$55 Addonics NAS Adapter Turns USB Hard Drive to NAS

Most of us own at least one USB hard drive, whether it be bus-powered portable or desktop-sized. While nothing beats the convenience of an external storage with universal compatibility, the lack of centralized storage capability is becoming a bigger problem as more households demand file sharing between their computers. Before you decide to shell out for a brand new Network Attached Storage that may cost upwards of $200, Addonics has a USB-to-NAS adapter that can turn any USB hard drive to, well, a NAS device.

The NAS adapter - slightly longer than a C size battery - has a USB connector on one end and a 100/100Mbps Ethernet port on the other. Supplying a maximum of 1.5A at 5V, there's enough juice to operate even the most power-hungry 2.5" USB drives. The adapter can be configured as a bit-torrent server, FTP server (supporting 8 users), printer server, or even a UPnP server for serving media files to PS3 and XBox 360 alike. For $55, it's a viable alternative to a full-fledged NAS solution.