Quick Look: Seagate NAS & NAS Pro

02/23/2015Link1

This B&H video features Seagate NAS Multi-Bay storage solutions, ranging in capacity from 2TB all the way up to 24TB, to address a variety of data-storage needs. Each NAS Pro Server features a 1.7 GHz processor, along with 2GB of RAM, and can support up to 50 users simultaneously. With NAS, OS 4 software setup and configuration is easy, while two Gigabit LAN ports provide redundant network connectivity. We hope you enjoy the video, and invite you to view the wide selection of other instructional and informative videos at BandH.com.

 

Comments

1 Comment

TestPilot
8 years ago

Several caveats:

First, he appears to refer to a "2 gigabit Ethernet connection". That should be two 1 gigabit Ethernet connections, and do not assume that you will automatically get twice the bandwidth using two cables to your switch.

Second, be very careful about the REAL speeds that you'll get with I/O to and from a low-cost NAS device. We have a slightly older Seagate NAS on which we have repeatedly measured real-world read/write speeds in the neighborhood of less than 20 megabytes per second. This is extremely slow. A NAS will also occasionally decide to do some internal housekeeping, and this will cause access to virtually stop, or, at least, give a very convincing impression of having stopped working.

It is vital to test the use of a NAS before committing to using it for anything that actually matters. For video editing, the issue of I/O speed can be critical.

Additionally, be aware that if the NAS can make a connection to the Internet via your LAN, it will spend a surprising amount of time calling home. We asked Seagate what it does in these frequent conversations, and they declined to explain.

Finally, while a NAS set up as RAID 5 will protect against a single drive failure, what do you do if the NAS itself fails? Is the data on the drives recoverable? Beware blithely assuming that it can be recovered easily or in-house.