Buy SuperTalent STU4GPCS Pico-C 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive

So far, no issues, but it gets VERY hot when connected for longer than a couple minutes. I would guess that an hour or so would push it to being too hot to handle, and potentially fry the memory, but for a keychain USB drive, this is a perfect solution.Get more detail about SuperTalent STU4GPCS Pico-C 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive.

Purchase Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive-Sky Blue ST905003FLA2E1-RK

I got this about a month ago and use it to backup my data once a week. So far I have not had any issues with installation, backups, and general use. Its pretty small, lightweight, and has a very nice finish to it. I would definitely recommend this for someone who is looking for a compact portable hard drive for backups and taking your files with you.Get more detail about Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive-Sky Blue ST905003FLA2E1-RK.

Order Synology Disk Station 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS209 (White)

The DS209 is a feature rich home NAS server. This device is easy to use "out of the box" with the default settings, but there's also a plethora of advanced features. I purchased it as a home file server and UPnP/DLNA server. The included software, Disk Station Manager 2.2, makes home file sharing simpler, safer and more scalable than simple Windows file sharing. The DS209 trumps all prior NAS servers I've tried (EARLY implementations from Buffalo and Intel). Power consumption, at 25W (Access)/10W (Hibernation), is low.

Setting up file shares, security, and user groups was a snap. The UPnP/DLNA feature worked flawlessly - my iPhone and home media renderer (LG-BD309) had no issue discovering and using media on the server. In my 'quick and dirty' testing the throughput for a 600MB file read/write was 50MBs/37MBs (about 25% slower than native disk-disk transfers). You can also create virtual iSCSI volumes. In iSCSI mode the write throughput dropped to 30MBs for the 600MB transfer. When transferring a large number of tiny files (20000x500byte files), typical of DB usage, the iSCSI drive was up to 5 times faster than native Windows disk-disk transfers. This is a side-effect of iSCSI's improved file caching. For a mixture of large/medium/small file transfers, typical of home usage, there's no clear winner between regular and iSCSI volumes. Personally, I've settled on regular volumes for all home usage. Choosing iSCSI requires modest computer literacy because you'll need to install MSFT's iSCSI drivers and learn how to use them.

Other features include: network backup, UPS support, firewall, telnet, FTP, HTTP(S), surveillance service, MySQL, and more.

Beware that your home network setup can have a large performance impact. I initially had the DS209 connected through 2 switches (one slow) and got 10MBs throughput. Then I connected through a single GbE switch and got over 3x performance.

This is comparatively expensive for a home NAS server, but it's unique in terms of features and performance.Get more detail about Synology Disk Station 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS209 (White).