I've been looking for a new NAS for a while now. I've been a Freecom Storage Gateway 400 for a few years now and have had no problems, but now that I'm expanding to a HTPC with gigabit LAN and have just found a deal on 1Tb Samsung Spinpoint F1's it seems now is the time. This device ticks all my boxes, SATA, Gigabit LAN, RAID, Print Server and it looks a bit like my Lian Li V1200. The problem I've got is that I've read nothing but mixed reviews, some people say its amazing to the point they are now running a pair with a pair of 500gb HDD's in each. To totally the opposite "look elsewhere for your NAS solution". Can you give me your take on this device, has the possible problem with the firmware not working properly with Samsung HDD's been sorted? Unit hanging possibly due to temp's? Constant reboots to find lost drives? Cheers
What is your take on the device mate? I think it's ideal, but as i'm sure is true for anyone else I don't want to buy something which isn't 100%.
I've had one for about 6 months and the fan noise is intrusive in a quiet room and the blue LEDs are also a lot brighter then they first look during the day. Also the fan is temperature controlled but it seems to spin constantly with mine. The unit itself does not power down, its spins down the hard disks but the NAS does not enter a sleep state. The onboard print server is also very flakey. It worked flawlessly for a couple of months then stopped working all together. A hardware reset got it going again but is very temperamental to the point of being useless as you dont know if its going to print or not. Because it does not enter a sleep mode and the intrusiveness of the fan and LEDs i actually have mine turned off most of the time and only turn it on when i need to access it which kind of defeats the purpose of having a NAS in the first place. Build quality and transfer speeds are good and if the issues above were sorted it would be excellent. I have not had any of the issues you have mentioned. This is the cheapest NAS with these features for a reason though. Dlink do one for ~£140 which might be worth looking at.
Hi Cookie Monster I've not read anything or heard about any issues with the unit hanging due to temperature, most of the time these type of problems relate to incorrectly installed hard drives or configuration. The latest non-official firmware is said to fix many drive compatibility issues. Here are some reviews I would recommend worth a read... http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/labs/213654/raidsonic-icybox-ibnas4220b.html http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/02/01/icy-box-ib-nas4220-b-network-storage/1 http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/storage/icybox/
I got the D-Link DNS-323 for £120 from Amazon a few weeks ago for home use and I highly recommend it. Although I based my purchasing decision based on using both models at work.
Hi Da_Rude_Baboon Have you looked in the configuration for sleep state? I'm sure that the Auto sleep is default to 10min. please check you have this enabled. For your fan issue, the temprature sensor should taped to the top of the first drive, then place the second drive placed on top. Could you also check your jumper settings to make sure that the temprature control is enabled. Here is a image showing where the jumper should be set for the temprature controlled fan to be enabled...
I thought this option only stopped the hard drives spinning? It is enabled but as the fan is always on i assumed it was not entering a sleep mode. I temperature sensor is between the two drives but i will check the jumper setting. In a future product revision may i suggest an option to turn the blue leds off? Thanks Nathan.
As per other thread the printing issues seem to have been resolved by the new firmware. I have checked the jumper setting and it is set the same as the picture you have posted Nathan. The fans are still running continuously.
Can you check to see if the drives are actually running hot, try leave the case off so that they can cool down below normal and see if the fan is still on full spin, the fan should spin constantly but not at full speed. If you allow the unit to cool down and the fan is still spinning at full speed it could well be a faulty temperature sensor, you could also try moving the temperature sensor away from the drives to fool the system into slowing down the fan, see if this works.
If it's the 2.6.3.2 firmware then yes, it fixed a number of issues that I had with the original firmware but at the same time it introduced a whole host of other problems, notably the fact that the share management, bittorrent client and print server tabs have now disappeared from the admin menu. Of course, if it's a different firmware then let me know ... The 4220 is a nice little unit, but can be horribly temperamental.
