Customer Reviews
Recent Customer Reviews
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Synology Inc. >
Synology DS413 Diskless System DiskStation
- Pros: The firmware is feature rich and the unit is very reliable. Some of the features are better then some small office windows servers. I got this unit for the media features. I am able to stream my videos from the unit to xbox 360, XBMC, Windows Media Player, Apple TV, and my iOS devices with no issues.
- Cons: I couldn't this the DSM console to access my router to auto configure my port forwarding rules, not a big deal. This unit is running a PowerPC CPU so Plex can't be installed on it until Plex releases a version for this type of CPU. Not a big loss as the Synology has a video that ships that just as good.
- Other Thoughts: I love this unit I use it everyday as a secure file server and media server. My work blocks Netflix but they don't block my nas so I just use the web interface to work Movies and TV shows.
-
Reviewed By:Romeo,6/19/2013 2:33:38 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is Somewhat High and has owned this product 1 month to 1 year.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Synology Inc. >
Synology DS413j Diskless System DiskStation
I can't say enough about it!
- Pros: Get it! You may waffle as I did because it looks like a humidifier, but you'll get over that when you get this beast set up.
- Easy install. All of it. Hard drives to OS.
- Tons of features and configuration options. Calling this a NAS is an understatement. It's a server made simple. (Hey! They should use that!)
- DSM demo on their site. They're confident in they're product and they should be.
- Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR). Read up on this. It's perfect for those that can't buy this and 4 hard drives all at once (like me).
- iPhone apps to remotely perform operations, i.e. upload photos, start a download, move files, etc.
- Very quiet. They have quiet mode and cool mode. I have it set on cool mode and I still have to lean forward and listen to hear the fans.
- Keeps cool regardless of fan mode.
- FAST!
- A lot of 3rd party and developer-supplied apps available. - Cons: - It looks like a humidifier or space heater. I wished it looked like one of their lean and mean looking models. The DS413 for example (no "j").
- Download station doesn't have "force start" to bypass the "no download" window on the schedule and you can't adjust the download priority. (They're pretty responsive to customer feedback, so I think this will change in the future.)
- No Perforce installer. There are other source management apps available for install, but not for my preferred: Perforce.
- Surveillance camera licenses are oddly expensive. I don't use the surveillance station, but the camera licenses are inexplicably expensive. If I do decide to add camera's to my house, I wouldn't use the surveillance station because of the license expense.
- Other Thoughts: I started with a new Seagate 3TB ST3000DM001 and two old 1TB drives . I put the 3TB in slot 1 and the other drives in 3 & 4. I left slot 2 open for another 3TB that I anticipated on getting a month later. When I got the second 3TB, I followed the instructions and it was added to the available storage without a hitch.
Pretty awesome product. I did a lot of research before buying this. Spending this much money is a big investment for me, but it was well worth it. My expectations were exceeded.
-
Reviewed By:N/A,6/18/2013 2:01:19 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is High and has owned this product 1 month to 1 year.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Synology Inc. >
Synology DS413 Diskless System DiskStation
Great product!
- Pros: Everything works! Takes some reading to figure out which features you want/need, but that's to be expected unless you're already a SAN expert.
- Cons: Interesting behavior when copying extremely large folders from Win7, can cache writes for about 7gb then speeds drop down. Perhaps this would be a bit higher in units with more RAM and/or spindles.
- Other Thoughts: Love it, discovered a whole new world when I discovered my smart tv can read the Video folder without any user intervention.
Now I'm ripping all my DVD's with MakeMKV and running out of disk!
Going to have to buy bigger disks, or more likely, bigger disks AND a bigger NAS.
-
Reviewed By:N/A,6/17/2013 1:12:31 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is High and has owned this product 1 month to 1 year.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Drobo >
Drobo B1200i BeyondRAID 12 Bay 12TB (6 x 2TB) Application-Optimized Storage NAS - DR-B1200I-1A21-D06
Not ready for Hyper-V Cluster
- Pros: Drobo's ability to automatically create, manage, and expand a storage array with very little configuration is impressive, as is Drobo's ability to use mixed size drives in a single array.
