LG N2B1DD2

LG N2B1 DD2 NAS review

LG's N2B1 is the world's first NAS (Network Attached Storage) box with an integrated Blu-ray writer. The benefit of this is obvious: you can quickly and easily archive off upwards of 50GB of files to Blu-ray media as and when you need them. However, this burner won't play commericial BDs or rip them to the drives. The unit itself is well designed. The glossy white casing with black door means you won't immediately feel a need to quarantine it in a boot room, and there's a pop-up cardreader (SD, XD, MS) and USB in the roof for easy backups. In use, it's pleasingly quiet. A peek around the back reveals a Gigabit Ethernet port, Kensington Lock, two 2.0 USBs and one eSATA connection. The USBs allow you to bolster storage with extra drives. The N2B1 is reasonably straightforward to use, and the web interface is also one of the cleanest dashboards you'll find, although not as intuitive as I'd like. As a media server it's appropriately appointed, too. It can be UPnP-enabled, meaning that it can be seen across a network without further configuration by other UPnP devices, and has both an iTunes server and integrated BitTorrent support in the shape of the lightweight Transmission client.