“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Dicken’s iconic opening line to A Tale of Two Cities easily describes the life of someone with or without access to a NAS server.  The increasing number of consumer electronics and computer devices incorporating various levels of interconnectivity, coupled with the performance enhancements of wireless and powerline networking protocols, are ushering in a new era of home network complexity.  The ubiquity of products like netbooks and digital media players have turned networked computing into a much more personal and diverse experience, as well as making multi-node in-home networks commonplace.

On any network, a central network attached storage (NAS) space accessible to each user and device is convenient for file sharing and centralized data backups.  Unfortunately, many of the better performing and feature-full NAS server devices are very complex, expensive, and do more than the average consumer requires.  Thus, the Addonics’ Mini NAS and Thecus’ N0204 miniNAS product releases, aside from their boring names, bring two new interesting low priced options to home users looking for the benefits of network attached storage without the enterprise grade price.

The $69 (not including a HDD) Addonics Mini NAS features a 10/100 Ethernet connection, which won’t keep up with the maximum speeds of Wireless-N and powerline networking devices, but should be sufficient to support its basic functionality.  With only one 2.5″ HDD bay, don’t expect to reap the benefits of RAID storage associated with many higher end NAS devices.  Relatively advanced features include support for printer, FTP, iTunes, and UPnP AV servers.  The Mini NAS has a form factor similar to that of a VHS cassette tape, making it ideal for desktop placement.  Obviously, when compared to higher end NAS products and their features, the Addonics Mini NAS represents a very basic entry level device, but as a first foray into home networked storage, it’s not a bad option for the price.

Conversely, the Thecus N0204 miniNAS, which the company claims is “the world’s smallest fully-featured NAS device”, offers 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and support for RAID 0 and RAID 1 drive configurations.  It’s two 2.5″ HDD bays are hot swappable for reduced downtime during hard drive failure, and a USB port is conveniently located on the front face of the device for easy “one touch” backup to an external USB hard drive.  In addition to the printer, FTP, iTunes, and UPnP AV servers shared by its Addonics counterpart, the N0204 miniNAS features home surveillance (into which optional security cameras can feed) and photo web servers.  With an MSRP of $150 without disk drives, the RAID functionality alone of the Thecus device is worth the additional $80  over the Addonics mini NAS, making the Thecus N0204 miniNAS my miniNAS of choice.