Save Large Amounts of Data with the Seagate 2-Bay NAS Server

If you haven’t gotten on the bandwagon lately and looked into NAS, you may be missing out on one of the most exciting technological advancements for the home since the advent of wireless routers. Network attached storage (NAS) is becoming increasingly popular among home entertainment enthusiasts, archivists, and small, work-at-home entrepreneurs.

The reason? Network attached storage allows you the freedom to store large volumes of digital data and access that data from within your network. You can put every baby picture, every video, every freelanced article you’ve ever written in one place, and access that data from a client meeting, in a class, or at your mom’s house. And the ability to share those files with others cuts back on miscommunication, flash drive storage mishaps (I just had a flash memory card freak out on me—something to do with the NFTS partition—and I lost valuable data on the way to a meeting), or other miscues. What’s on the NAS stays on the NAS, just like Las Vegas.

There are a number of NAS manufacturers out there, and each offers something in their enclosures that sets them apart. A fully loaded enclosure should have the basics—the ability to centralize tasks through a stable and efficient operating system, speedy transfer rates, the ability to interface with a large variety of protocols (like FTP, SMTP mail servers and printer protocols), and RAID management. Throw in remote mobile access, enhanced browser support, and a couple of security measures and you have my vote.

The Seagate NAS 2-Bay enclosure has that and more. Available as a stand-alone unit, or in various capacities from 2TB to 20TB with drives included (like the 4TB or 8TB version that B&H sells), this server has all of the amenities mentioned, and a few extra. Starting from the top, the Seagate 2 Bay NAS is enveloped in the feature-rich Seagate NAS OS 4 environment, which will aid and assist any user, from the home networker to the small business IT manager, in areas like remote access, app management, RAID arrays, DLNA and other entertainment-based protocols, and download management. You can monitor everything from storage capacity to system performance through the icon-based GUI, and you can manage all of your backup options as well, including backing up to an external drive, another NAS, or cloud services.

The apps always make a difference with NAS servers, and the fully loaded Seagate NAS turns on the power and performance with a series of apps that may make the difference between a purchase and a pass. Included are two apps you’ll find both useful and productive. The Seagate Antivirus app delivers daily updates, email notifications and background scanning—all necessary if you share your files, or in a workgroup situation. They also include the Seagate Surveillance Manager, which can turn your NAS into a full-fledged NVR (network video recorder) with support for thousands of camera types, simple setup and auto detection for IP cameras, and the ability to limit the recording to event-based only (the camera only records if something is happening on screen, which saves on storage space).

Another useful app is the Sdrive. With the Sdrive app, you’re allowed unlimited and easy access to your NAS server—wherever you have an Internet connection. The file-based app turns your NAS into a regular file folder for familiarity, so you can access, move and manage files like you would in any folder on your PC or Mac.

The Specs Say it All

Now, down to the nitty-gritty. The hardware is powered by a 1.2GHz ARM processor, enhanced by 512MB of DDR 3 RAM. That’s enough power to handle the server side of the equation—you shouldn’t have any problem with downloading torrents or sharing files with that muscle.

The diskless 2-bay unit includes dual SATA II channels and hot-swappable trays to support the inclusion of 2.5" and 3.5" hard disk drives. Although you can always purchase your own drives for the diskless model, the Seagate hard drives included in the loaded pre-configured enclosures are all 24/7 NAS drives, built especially for server environments. They come in different varieties, including NAS-specific models, from 1TB to 4TB in 2.5" and 3.5" form factors, and enterprise-capacity drives for big data solutions in capacities of 1TB to 6TB, all available in SATA interfaces. You can hot-swap disks, and even mix disks of different capacities through a software controller.

Although the diskless unit can’t be pre-loaded with RAID configurations (you can use the Seagate SimplyRAID application to configure new hard drives), the units that contain hard drives can be configured for RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD. There’s even a built in Rescue Mode for data recovery and Auto RAID Migration for transferring data between disks.

The network file protocols that the 2-bay supports include all of the necessary ones you need to do business, including HTTP(S), SMTP, FTP, and UPnP, among others. This allows you to build a mail server, FTP server, or any other type of shared file service for a small home or office network.

If entertainment and digital file streaming is what you need, this unit supports all of the standard protocols, and can do double duty as a DLNA-compatible media streamer. It can also double as a UPnP (universal plug-and-play) or iTunes (DAAP) media streamer.

To get your files from anywhere in the world, you can gain remote access via another PC or Mac, or through iOS and Android mobile devices. You can also access the Sdrive mentioned earlier without port forwarding, which will save you time and hassles, since port-forwarding can be a real pain sometimes, especially when configuring game servers.

Full backup solutions are also a benefit to any server, and this one includes Time Machine support, NAS-to-NAS backup, backup to externals, or even backup to popular web-based cloud storage services like Amazon S3 or Box.com. You can even back up or restore via CIFS/NFS/HTTP or FTP.

The connectivity includes dual 10/100/1000 Base-TX Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 ports, and LED indicators for power and activity. The system-based management tool also lets you monitor hardware status, like the chassis, board, and fan.

With so many options to manage your data, the only question left is how much data you want to store. With capacities up to 20TB, you have a lot of room to hold all of your digital collection. Home streaming your movie or audio collections? No problem. Storing or backing up your business-sensitive records? No problem. Finding a secure place for your professional photos or videos? No problem. Seagate takes pains to make sure your entire digital life is safe and secure—without a problem.