| Article Index |
|---|
| Intel SS4200-E NAS Review |
| Internals and Functionality |
| USB and eSATA Peripherals |
| Performance |
| Is the SS4200 For Me?} |
| Conclusion and Thoughts |
| All Pages |
The SS4200 supports the attachment of USB disk drives, cameras, bluetooth adapters and UPS. However, not every attempt to attach or use devices was as smooth or successful as it might have been.
First I tried attaching a USB memory key and while installation was immediate and successful, the memory key was less functional than I had idealized. For example, there was no way to tell the SS4200 to copy the files on the key to the RAID set, unless they were picture (image) files from a digital camera. This meant there was no way to plug in a USB key and easily back up the contents directly to the NAS. If this were available in the Web Console as an option - "Copy USB key to Folder" - it would have been a great option
Instead, I had to access the USB key across the network - and the Share name that the SS4200 selected was neither obvious nor memorable. My USB key showed up with the share name "USB?USB?2.0?Flash?Disk?part1" - and there's no way to change it. Perhaps a name like "USBKey1" would have been more easy to manage.
Next I attached a 1TB Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB disk to the NAS. Again, the installation was successful and immediate - the storage appeared as a new share within seconds. But the same types of issues occurred. With a 1TB disk, it might be expected that the NAS could be instructed to back up (copy) a portion of itself to the USB drive, or vuce versa, but unfortunately this was not possible. Again the only method of access was through a share, this time named, "USB?Seagate?FreeAgentDesktop?part1".
Performance of the USB disk was quite poor at about 5 megabytes per second - about 1/6 the performance of the same disk when attached to a PC running Windows Vista.
Lastly I plugged in a PowerWare 5110 UPS, so that I could enable Write Caching on the NAS for better performance. The PowerWare UPS is a 300VA unit, capable of supporting about 210W of computer equipment. Unfortunately the SS4200 did not recognise the UPS as a UPS, so I could not test whether write caching did, in fact, get enabled automatically. The write cache tests were therefore conducted with the unit "forced" into caching mode.
I was not able to test the USB Bluetooth or USB Printer functionality.
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|118.90.90.xxx |2009-05-03 09:39:38 Andrew Watson - Thanks for the heads up on the firmwareI have been using one at home for about 5 months and find it excellent (I mainly use it for media and downloads). Thanks for the informative review (I wouldn't have known about the new firrmware otherwise). I do wish it had a squeezebox compatible music server. Apart from that it has been faultless and fast enough to not notice as an external disk.
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|71.252.47.xxx |2010-01-09 14:52:57 F32 - Killer with WHSThese sell for as low as $170 on newegg and $140 on ebay and are absolutely KILLER with WHS. If you get one one ebay and add $100 WHS it is $210 and every one of your shortcomings is addressed and it makes the HP WHS line, even discounted models, look terrible.
Google the ss4200 and WHS, installing it is easy you don't need a video card you just image a $5 2gb usb memory stick. You can even then use the ide port for a fifth ide drive!
