Skywell Magic Toplan

We are beginning to see more and more USB peripherals and devices in the PC market today. There seems to be no end in the kind of USB peripherals you can buy. So, this week yet another USB device has landed in our reviews lab. This time it is the Magic TopLan USB network device. It is a USB host to host connector. This means that it allows you to connect 2 PCs together using the USB interface on your PC. It is not possible to connect 2 PCs together without such a device since USB is a master and slave configuration so 2 masters cannot talk to each other without using the slave as an intermediary. This is how the Magic TopLan achieves this functionality, and so does a lot of other similar products such as the Anchorchips EZ-USB or the unbranded product known as PC-Link.

The nice thing about this device is that it allows you to connect 2 PCs without the need to buy any NICs. This makes it a cheap and convenient way to connect 2 PCs together. In fact, with a USB hub it is possible to even connect multiple PCs together but this is slightly trickier to do than say but it is possible. The cost also goes up incrementally since each connection requires 1 Magic TopLan dongle. So, it is not necessarily cheaper to network a group of PCs together using this solution but it certainly is a cheap and easy way to connect 2 PCs together.

<Installation><The Tests><Conclusion><Rating>

Installation

Installation of any network device is not necessarily complex but can be confusing to the novice user so care has to be taken. I would strongly advise any user undertaking this for the very first time to follow the documentation very carefully. Fortunately the Magic TopLan user's manual is quite well written and guides the user through each step easily. To install the drivers you will need your Windows 95/98 CD (for Win95 you will need to upgrade it to OSR2.1 at least) and the Magic TopLan drivers. The Magic TopLan drivers should be installed first by connecting the device into the USB port. The Add New Hardware Wizard should pop up if it is the first time you are installing this. Go through the Windows and select the driver from the drive A:. After that is done, an icon called NetSetup appears on your desktop which you should launch to install the network components as well as to setup your network parameters. Once it is launched, you go through the installation and setup process step by step. The software will guide you through the steps. Once the network parameters have been set, it will prompt you for the Windows CD. The network drivers will be installed automatically then and it will ask you to reboot the PC once it is done. A logon window will come up. You will then need to logon. IF not, go to your Control Panel and launch the network icon. Change the primary network logon to Client for Microsoft Networks. Once that is done, just reboot the PC and you should see the logon window.

You will need to install the drivers and go through all the steps for each PC that you intend to use the Magic TopLan with. Just keep in mind that when you setup the IP addresses that they have to be in the same range but unique addresses. If you don't know how to do this, you will need to ask someone who does.

The Tests

Once I have 2 PCs setup with the driver software, I was ready to run some tests. Using the Network Neighbourhood, I could see the other PC in the Window. And because I have file sharing setup on both PCs, I could exchange or copy files to and fro the PCs. The PCs felt like it was on a network and the net access felt pretty fast. I tried copying a folder of files worth 10,369,004 bytes (single file) and it took about 25 seconds to complete. This translates to approximately 410,000 bytes/s which roughly equates to about 30 percent of USB's rated 12Mb/s. I performed another test with file copying, this time round with 20,535,958 bytes (1,952 files) which took about 290 seconds to complete yielding a transfer rate of about 70kbytes/s. This could be due to the USB and the hard disk utilizing a substancial amount of CPU bandwidth, with so many files to read the second time round, the transfer rate suffered. Disk fragmentation could also play a part in the results although I did not have a chance to perform a more thorough test in this area.

Next, it was a network gaming test. If you don't already have the IPX network services installed you will need to do that in order for StarCraft BroodWar multiplayer to work. Playing the game was no different than that with a network card. I did not encounter any jerkiness or hiccups in the game that could be due to the TopLan device. I ended up being engrossed in the game and did not have a chance to try out other kinds of game.

Conclusion

The Magic TopLan USB network device is quite a compact and nifty device. The TopLan spots an iMac type color scheme that is both translucent and contrasting. I wonder why they did that since they did not ship with MacOS drivers. Then again they could very well be planning an iMac version to appeal to iMac users although I seriously doubt if any iMac users would adopt it as their main network device since every iMac comes with a 10/100Base-T port built-in. The TopLan does networking nicely without any need of a network card at a very competitive cost though. Cost does go up quite a bit once you need more than 2 PCs connected since you will need a USB hub to connect more than 2 PCs together using this method. It does work and work quite well to a certain extent and I suspect that as more PCs are connected this way, bandwidth will be chewed up and response will suffer. I would go for this solution only if I have only 2 PCs to connect together and I don't already have network cards. I see this as a great solution for those users with a notebook and a desktop PC. This will enable PIM synchronization and sharing of network resources easily and cheaply between 2 PCs without the need of a costly network PC card such as those required for the notebook PC.

Overall Rating (Out of a maximum of 5 Star)
Installation	***1/2
Performance	********
Price	*******
Software Bundle	*******
Build Quality	*******
Overall Rating	***1/2