| 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 |
Page 5 of 6
Now that I've seen what the SS4200 is capable of, I can safely say where the SS4200 is best suited.
| Market Segment | Number of Users |
Rating In This Segment |
Comments on the Rating |
| Home Theatre |
1-5 |
9/10 |
The ability to change the brightness of the LEDs, the lack of noise, the media server and the good single-user performance means this NAS can store and play movies and TV shows to multiple screens at once. Pricing is at the higher end of the market but the performance is worth it. |
| Home and SOHO Networks | 1-5 |
9/10 |
Plenty of performance for small numbers of users, the lack of noise and the included Retrospect backup application can be used to back up the home computers to the NAS. Some nice features around USB storage and peripherals but a little more polish on the rough edges would really benefit. |
| Small Business |
6-20 |
8/10 |
Performance with larger numbers of users is less of a concern with the most recent firmware, and the ease of management and ability to easily and quickly expand the storage with USB or eSATA drives make the SS4200 a reasonable choice here. Other contenders such as the Buffalo TerraStation and Netgear ReadyNAS have some extra features (such as automated backup) that the Intel is missing. If you have an Active Directory environment, the SS4200 can join the domain only if the domain's short name is the same as the long name (for example, "SmallBiz" and "SmallBiz.local"). |
| Medium Business |
21-50 |
5/10 |
I can't really recommend the Intel SS4200 for core use in the Medium business segment for several reasons. First, the lack of backup options means that trusting corporate data to the SS4200 is a risk to the business - if it isn't backed up, it's not critical data. Also, the apparent restriction on the UPS that can be detected and used is not ideal, joining to an Active Directory environment can be problematic, and security is lacking, a situation not uncommon to Linux-based NAS devices. Performance of the device may also become a problem, although upgrading to 7200rpm disks might well provide a welcome performance boost. |
Comments (2)
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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!
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