- Cons: Drobo is significantly slower than a standard RAID based array. While the Drobo B1200i is now compatible with Windows Clustering and Hyper-V I would not recommend it for this application as it simply cannot perform fast enough for such a high performance task and will cause all virtual machines in its storage to run notably slow. This caused serious problems in our production environment where server based applications frequently crash or fail to start due to delays in disk I/O.
More importantly, Drobo does not currently support a fully redundant installation. The B1200i has slots for redundant controller and expansion cards, but that feature is not yet supported by the device firmware.
These flaws make the B1200i a poor choice for any High Performance or High Availability application.
- Other Thoughts: In addition to the issues above, we have had a problem with this unit where the network interface would just shut down once a month, bringing our production servers down and requiring a reboot of the Drobo to reconnect. Drobo support addressed this with a replacement controller card. The replacement controller card lost network connectivity 2 weeks after installation.
We are now in the process of moving all virtual machines off the Drobo to a competetor's device which is capable of more traditional RAID configurations.
I'm sure Drobo makes a great device for a basic network file share anyone can manage with RAID-like fault tolerance, but it just didn't have the speed or reliability necessary for our application.
-
Reviewed By:Sean,6/17/2013 9:12:15 AM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is High and has owned this product 1 month to 1 year.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Did you?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Qnap >
QNAP TS-569-PRO-US Diskless System 5-Bay, All-in-One NAS
jbf16falcon
- Pros: Great Raid configurations and always good firmware updates.
- Cons: Called for a Service return of TS-639 Pro as motherboard failed. I was going to pay for this repair as I need my data! I was then informed they no longer had replacement motherboards.. OK this is just the third year after purchase so buyer beware that this company does not support their products beyond 36 months evidently!!!
-
Reviewed By:jbf16falcon,6/17/2013 7:03:20 AM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is Somewhat High and has owned this product more than 1 year.
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Western Digital >
WD WDBVHT0080JCH-NESN 8TB (2 x 4TB) My Book Live Duo Personal Cloud Storage
So far it doesn't work
- Pros: Can't tell yet
- Cons: I'm trying to use this in RAID1 on a Time Capsule. Setting it up in RAID1 was a snap, things were very promising. Now, Accessing the Dashboard takes about 10 minutes, and then the tools don't open up, (the "working" icon will go for hours...) so I can't even tell what's wrong. My wife took her Air and the Duo to Apple "Geniuses" for help, and they couldn't do anything with it either. Apple recommended this solution.
- Other Thoughts: I'm not sure this is really ready for Apple stuff. Apple said the WD help desk was awesome and working really hard to work with Apple users. I waited an hour before giving up.
I've had WD HD's in all my PC builds and they were awesome.
I know WD reads these boards, so I'm trying to reach them here.
-
Reviewed By:N/A,6/15/2013 3:19:36 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is average and has owned this product 1 week to 1 month.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Seagate >
Seagate Central STCG3000100 3TB Network Storage System
EASY GOING AND A SMOKING HOT DEAL
- Pros: - The usual: 3TB, etc.
- Basically, ready to serve shared files on a private network. There is a Share called "Public" already set up and you just use it. All the computers on my network see it instantly.
I copied one set of shared files (60,000 files in 25GB) in maybe an hour. After that, access from any computer using Windows Explorer was lightning fast. It felt like the files were locally stored. As the above numbers indicate, our files average about 4mb, but vary from 10k to 10mb. All open quickly. These are mostly CorelDraw files, graphic images and Paperport document images.
I stuck a USB hub in the single usb port and was able to see all drives thus connected. The hub appears as a share, so you get an error when you click on it, but the drives open just fine. Obviously , this could be used to expand storage, if you happen to fill it up. I think when that happens to me, I'll just buy a bigger unit. - Cons: None really.
