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Smartstor NS4300N - 4-BAY Nas with Sata RAID5 for Soho/smb.english & Asia.promis | 
 enlarge | Brand: Promise
Category: CE
List Price: $606.36
Buy New: $368.99
You Save: $237.37 (39%)
New (12) from $368.99
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 9896
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Linux
Shipping Weight (lbs): 7.9
Dimensions (in): 117.7 x 107.5 x 80.7
Warranty: 3 years warranty
MPN: F29NS4320000000
Model: F29NS4320000000
UPC: 704118020218
EAN: 0704118030217
ASIN: B000OVA72G
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | NAS Features | | • | -File Sharing Protocols: SMB/CIFS (Microsoft), AFP (Apple/Mac), NFS (Linux/Unix) | | • | -Network Protocols: FTP, DHCP Client | | • | -Client OS Support: Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS | | • | -Client Utility OS Support: Windows |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The NS4300N is the ideal 4-Drive RAID 5 "Bring Your Own Drives" NAS Enclosure for Home, SOHO and Small Business applications. Feature Set includes one of the industry's most mature RAID Engines, SATA 3G, NCQ, Jumbo Frames, User Quota, Backup, Snapshot, HotSwap for failed drive replacement, Embedded Management Application and UPNP/DLNA Certification (NS4300N functions as Digital Media Server).cols support enables cross-platform file services for Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Macintosh. SmartStor NS4300N can help to maximize your ROI and productivity by providing a scalable file service and print service solution.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Not really the best value.. Hidden shortfalls that the matketing stuff doesn't tell you.... October 22, 2008
Lee Buskey
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This unit is nice to look at, but under the hood, it falls short. I will be returning mine as soon as I migrate the data off of it.
The Synology CubeStation CS407e is only a little over $50 more, and has LOTS more features, is QUIET, and has a UI that has had much more thought put into it. Be sure to look at them both before you buy..
Top 10 issues I have with the SmartStor:
1. It is more noisy than my computer! That's a show stopper right there.
2. No local (web based) file managment. If you need to move large chunks of data from one share to another (see item 3), you have to move it all over the network and then back again into the share you want.
3. Cannot rename shared folders. This is just an unacceptable missing item that is a repeating theme in my opnion.
4. Documentation covers only the most obvious things. No documention on the plug-in's except the most rudementary and obvious things. No documention on finer points of how they implement RAID and RAID recovery.
5. If you add a 1TB drive to a RAID array of 3 750GB drives, you just lose that extra 250Gig of space. That disk capacity should be available for other volumes...
6. Rebuilding a 750GB RAID 5 Volume took well over 24 hours..
7. Extending a RAID 5 volume to add a foruth (1TB) drive is even worse. Mine has been going for three days now and is only about 65% done.
8. Some documentation says it works with XBOX 360, other documents say it's not suported and will be supported in FR4 of the firmware, which it says is to be released in August. It's mid October, still not there.. At best, they are not keeping their documentation straight. I could not get my 360 to see it, with all the updates applied.
9. FTP sever drops a logged in user at the volume level instead of the share level. If you have more than one volume, you have to hunt for the volume that has the share with the files you want. Another tpyical lack of attention to detail.
10. FTP is not configurable to use SSL or other security, and uses real accounts. So you have to pass access information to your data over the net in clear text. Completly unsafe to use in real life this way.
11. Bonus problem: If the NAS loses it's connection to the LAN in any way... Say you restart the switch, re-route the cable, whatever. Ypu are done. The unit becomes completely unresponsive and you have to shut it down via the power switch to get acceess to your data again.
 Works fine for a home NAS August 3, 2008
jzuena (MA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Like the Buffalo TeraStation, this NAS makes it very easy to set up a RAID-1 or RAID-5 array. Unlike a Buffalo TeraStation, this NAS natively supports NFS and AFP, both of which I use on my home network. The NS4300N supports RAID-10, but I could not select it through the web based configuration utility (it may be available through the Windows configuration application which you have to download yourself from their website, or it may be available if you delete the basic array it creates on initial startup and start from scratch). The Promise website has several plugins available for the SmartStor: an iTunes server plugin, a DLNA media server, and a BitTorrent/Donkey torrent client. All three of the plugins work as advertised for me. My XBox running XBox Media Center sees the music, photos, and videos stored on the NAS through UPNP when the DLNA plugin is running. My PC and Mac also see the music through iTunes when the iTunes plugin is running. I can connect to the BT plugin using Sancho and monitor p2p activity.
