Belkin
Wireless Pre-N Router: $149.99
www.belkin.com

One of the problems with wireless communications is signal bounce. A signal can bounce off of a wall, a couch, a car, and thus have one data stream arriving with varying amounts of delay at the receiver, a phenomenon called multipath propagation. A new technology called MIMO (multiple input multiple output) is able to analyze these various latencies and use them to increase overall transmission speed. Essentially, the stream is divided up into mini streams, and, thanks to some very complex algorithm processing, each mini stream is routed down a different latency path. The effect is almost like parallel processing.

Belkin is the first to market with MIMO-based wireless networking products. The Pre-N Router sports three antennae. In addition to helping boost signal range, these also work cooperatively to ensure better signal reception.

As you might expect from working with previous wireless claims, this is a bit exaggerated. In my testing, the throughput was two to four times greater than 802.11g in mixed client situations—sometimes even exceeding 45 Mbps—depending on different environmental factors and whether you’re talking about running a “turbo” mode for 802.11g.

Belkin’s Pre-N is backward compatible with 802.11b and 802.11g and includes all of the four-port 10/100 switch, WPA encryption, and firewall functions you expect in a consumer router. The technology is called Pre-N because 802.11n is expected to incorporate MIMO, but the official 802.11n standard won’t be ratified until next year at the earliest, so Belkin is playing things nice and safe. Home users probably won’t care about running a non-spec wireless system, but corporations may be more picky. Keep in mind, though, that to get the full benefit of the Pre-N router, users will need to also have a Pre-N card. Belkin’s Pre-N PC Card retails for $100.

Panasonic
SW-9585 Super Multi Drive: $129/$99 (retail/bare)
www.bellmicro.com

Say your customer is working on a home video project detailing last summer’s huge family reunion. He’s got some WMV and AVI video clips under construction, a self-extracting slide show, a PowerPoint presentation with geneology trees, and so on. He wants to stick this work in progress on one disc for showing around-and can’t. At least not without DVD-RAM.

“You can’t have different formats of data and video reside on the same disc under the ‘dash’ and ‘plus’ technologies,” says Joe Cousins, vice president of computer products marketing at Bell Micro. “We think that the DVD-RAM format is going to gain momentum because of its ability to record and edit video and all other types of data on one type of disc.

Especially given what you hear about digital homes now, this is the perfect type of drive for a consumer.” Bell Micro has an exclusive distribution agreement with Panasonic for this drive, which sports 5X DVD-RAM performance as well as 16X -/+R, 8X +RW, 6X -R, and 40X CD-R recording. The drive even supports new double-layer compatibility for +R. The retail version of the product will ship in February with a full suite of Ulead digital media software, including MovieFactory 3.5. For customers in both the home and corporate spheres who never want to worry about compability but still want the maximum range of application functionality, Bell Micro’s drive is a sure winner.

Anthology Solutions
Yellow Machine P400T: $799 (w/ no drives)
www.anthologysolutions.com

We’ve seen something like the yellow machine coming for a while. Probably the best runner up to cross my office is IOGEAR’s B.O.S.S., which is a firewall-enabled router with a built in hard drive. Anthology just decided to take the integrated network box to its logical conclusion and skip all of the intermediate steps. The Yellow Machine (which comes in silver or yellow) is a toaster-sized box running an integrated Linux OS capable of holding up to four PATA drives configured as RAID 0, 1, or 5. So there’s your NAS box, complete with automated backup and the ability to daisy chain boxes. Plug in an access point and you can back up wireless PCs, too.

The Yellow Box is also an 8-port 10/100 switch, router, DHCP server, and supports HTTP, FTP, and telnet services. The Yellow Machine offers an SPI firewall and Web access control, a must when selling into public organizations, especially schools. The device even includes software for monitoring and backing up email. Administration is completely Web-based, and since this can be done remotely, this may be a recurring revenue opportunity for small business resellers.

Anthology markets the Yellow Machine primarily to small businesses and corporate branch offices, but I’ll be honest. I rely on three or four PCs spread throughout my house, and backup is a nightmare. A one-stop solution like the Yellow Machine sitting at the center of my LAN would be a godsend, because I’m past the point where just adding another external drive is satisfactory. Mirroring two drives for data backup and another two for must-save digital media while replacing a stack of gear in my LAN closet sure sounds appealing.

The Yellow Machine is far more extensible than any NAS box I’m aware of and delivers many functions wholly absent in competing devices. Any organization handling mass amounts of data will find this a persuasive, value-add solution.

Olixir Technologies
Mobile DataVault 2LX: $549/60GB
www.olixir.com

Who among us has never dropped an expensive piece of computer hardware? When doing reviews, I sometimes refer to this as the Accidental Drop Test, an unwitting favorite of mine with handheld devices. However, when it comes to transporting critical data, drops are no laughing matter. The military even developed an official standard for testing device drop survival (MIL-STD-810F), which says that a portable hard drive should survive 26 four-foot drops. At least that’s what I assume. I didn’t drop any of them 26 times to find out. Olixir states that they’ve conducted in-house tests in which 2LX drives survive over 75 drops from three to six feet in height, landing in all directions.

Olixir only sells complete drives with enclosures, not just bare enclosures. The drives are 5400 RPM models with 8MB of cache in capacities from 20GB to 100GB, although Olixir does offer options for 4200 or 7200 RPM drives. The units use a Mini-Centronics interface that converts out to your choice of FireWire, USB 2.0, or SATA interfaces. Note that SATA’s throughput rate is 1,500 Mbps as opposed to 400 Mbps and 480 Mbps in the other interfaces. The 2LX is rated to withstand 10,000G of shock. It measures about 1.4 x 4.5 x 7.5 inches, or about the size of a VHS tape, and weighs 12.5 ounces. Obviously, at Olixir’s price points, you won’t be selling many of these into SOHO or small biz accounts. But some people are willing to pay a premium to protect super-important data.