Seagate 12TB Black Armor 440 NAS Server Kit (4x 3TB Hard Drives)

Comments about Seagate 12TB Black Armor 440 NAS Server Kit (4x 3TB Hard Drives):

Installation of this NAS takes literally days, even more if large amounts of data must be loaded onto it. Once that's done, it gets still more painful.

Perhaps it's due to the Ethernet connection. Whatever the cause, access is painfully sluggish. It has two Gigabit ports, and the option is given to use one and keep the other as backup or to use both at once. The way this choice is presented is oddly awkward, but once it's set to use both ports in aggregate, access is still absurdly slow.

Moreover, this is essentially a single-user storage device. Access by a second user causes things to bog down painfully or stall entirely.

This NAS is for storage on the cheap and cannot possibly be regarded as suitable for commercial usage.

Comments about Seagate 12TB Black Armor 440 NAS Server Kit (4x 3TB Hard Drives):

With RAID5, one expects to lose the equivalent of one disk's capacity. Thus, this "12 terabyte" device should have a net usable capacity of 12 - 3, or 9 terabytes. However, due to overhead, it is actually 8 terabytes, not 9. That is before the additional loss incurred with each volume created.

But wait, it gets better. A lot better.

Upon initial power-up, it formats itself. The manual claims that this "may" take from 8 to 10 hours. After 11 hours, it was still chugging away, so we gave up and went home. The next day, it was ready. Or, so we thought. Each volume that you then create must also be formatted, and the whole process can take a full day. That is NOT an 8 hour day; that is a 24 hour day. Therefore, you need to allow several days for installation. In a business environment, this can be irritating.

Compared to the WD equivalent, this product is a no-contest choice: it is that much better. For example, the WD DX4000 requires drives to be inserted directly into the slots. If the drive physical height is a fraction of a millimetre greater than that of the WD drives, it will take frightening force to insert the drive. Seagate uses carriers that are simple, straightforward, and very smooth.

Unlike the WD, this NAS claims to support Mac's Time Machine. We have not yet tested this, as we are still a full day away from completion of the set-up.

Unlike the DX4000, this gives you the choice of DHCP or static IP. If you do not have a DHCP server or a router that does, then this alone makes the decision in favour of the NAS440 a wise one.