her own computer. This also makes it easy to back up files- again, just drag and drop the file that needs to be backed up into the shared folder.

It's even possible to have multiple shared folders, one for collaborative projects, on for random documents that need to be backed up, and one for each individual employee to make it easy for employees to switch work stations are all possibilities.

Now, thanks to Hewlett Packard's media vault, it's possible to have the same kind of networking in your home. The media vault is essentially a server that can be tied into your home computer network. It serves as a repository for backing up data and sharing documents in different folders just like is mentioned above. Like the kind of a server you'd find as part of a well done local area network in a business, the Media Vault can even be administered in such a way as to make it so that less computer literate members of a household can't accidentally delete important documents.

Unlike a lot of the servers used in the business world the Media Vault is very user friendly. For example, it's easy to have all of the shared folders mapped out on each computer on the network. It's also easy to back up various kinds of files to prevent data loss.

If data back up is really the order of the day, it's also very easy to install a RAID array in the empty port of the Media Vault. While the empty port is designed to add capacity by installing another hard drive, a RAID array will automatically back up whatever is on the first drive for an extra level of protection against the failure of one of the drives. Of course it's also possible to add another hard drive.

The Media Vault comes in two versions. One has a storage capacity of three hundred gigabytes and the other can store as much as five hundred gigabytes of data. Of course, it's possible to expand the larger model up to a total of one point two terabytes!

The real beauty of the Media Vaults is that they can stream music and video to home entertainment system components with the right adapters. This will allow you to watch Internet video on your living room TV screen and to listen to digital music on your home stereo system. In other words, HP's Media Vaults go way beyond the normal capacities of home computer networks!

A leader in technology reporting, Julia Hall has published articles about the latest digital devices and gadgets for over ten years. After graduating from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering, Julia turned down huge salaries from some of the most recognized fortune 500 companies in the world to pursue his dream of becoming a leading consumer advocate. Julia uses her expertise to cut through the too good to be true deals offered by high tech companies to reveal the real steals and the real duds that we're bombarded with daily. If you enjoy staying on the cutting edge of technology, whether for business or pleasure, but find yourself occassionaly confused by the overwhelming information out there let Julia be your guide.

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