Customer Reviews

Smartstor NS4300N - 4-BAY Nas with Sata RAID5 for Soho/smb.english & Asia.promis

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Promise SmartStor is similar to the Buffalo TeraStation which I also own. Here are the differences:
- The TeraStation comes pre-configured with drives while the SmartStor lets you add your own, potentially giving you more flexibilty and also letting you save money by finding the best deal on disk drives. I configured mine with four 750GB drives giving me 3 terabytes of raw storage. I selected the RAID 5 option which formats it as 2.25 terabytes of available storage and lets you recover from any single drive failing by simply replacing the bad drive. The downside of RAID 5 is slower writes but it's worth it for me since I am using it as a media library which means you mostly read data and only write once when you first set up your library or add media to it. The beauty of RAID 5 is it protects ALL your disks in an array using only one of them as overhead. So in a four disk array you get the full capacity of three (and in an eight disk array you would get the full capacity of seven).
- The case design is sleeker than the TeraStation. The disk drives pop in and out very elegantly and easily and the overall case is smaller while squeezing in all the same functioanlity. This case design blows away the original TeraStation which needed to be completely dismantled to replace a disk. The newer TeraStation Live and Pro II now have easily removable disks like the SmartStor but the case has gotten even bigger than before.
- The fan noise on the SmartStor is a little louder than the TeraStation (which is the only reason I gave it four stars instead of five). I set mine up in the closet of my study and with the door closed I can barely tell it's there. Bottom line if it was going to sit under or on my desk I'd probably go with the TeraStation for it's quieter operation, otherwise I think the SmartStor is a winner.
In any case, I am never going back to unprotected storage now that I have experienced these systems.

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.

I probably won't be keeping this. I've invested a lot of money in this project - this unit (300), 3 x 1T harddrives (600), replacement fans for the main exhaust fan, a set of torx bits for the security screws, quite a bit of time in driving. The review at small net builder did warn on the fan noise, but without taking the unit apart, what you can't tell is that the fan noise is not solely from the main exhaust fan - quite a bit of the fan noise is coming from the power supply exhaust, a small, high-RPM fan.

The power supply runs hot, and is located below the drive bays. This makes it quite inaccessible and a real threat to the drive in the lowest position. The drive carriers are a joke. Can't afford all four of your drives at the outset? Do not lose the countersunk screws for fixing the plastic to the drive - no other screw will do, not even another countersunk screw.

I bought this device thinking "great, I can set this up, do a secure access to my network from teh office when need be, and yank down files - all without leaving a PC on."

Only problem is, this unit is louder than my PCs are. It is, in fact, louder than two of my PCs running at the same time, one with the case open as I write this. The PCs aren't 'silent,' either - an AMD 3700 in a retail package, a Pentium D something with the retail fan and heatsink.

Both power supplies have been replaced with higher-output, quieter power supplies, but the fans in use for CPU and case exhaust are vanilla.

I definitely want a capable NAS headend for the house. I would be very surprised if it's this one, unless the upgraded firmware does a lot of power management and magically fixes the p/s fan.

For an office, this would probably be a decent unit if you can stand the slow rebuild times - it's noise level isn't off the charts for an office, certainly better than a Snap server or other real kit would be.

But for most office environments, this unit is overkill, a decent RAID1 two drive unit ought to be fine; if you need a box that can do what this one can do, you probably have a room to throw it in, and ought to be looking at a Snap server. If you want something to work with at home, well, plan on locating in a place where it's okay that it's ALWAYS loud.

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.

i have looked around for different types of multi-drive NAS storage devices that have RAID and removable drives. If this unit came with backup software it would be the best unit on the market. BUT, i already had Memeo software running and this makes the unit quite possibly the best NAS unit out there. I have had a D-Link device but it has way too many problems. Like another reviewer i have my unit set up as RAID 5 and it is flawless in performance. The so called "snapshot" is really not what people need. you have to physically log into their utility and choose the snapshot after configuring parameters. That is why you need to have your own software such as Memeo that monitor you main hard drive at all times and copies the files to the SmartStor unit automatically. I dont know why Promise doesn't include any software because it seems like all their competitors do.

The GUI web portal is very easy to use and has lots of options and setting up RAID is very easy. I have 4 Seagate 320 gig hard drives installed and it give me alot of storage. i have not had to replace a drive yet but a critical item for me is that Promise tech support, when i call, is in the US - NOT INDIA. No hang ups. Straight forward answers and easy to work with their support guys.

**** one minor draw back. most other network drives with removable hard drives typically have the hard drives slide right into the unit with the use of drive carriers. this unit has a wider opening and requires unique drive carriers that screw into the hard drives. the drive carriers are bright orange plastic. they SHOULD be metal or more robust plastic. easy to use but maybe not as robust as other drive carriers. other than that it is pretty easy to set up. Promise should make the unit where the hard drives simply slide into the unit without drive carriers but it is still simple to install.

the LED's on the right side are very wide and bright making it easy to see drive activity.