The unit comes with no drives, so I added four 400GB SATA drives in a RAID-5 array. I stuck to drives listed as certified on the Promise website, but that is probably not required. Promise states that the unit has two USB connectors (which it does) but you can only add one external USB drive and it must have the share name USBDISK.
Overall I am happy with the unit. It replaced a Linux box I had running as a RAID-5 file server without having to do any installation or configuration. I gave it only 4 stars since the documentation is pretty poor and you have to figure things out yourself. But once you figure it out, it does do what they say it will do (although I can't vouch for its ability to do RAID-10).
Good Value for the Price Point July 30, 2008
Eric L. Jackson (Los Angeles, Cali)
For the money, this unit does a good job. With a gigabit connection, image backs are now quite practical over the network, and daily backups of critical directories like My Documents can be automatically scheduled so they are painless. And I have found any amount of pain will eventually cause you to stop taking regular backups. My unit is fairly quiet, although to be fair I have it in a computer room that already has a pretty high noise level. I also appreciate the plugin software apps for Bit Torrent and Media Server. On the negative side, the firmware and support software must be upgraded from the support site before it all works reliably. The driver carriers are somewhat flimsy, I think a better solution would be carrier-less drive bays, but I understand that is found only on much more expensive NAS, at least so far. All in all I am very happy with this unit and I plan to buy another when I fill this one.
 Excellent Home NAS May 11, 2008
P. M. Lewis (NC)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As stated in other reviews I too created a RAID 5 array. However I chose low RPM 750 GB drives to limit heat, noise, and the need for the fans to blow harder. I also turned the NAS on it's right side instead of standing it the way it is designed. This allows the drive cooling fan to cool all drives evenly and prevents heat buildup in the higher level drives.
I chose to do this because many server vendors turn drives on the side to improve heat dissipation. Between the drive choice and the vertical install my device is very quite. The temp inside the case never exceeds 39 Celsius so the fans do not have to blow hard to cool the drives.
As of this writing I have been using the NAS for 4 months. I did have some firmware issues trying to setup the DLNA services but the Promise.com website offered a v1.03 of the firmware and that fixed my issues.
Now I can access my videos, music, pictures, etc. from any PC in the house including the PS3 (yes the DLNA server is recognized by the Playstation 3, though it does not like movies, you can play videos).
I also plugged the monitor cable from a APC 750 UPS into one of the USB ports on the NAS. When the UPS reaches the 50% power threshold the NAS will shutdown (no it does not restart automatically). In the other USB port I connected a 120 GB external drive for file transfers. This works but it is S L O W.
Overall this is a good device. The DLNA and UPNP servers built into this device made it the ideal choice for me. I do not have to leave a PC running with an external drive and all sorts of software crud to listen to my music etc. any where in the house.
I give the device 90 out of 100 and would choose 4.5 stars if Amazon would let me.
Not for serious usage March 31, 2008
Conrad Yoder (Fresno Ohio)
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
I've been using this for a few weeks now, and don't have very a favorable review. I have a small (~50 users) AD domain, and wanted to use this as a file server. (Using firmware v1.03.0000.06, with 4 750GB drives in a RAID 5 config.) Here are some observations.
- Web interface will hang when doing a "significant" (changing 50 users permissions on a share at once) permissions change. I can get back to the webpage after I restart the browser, and the changes were made, but I shouldn't have to do this.
- AD integration is fair. It works, but the management interface is tedious. Rather inconvenient if you've got more than about 20 users & groups. Also, the user/group management interface just went down - I will need to reboot it tonight.
- Problems with the Ethernet port: It was working at 1 gigabit, but now it's only working at 100B-T. Gigabit Ethernet has to be functional on a file server like this.
- Time on the server consistently changes to an incorrect time. It will "forget" the NTP server, and/or it will arbitrarily revert back to standard time from DST, even if the DST is set.
Maybe I have a bad unit - I'll have to wait to replace it until I get another file server to which to offload the data. But things like having to reboot it every few days (because the mgt interface goes down) and these other "quirks" are just completely unacceptable on a production file server.
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