Information wants to be free, or so the old saw goes. But when you're talking about your own information -- your data, your files, your music and photos and other digital keepsakes -- you don't want it to be free. You want it caged and protected and maybe even disciplined.

Who's your daddy now, files? Huh? If you're one of the growing number of Canadians with a home or small business network linking multiple PCs under one roof, you know it can be hard to keep track of who has what on which computer.

Maybe your tax files are on the desktop in the den, while your MP3s are on your laptop and a slew of funny videos downloaded from the Net are tucked away on your daughter's computer downstairs. That little dog that says "I want my mama!" never gets old.

So-called media servers like the HP Media Vault offer a simple way of shifting your digital goodies to one central location and allowing everyone access to them. Or at least picking and choosing who can access what, because you might not want your daughter watching your own collection of videos downloaded from the Net. Wink wink.

Though it looks sort of like a tiny PC, the Media Vault houses a big ol' hard drive (300 GB in the $399 MV2010 model, 500 GB in the $599 MV2020, which is the one we tested), with a second bay to add another drive if you need even more storage space. Plunk a separate 750 GB hard drive in the MV2020 and you're looking at a total of 1.25 terabytes of storage.

That's a lot of episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Like, the whole seven-season series. Twice over.

With room to spare. Once the Media Vault is connected to your network's router, your PCs see it as a standard network storage device. You can use the included HP software to easily set up custom directories, folders, access privileges and so on, and the little device has even got a trio of USB ports for attaching networked printers, memory sticks, external hard drives (might as well get "Star Trek: Voyager" on there as well) and so on.

For instance, I used the included software to automatically back up my e-mail files once every three days, my digital photo folders once a week and my episodes of "Clone High" just once, since the series was cancelled and they won't be making any more. And yet, According To Jim is still on the air. How is that fair?

You can also choose to have the Media Vault software back up files on the fly every time they're changed, and store multiple versions of each backup. Overkill for most, but it's nice to have the option. Being a classic Virgo --ie.

mildly obsessive-compulsive -- I love having all my photos, music and key files stored in one central, always-on location, rather that trying to remember what's located on which computer in my home. The downside to that approach is that even though the Media Vault can back up data within itself, I've still got all my digital eggs in one basket, as it were. If the thing was ever destroyed in a fire or stolen in a break-in, I'd be deeply screwed.

I was also bummed to discover that while I can use Windows Media Center on my PCs to stream video, pictures and music from the Media Vault, my Xbox 360 can't "see" the device on the network. That means I can't use the game console's nifty Media Center Extender capabilities to access content stored on the Media Vault, like the copy of "The Bourne Identity" that comes pre-loaded on the machine as part of a promotion with CinemaNow. (They also offer two additional free movie downloads, but they're not available to Canadians.

Hmpt!) If your home or business has just one PC and you've already got a procedure in place for backing up important files, this little beast is not going to be of much use. But for those who have their data and digital media scattered hither and yon across their network and don't practice good backup habits, the Media Vault does what it does simply, reliably and unobtrusively.

No discipline required. Verdict: If you need a simple and user-friendly way of centralizing and backing up digital video, music and other important files, it would be tough to find a device better suited to the task than this.