I have used a few networked attached storage devices now. To name a few:
- Buffalo Linkstation Live
- Buffalo Linkstation EZ
- Linksys Router's built in USB sharing

Needless to say Promise beats them all for performance and configuration options. Setup was easy, and simply putting in hotswappable drives started the setup process. I had a RAID 5 configuration in under 30 mins with 4 750GB seagate drives. My main reason for this unit was DLNA/uPNP support, which I will discuss below.

There are a few problems I have that dont make this product useless to me
- Updating ROMs. Promise needs to hire better engineers that know how to search a location for their Firmware upgrades by file extension. Instead, you must copy the filename to the NAS drive (No you cant use your PC's drive) then you must choose the volume name and filename to update the ROM. Its not a huge deal, but makes the product better.
- Flimsy plastic. The Unit looks great, but when you touch it, you can tell they saved money by using less quality plastics. Not a huge deal if its in the closet like mine is, but if you want to see it doesnt invite you in.
- PS3 uPNP support. This is why I brought it down a star. I can get photos and music to work fine with the PS3, not videos. I cant figure out if its a file format problem since I am using Handbrake to convert t0 H.264 simply profile which is supported by the PS3. I am doing more research and would love to follow-up this review later if I can fix it.

Great product though and you cant beat the upgradability that some other NAS's lack.

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).

Well, it's nice and cheap, and you get to put your own drives in it, thus you're able to decide by yourself what its capacity is going to be. Trouble is, it doesn't always quite behave the way you think it will. The embedded Linux on the thing is fast and the drive access times are respectable when it's configured as a RAID 5 array. You can access it from pretty much any operating system... which is fine, until it isn't.

Here are some problems I've had with it:
- The NAS is supposed to be able to integrate with Windows domains. It doesn't - well, not properly, anyway. I had to remove mine from the domain since they kept having problems with security, and the domain controller only recognized them half the time;
- User names have to be single words, with no spaces. That doesn't work if you have Windows user names like "Dan Sutton", for example;
- Assigning levels of security really is very basic. I can't seem to find a way to do it very well at the folder level; it appears that access privileges are assigned at the volume level instead.... not really much good in an enterprise-level environment;
- FTP is standard only, with no SSL or anything like that;
- On one of mine, the disks filled up completely, and the thing basically shut down its filesystem and refused to bring it online. There was no way to get to it to empty it or switch it back on again. I tried all the repair functions and things -- nothing worked. The only way out was to rebuild the array from scratch;
- The hardware seems a little flaky. One of the units works perfectly; the other keeps failing on drive 3, no matter how many new drives I put in it. It'll work for a week or so, then the drive goes dead again. Pulling the disk and putting it back in again solves the problem... for a while. But then it takes the thing two days to rebuild itself (the disks are 2Tb a piece), and when it's done, it'll fail again within a few hours.
- The product is now marked as "legacy" on Promise Technology's website, which implies that they won't be releasing any firmware updates for it any time soon... one imagines it could probably use one.

On the plus side:
- The thing is fast and easy to configure. It's reasonably quiet and fits into the network unobtrusively if you don't try to get too clever with it, or use domains;
- The unit itself is very small (not much larger than the disks it contains) and thus takes up virtually no space;
- It's super-cheap;
- The web interface is quite functional and contains most of the features you'd want to see;
- Various software plug-ins are available for it, such as an iTunes server, and so forth;
- When the NAS isn't being accessed, it shuts up and leaves the disks alone. This means that if you use "green" disk drives, like the Western Digital ones, the NAS will allow them to ramp down and save power and heat during periods of inactivity.
- If you have two of them, one NAS can back itself up automatically to the other one (i.e. they can pretty much mirror each other). You can set schedules for this.

Verdict: It's not a bad NAS if you just want somewhere to back stuff up, and share a few things. I wouldn't keep anything on it that's irreplaceable or not backed up somewhere else. If you have a small business and like to have a centralized backup location, it's a great option, principally because if it fails, you don't really care: you can always rebuild it and back up everything again... but as I say, it's not really something you'd want to use to store sensitive or precious data as a primary location.

Very poor on DLNA, I initially bought the box to preserve my collections of digital pictures & video and to easily access them through my TV or web browser. By the time I have moved my files into the box, I noticed that folders are missing or files are incomplete. I reported this to the Tech Support and did not get anywhere, I waited for the new firmware (01.05.0000.08) and hoping that this will resolve the issue; alas, same results. You can browse the files using a map drive, that is assuming you are using a PC or laptop to access the box and all files / folders are visible. But when you use your capable DLNA equipment (i.e. PS3, Xbox360, Media Extender or any media player, etc.) this is you start noticing that files are incomplete within the folder or folders are not visible.

If you are going to use the box for backup and/or storage, there are cheaper solution out there other than Smartsor NS4300N. Don't waste your money and time like I did! I can not wait to get rid of this box as soon as I can afford to get a replacement!!!

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.