Network-Attached Storage: Today’s Best Boxes-gctid50332

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Network-Attached Storage: Today's Best Boxes

Network-Attached Storage: Today

Ethernet-attached storage boxes look much as they did two years ago, but their speed, interfaces, and features have evolved.

                                                         By Jon L. Jacobi, PCWorld                             Mar 27, 2012 10:47 pm



Synology's two-bay DS212+ NAS drive is a full-featured speedster with an outstanding operating system.The  network-attached storage (NAS) box--an external storage device that  attaches to your network router rather than directly to your PC--has  become an essential tool for any home or small business that deals with  shared data and media.

And the breed continues to evolve: Capabilities now extend far beyond  simply serving and streaming files to PCs. Today's top NAS boxes also  handle backups in conjunction with online storage services, link to  mobile devices for sharing, act as video surveillance controllers, and  even work as Wi-Fi hotspots.

Since it uses network protocols to transfer data, a NAS box is  operating-system-agnostic: Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs alike can use the  storage without special drivers. Usually, the connection relies on  wired ethernet, but some boxes can connect wirelessly. Most NAS boxes  have two to eight hard-drive bays and use RAID for data redundancy.  Modern NAS boxes run a full-blown server OS--in most cases Linux, but  occasionally Windows Storage Server 2008. Either way, remote management  takes place via a Web browser or client software.



The high-performance QNAP TS-459 Pro II earned top ranking on our chart of NAS boxes with three or more bays.To  see how far NAS technology has come in recent years, we tested five  two-bay NAS boxes and six three-or-more-bay units, and examined their  feature sets. Our ranked charts for Network-Attached Storage Devices: One or Two Bays and Network-Attached Storage Devices: Three or More Bays summarize what we found.

The USB 3.0 ports on some premium models are the main outward sign of  change. Hardware features tend to vary with the price of the box, but  they commonly include USB 2.0 and eSATA ports for sharing printers or  backing up to external storage; solo or dual ethernet jacks (dual for  connection sharing or redundancy); and direct copy buttons for copying  the contents of thumb drives and other storage attached to the NAS box  without the need to access the box's HTML interface.

Inside the box, faster CPUs and chipsets, and more memory, have  improved performance significantly. Pricier, high-end boxes for small  business can now read data at rates up to about 110 MBps and write it at  about 100 MBps--almost twice as fast as most internal or  direct-attached drives.
 
The jump in performance, however, has yet to  fully trickle down to the next tier of consumer-grade NAS boxes from  vendors such as LaCie and Buffalo; though far more affordable, these  models lack the punch of top-of-the-line products.

In the next year, updated hardware from many vendors should level the  playing field again. And few home users need more speed than even the  slowest box in this roundup can give them right now. If you only  occasionally back up one or two PCs, or stream media, any of the boxes  we tested will meet your needs. On the other hand, if you regularly back  up multiple PCs in an office, deal with large amounts of data, or  stream to multiple locations, you need all the speed you can get, and  you'll likely find that high-end performance is worth paying extra for.



Synology's two-bay DS712+ NAS drive can connect to a five-bay expansion unit to grow with your business.Though  hardware has evolved gradually, software--including the code than  handles RAID functionality--has grown by leaps and bounds. In addition  to supporting standard RAID levels (0, 1, 5, 1+0, and so on), some  vendors--such as Netgear and Synology--now automatically configure  drives into the optimal array, even implementing data redundancy. In  most cases you don't have to use like-capacity drives either, though  doing so is still optimal.

Software features that were highly advanced two years ago are now  considered standard: DLNA-certified media serving, iTunes serving,  website serving, and remote access to the NAS interface and files via  HTML, FTP, Webdav, and other protocols. Newer features include backup to  online storage services, access to files from mobile phones and  tablets, and remote backup and synchronization across local networks and  the Internet. Being able to easily sync two boxes in two different  locations provides offsite backup without your having to pay for online  storage.

NAS software interfaces have improved, too. Confusing sets of basic  and often ineptly designed HTML pages have largely morphed into stylish,  well-organized, easy-to-navigate interfaces. Synology's latest 3.x and 4.x OSs are able to function as windowed operating systems in a browser.

If you're not using a NAS box to manage your company's data and  online presence, you're missing out. Feature-rich NAS boxes can save you  money in the long run by rendering software services that you formerly  had to farm out. Our top pick among two-bay NAS boxes is the Synology  DS712+; the top-ranked box with three or more bays is the QNAP TS-459  Pro II.

For complete review of each of the 11 NAS boxes we tested for this article, click the appropriate links below.

Two Bays
 • Synology DiskStation DS712+
 • Synology DiskStation DS212+
 • LaCie 2Big Network 2 2TB
 • Western Digital My Book Live Duo 4TB
 • Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo 2TB
 Three or More Bays
 • QNAP TS-459 Pro II
 • QNAP TS-879 Pro
 • Iomega StorCenter PX6-300d
 • LaCie 5Big Network 2
 • Western Digital Sentinel DX4000
 • Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2 (RND4000)



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