We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
Noise was measured from half a meter away.
The USB Station 2 is fanless and our meter could not read any noise above ambient levels.
Next, we want to measure power drain from the socket.
Yes, a total of 4 watts when data is being transferred, even when we had a 2.5 inch drive plugged into the back of the unit.
This is a really nifty little gadget, would sit beside a monitor without even being seen.
Excellent little product. fast enough but tiny with no noise and 4w of power. bit slow for what id need, but great for printer sharing and office setups for document sharing etc.
over 20meg a second is really good,. I was expecting it to be limited to 100mbit. not over 200. nice.
i need to get this, just for the software alone. fast enough for what I need, which is to hook in a 2tb drive and stream HD videos to tv.
Well this is something that appeals to me. I dont need a nas, but ive 4 or 5 HDs laying in a drawer. this is a low cost way to use them.
I am REALLY impressed with this little device. that V3 software suite looks great. really think this will sell well. most people dont want to fork out 350 quid for a NAS. good way to use those old drives
Love these guys, I bought the 710+ after reading the review here. This is ideal for a small office and printer sharing and a pool system of storage.
We use the 1010+’s in work. 5 of them. This would be a good addition for printing sharing in the offices.
Shame that you have to wipe out whatever is on your disk in the first place. So factor in the cost a disk to add to this. Why cant it have three USB ports? 2 for disks and one for printer. And where is the advertised wireless capability. Simple data grams dont indicate whether it really would be capable of playing back hi bitrate mkv files as some have very high spikes up to 60-80Mbps. A lower price, NTFS support also, with pre-existing files kept intact. fat32 only allows 4gb max file size.