André Krijnen

After searching on the internet I found out that Dane-Elec has a productline called So Hard Disks. So I’ve looked on their site: Dane-Digital and found the product Dane-Elec 1TB SO-Smart.

Summary:Enjoy watching movies (DivX compatibility), photos and listening to your music thanks to the So Smart, a Multimedia Wifi Hard drive.
Includes the latest of video connexions (HDMI compatible) and will become the heart of your digital world, made accessible to all(NDAS network).

* Power and velocity
* Maximum Compatibility
* Perfect connectivity
* Pure and modern design
* High storage capacity

Technical specifications

* WIFI B/G or MIMO connexion
* HDMI Compatible
* DivX Compatible
* NDAS Compatible (Ethernet 10/100)
* Up to 1 Tb capacity = 1000 Gb*
* Available in 500 Gb, 750Gb and 1Tb capacities

o Interfaces : Video : HDMI, Composite, S-video, Component (YPbPr)
o Analog audio : Stereo RCA
o Digital audio : Coaxial, Optical
o 2 USB 2.0 Hub + 1 USB 2.0 (Slave)

Hard drive : SATA 7200 rpm

Cache Memory : 16 Mb
Infra-red Remote control

So Util: Software Suite

* Roxio Easy Archive: Synchronize and back-up files
* Roxio Back Up My PC: Create a perfect image of your hard drive for security purposes
* PC Tools Antivirus(with a 3-month free upgrade)
* PC Tools Antispyware(with a 3-month free upgrade)

Box contents

* So Smart USB
* USB Cable
* Audio/Video Cable
* HDMI Cable
* Wifi antennas
* Remote control
* Power Supply
* Quickstart guide

I was interested by the possibilities of this product, thus I ordered it at the only shop in the Netherlands called Informatique. It took three workings days and yesterday I finally got this product in house.

So I opened the box, and everything was init. Impressive btw that this product was available for only 268,50 Euro!!

I plugged in the power and the USB. I searched for the power button, but it hasn’t any. So I looked in the quickstart guide of the product, but it doesn’t show how to power up the drive. So I searched on the drive, but still finding the button. Well I also had a remote control. This remote control looks like a standard remote control like your dvd player. On this remote control you have a power button onit to turn the drive on.

Allright, so I always need the remote control for this device… damned, well that suck if your batteries are dead. All right I powered on the device and Windows Vista sees the device and installed the drivers for me. The hard drive is accessible like a normal USB hard disk.

On the driver disk I see the drivers for NDAS network utility so I wanted to install it. Well the first thing I get was, the drivers aren’t supported for x64 operating systems, please install the x64 drivers for NDAS. So I’ve searched on the site of Dane Digital, but couldn’t find any usefull information about these drivers. So I’ve used google to find the appropriate site for the drivers. Well in one hit I found out that the drivers are available at: Ximeta.com.

I downloaded and installed the drivers and had to reboot my system for it. The system rebooted and I know can use the NDAS network util. You have to bind aswell the wired as wireless network card to the NDAS util. So I did. Well that was easy, I plugged in my network into the So-Smart drive, but nothing did happened on my computer.

So I plugged in the HDMI cable into the drive and my LCD screen from the computer. Nothing happened. After looking at the drive I found a User Manual, and it did help me out with going into the box. I had to hit the TVout button on my remote control a couple of times to switch between the possible outputs of the drive.

When I finally I was in I get a horrible purple screen with a very crappy interface, I couldn’t imagine that in these days the interface was that bad as on the drive. Allright it is functional, but they can make some more enhancements to it. I get to setup and found out that I have to enable NDAS on the device. Well I did, and I did get back to my computer. The NDAS network util found the device and I was able to mount it. You have to options mount(only read) and mount (read/write).

So I did read/write and I was able to put data on to the drive. First I uploaded a file of 1.1 GB. The speed was low, so I canceled it, and tried to upload from my machine the same to another machine. The speed was 9 MB/s from computer to computer, but from my computer to the SO-smart drive was on a 1.5 MB/s. So a stunning 1.5 MB/s, well even my wireless network is even faster then this drive.

Well I tried the USB on my front side of the computer, and I managed to get a speed of 17.6 MB/s average of a 1.1 GB file. So even that wasn’t stunning. So I thought well I try this wireless device. Allright, I got back into the crappy interface and wanted to enable the wireless device. Well, I wasn’t even to manage to get in the wireless tab in the setup of the device. So I got back to my computer and found out that I had to upgrade my firmware to get into the Wireless drive.

Well it was late so I wanted to try first a wmv file of 1.1 GB to see what it does. Well I found out that I wasn’t able to play this WMV, because it wasn’t the right encoding. This is possible by this device:

• HD Playback: The So Smart player supports a max resolution of 1920 × 1080 Progressive Scan
video output providing Hi-Definition display of clear and crisp picture quality.
• Video / Movie File Player: Supports various video file formats, including DivX® (3/4/5/6),
Xvid, MPEG, WMV-9, ASF, DAT, DVD, ISO as well as HD-level TP, TS, TRP etc.
Convenient Automatic Decoding and Bookmarking of multiple files within a folder.
• Audio Jukebox: A perfect music jukebox that supports multiple audio formats: MP3, AC3,
WMA, DTSâ„¢ with digital audio output and down-mixing capability.
• Digital Photo Album: Supports multiple image formats. Now your entire family can enjoy the
digital photo slide-show on the big screen TV.
• Network Capable Decoding: Supports streaming of media files on the network.
• HD HDMI Interface: Produces digital video signals to enjoy high quality, vivid, Hi-Def video.
• USB-Host: Supports TWO USB2.0 Ports. USB-Host functionality allows easy connection to
External Storage (e.g. Flash Drive or External HDD) or an External DVD-ROM.

I will get to you when I found out more, but this is the summary so far:

Plusses:

+ Wireless / LAN / USB
+ HDMI / S-Video / Composite / Component (YPbPr)
+ Digital out: Coaxial / Optical
+ Box contents
+ Big disk
+ Cheap

Minus:

– Crappy interface
– No x64 drivers
– No power button on the drive
– Low LAN-speed
– Low USB-speed(even my 5400 rpm usb powered WD drive is faster)