Fabrik creates smart networked attached storage software and online storage to help home users backup and share their digital media assets such as music, photos, and videos. Fabrik’s founders were previously executives on Maxtor’s OneTouch line of storage products, a product line with hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly revenue, and have spent many years thinking about the networked and online storage space. Fabrik’s software is included in Maxtor’s new Fusion line of networked storage. The first product launched on Thursday, and Dave Tang of Fabrik came by SF Tech Sessions on Thursday evening to show us the new hardware and management services.
The Maxtor Fusion networked hard drive includes half a terabyte of storage, Linux and Apache onboard, and automatic online backups. You may choose to use the hard drive as a web server, sharing your photos, videos, and music with the world. The device works with Mac and Windows out of the box and supports up to 12 user accounts to keep files private or under a set storage allocation. The networked drive launched on Thursday and is currently available at J&R Computer World for $800. An older Maxtor 500 GB networked drive from J&R costs $450, a 40% difference.
Fabrik has a slick browser-based interface to help people interact with their files on the local network or online. They call the technology a weblication, and it’s a slick use of JavaScript and browser plugins to create an integrated media experience within a web browser. The software automatically retrieves ID3 tags and album art for music placed on the device. If you can listen to a music file instantly within the browser, or watch videos in a JavaScript overlay.
Built-in to the Fabrik file browser is a sharing function allowing anyone to place a media file in their blog or on their MySpace account. There are even specially configured options to add a photo album or slideshow to your MySpace page. This feature is slick, and allows home users to share large files using their home broadband bandwidth.
Fabrik will open up its online storage service to beta users in the next few months. Usage plans are expected to cost $2-$3 as a base plan and $5-$10 for larger amounts storage. General availability is expected by the end of the year.