NAS - Part II: Four NAS Put to the Test, 2008-05-19 - Your reactions

[linathael]

Here's the second part of our series of articles dedicated to NAS (part one).
The new generation of NAS devices has arrived, bringing some real performance gains, while keeping the user-friendly setup and usage interface. We have expanded our selection with two manufacturers, Synology and LaCie, thus offering more competition to the QNAP products. Once again, we're limited to initial installation, setup, and performance of the devices, and we've discovered some surprises. The new article is not available in EnglishFor more information, here.

In the next episode, we will describe how these NAS devices perform as a webserver (HTML/PHP), and FTP-fileserver.

[dana]

I want to repeat in even stronger terms something I have said before. I can say on the basis of sad personal experience, involving a LaCie Ethernet Big Disk, that in evaluating NAS devices it is VITALLY IMPORTANT to consider the quality of the management and repair software provided by the manufacturer. I would go so far as to say that without taking this software into account reviews of such devices are essentially pointless A NAS device may be a wonderful piece of equipment, but if you are given inadequate tools to manage and repair it, the manufacturer is in effect inviting you to entrust your data to an unsafe environment. Any individual or organization should think very carefully before becoming dependent on any such device for the storage of important or irreplaceable data (nota bene: based on complaints that are beginning to surface in America about the Time Capsule and reports of the problematic nature of sparsebundles, these remarks apply to that device too).