Product Reviews

As its name suggests, Emprex's P2P Download Engine is different from other network-attached storage (NAS) devices. The P2P doesn't have a built-in hard disk, so you have to add your own storage by plugging in a USB hard disk. Although any files stored on it are accessible from any computer on your network, the P2P's primary purpose is to download files using BitTorrent without the aid of a computer.

The P2P is tiny, measuring just 150x112x30mm. It connects to your router via an Ethernet cable and has two USB2 ports for connecting external disks. The ports provided enough power to our bus-powered 300GB portable disk. The setup utility and web configuration interface are straightforward to use, although it insists on reformatting any attached USB disk to FAT32 or ext2 (a Linux file system). The setup utility and manual recommends setting up DMZ or port forwarding on your router, to ensure your firewall doesn't slow down your BitTorrent downloads.

The web interface is also used to configure and start BitTorrent download tasks. A 350MB DivX file was downloaded over BitTorrent in 30 minutes, which is as we'd expect. There's no way to restrict access to just BitTorrent controls,

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though, which is problematic if you want to grant others on your network the ability to manage BitTorrent downloads.

The P2P can help reduce your bills if you download large files overnight. It uses 3W when idle and 4W when downloading files. This is far less than an average PC, which draws 80W when idle.

We were disappointed, but unsurprised, by the P2P's poor file-copying performance over our Ethernet network. Since the USB hard disk can be unplugged and connected directly to a computer, this isn't a crippling disadvantage, though.

If you choose to format the disk as FAT32, you won't be able to download and store files larger than 4GB. You could choose the ext2 format to get around this, but Windows wouldn't be able to recognise the file system without the help of a third-party utility. However, this problem is unlikely to affect most users.

Even with better file copying performance, the P2P still wouldn't be suitable as a file server for multiple users, due to its basic permissions controls. Each user can have their own folder, but it can only be made completely accessible to all other users, or not at all.

It can also act as an UPnP media server, so you can play downloaded music and videos on a network media player or PC. Standard definition DivX files played back smoothly, although there was a slight pause when skipping back or forth to a different part of the video.

This is a cheap way to download files over BitTorrent without leaving your PC on constantly. It's not well suited for use by multiple users, however, due to its poor security controls. It's also too slow as a NAS. Synology's DiskStation DS-207+ (What's New, Shopper 241) is a much better choice if you need a NAS that has a built-in BitTorrent server.