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The rise of powerful home networking solutions have led to the shift in consumer focus from DAS (Direct Attached Storage) units to NAS (Network Attached Storage) units in the home space. Storage solution vendors such as Western Digital and Seagate were quick to identify the needs of the consumers. We have NAS solutions ranging from simple network attached hard disks to multi-bay SMB / SOHO NAS units from both of them.

Today, we will take a look at the recently introduced My Book Live from Western Digital. It is not advertised as a full blown 1-bay NAS solution, but more as a network attached hard disk. Western Digital stresses the personal cloud nature of the unit (after all, cloud is the hot keyword right now!) and provides smartphone apps to enhance this experience. Read on to find out how the My Book Live performs.

MOBILE OPERATOR Three will run out of network capacity in London and other urban areas by the end of next year if spectrum auctions don’t go ahead, according to the firm’s CEO.

Spectrum auctions are due to take place in mid-2012, which is already slightly later than some had expected.

According to the BBC, Three said the timetable was “already slipping” and that it is vital that the operator gets its fair share of the spectrum, adding that rival operators such as O2 and Vodafone might try to delay the auction.

Three CEO Dave Dyson said at a briefing in London, “There is a huge financial incentive for rival operators to delay the auction. We are worried that the other three will attempt to squeeze us out of the market.”

Wireless capacity in large urban areas such as London will begin to run out by the end of next year, Dyson said. But he added, “I believe the auction will go ahead next year and therefore congestion will not happen.”

O2 and Vodafone currently hold the licenses for the UK’s lower frequency 2G airwaves because they were the first operators in the UK. Meanwhile, Orange and T-Mobile have a slightly higher frequency band that isn’t as good for mobile services.

As the newest operator, Three doesn’t own 2G spectrum, which is needed for basic phone calls, and gets access to it via a network sharing deal with T-Mobile.

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has proposed a cap on the amount of spectrum that can be bought to stop Three from being edged out of the market. µ

CHIP DESIGNER Freescale Semiconductor has shown off its QorIQ Advanced Multiprocessing (AMP) chips that it claims will handle the growth in internet traffic over the coming years.

Freescale’s QorIQ AMP chips are based on 64-bit Power e6500 cores running at up to 2.5GHz with Altivec units. The chips will be fabricated on a 28nm process node, offer up to 24 virtual cores and are being pitched for use in switches and routers.

Three versions of Freescale’s QorIQ AMP chips will be available with six core and eight core versions running at 2.5GHz and 1.6GHz, respectively. The high-end, 24 virtual core chip has 12 dual-threaded cores giving 24 threads running at 2.0GHz.

Freescale is promoting the advantages of dual threading its cores, claiming that yields improved performance per thread and higher frequencies. The chip will appear in Freescale’s T4240 device and the company claims it can forward 50Gbits/s.

Chips like Freescale’s QorIQ AMP designs are vital in order for networks to be able to forward data without introducing significant delays. The problem is complicated by having protocols such as IPSec and SSL, which require more than just simple IP packet forwarding.

Just about every network vendor has been banging on about how data usage will explode in the coming years, however it’s not just a matter of buying more switches and routers to solve the problem but rather increasing the performance of the network fabric in order to deal with the demand.

Freescale says its QorIQ T4240 device will be shipping in early 2012, with more of its AMP devices set to tip up each quarter after the initial launch. µ