Akitio Cloud Hybrid Review

This weekend I have been lucky enough to have a electrician in, and we have been running CAT 5 cable all over my home, along with the installation of a equipment rack. The Akitio Cloud Hybrid that I got to review a couple of weeks ago, is now residing in it along with a bunch of other gear that my wife wanted out of my studio. Do not get me wrong the Akitio Cloud Hybrid could have just as easily set on my desk but hey it looks cool in the rack.

I installed a 2TB drive in the unit, plugged it into my network, and then within minutes logged into the device and started configuring it. It literally took me longer to plug a network cable into it, and hook up the power cord then it did to set the device up. When they say 45 second setup they are not kidding. If you have it sitting close to your computer you can also connect to it via a USB 3.0 connection. Making it a Network Attached Storage / Direct Attached storage.

Some of the features include:

• Built-in UPnP-AV media server for digital media players
• High speed data access over Samba (read speed above 60MB/s)
• File browser for WebDAV access
• iTunes music server
• Web portal for remote login
• Includes a Free App for iOS and Android based mobile devices

It supports a lot of devices:

• Xbox 360 (JPG, MP3, WMV, XviD)
• PlayStation 3 (JPG, MP3, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, XviD)
• iTunes (MP3)
• DLNA certified UPnP clients
• Windows 7 (Windows Media Player

A lot of those terms may scare the beginner, but do not let the terms scare you, breaking it down what you have is a fully capable storage device that simply can be connected to by nearly any device in your home. The best part is you can connect to the device when you are away from home via your mobile phone or computer.  They make it real easy you just go to myakitio.com login with username and password and you have access to all of the devices files.

The device will go into a power save mode when not in use and the front panel will tell you when the hard-drive is getting full. The price is right at about $100.00 on a variety of websites. If your looking for a simple to use Network Storage Device that a beginner can use yet serve up some powerful features this is it.

Akitio has a full line of network attached storage products. This is the second piece of gear I have reviewed from them and I am impressed by the approach they take to making it easy for consumers. Do not let the brand fool you this company is doing some cool stuff. Don’t miss their thunderbolt gear either.