The device defaults to the Windows workgroup default "WORKGROUP". I could not find a way to change this. We call our workgroup something else. So on XP machines, I see two workgroups. On Windows 7 machines, workgroups are "invisible", so it only comes up on XP machines. I don't think of this a a real Con, since the Public share is just as accessible and we will soon have no more XP machines.
As with so many computing devices, the documentation was poor and/or non existent. I was able to locate a 50 page user manual but it should have been on the device itself. It's here: http://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/support-content/external-products/seagate-central/en-us/SeagateCentral_UserGuide_EN.pdf. You could also google "seagate central user manual".
It's a shame that one has to read reviews to locate information about a device, but that's the first place to look.
- Other Thoughts: We've been taking about building a Linux file server from an old P4, but there just hasn't been much time for that. When I saw this, it looked like it might be as good and the price was very modest for a pre-built solution. (Not much more than a 3TB bare drive!) I'm using this as a poor man's Small Business Storage Server. I wanted to see what one of these could do and find out if my people would adapt. In that sense, it took one day to say it was a success.
Since it has only one drive, I will probably retire it soon and buy one with RAID 1, like the "WD My Book Live Duo 4TB Personal Cloud Storage".
I know nothing about using this device for streaming video and the like. When I want to watch a video, I turn on the TV and get it from cable on demand.
Also, have not tried remote access but will likely update this review when I have additional experience with it. That should be a majorly useful feature.
-
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Seagate Customer, We would like to thank you for taking the time to post a review of the Seagate Central Shared Storage Network drive. We wanted to provide a centralized link for help with setup, usage, installation, and troubleshooting of your Central Network drive. This also provides a link to our complete User Guide. Please reference the link below: http://ow.ly/kA3Q5 If you have additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our support staff and we will be happy to assist further: http://seagate.com/support/contact-support/ Best Regards, Seagate Support
-
Reviewed By:N/A,6/14/2013 7:51:11 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is average and has owned this product 1 day to 1 week.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Seagate >
Seagate STAR401 Diskless System BlackArmor NAS 400 Network Storage Server for SMB User
DON'T LET THE LOW PRICE FOOL YOU
- Pros: Cheap
- Cons: Slow speeds over 1gbE
Slow backup speeds
Sluggish UI
- Other Thoughts: I was extremely disappointed with this NAS, the read speeds over a gbE were significantly slower than competing products, the UI was slow and cumbersome, and backups/rebuilds are super slow. Decided to return and purchase a Synology instead.
-
Reviewed By:MSTEN,6/13/2013 9:04:34 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is High and has owned this product 1 week to 1 month.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Synology Inc. >
Synology DS212J Diskless System DiskStation Budget-friendly 2-bay NAS Server for Small Office and Home Use
Impressive little box
- Pros: Quiet, and very-low power consumption.
Installation was trivial: 11 screws and 2 cables.
Customizable enough to handle apps like rdiff-backup and pyTivo.
Flexible notifications, including text messaging my phone, where there are problems. - Cons: Only minor stuff: First time I screw-ed the case together the plastic power button was squashed against something and wouldn't work. Loosening screws and jiggling the case was all it took.
I was reusing two 1.5TB drives from my old server, and the install software wasn't smart enough to delete the old partitions, so I had to do that manually. No biggie, as I hadn't screw-ed the drives in anyway, suspecting that might happen. :)
- Other Thoughts: A friend owns an earlier Synology NAS, and was very pleased. So when my old household Linux server died, I decided to give it a try.
Now I'm pleased, too! I've worked with many other Linux-based appliances, and Synology does the best job I've seen of making their's both easy to use, and yet flexible enough to handle custom needs.
-
Reviewed By:Keith,6/13/2013 12:12:13 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is High and has owned this product 1 week to 1 month.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Categories >
Desktop NAS >
Seagate >
Seagate STAM2000100 2TB GoFlex Home Network Storage System
Works great, access from anywhere
- Pros: This is my first NAS and it does exactly what I wanted to it to do. Now we have all pictures and movies backed up and organized in a central location, and I can even mount the drive remotely through VPN (ASUS RT-N16) and watch my own movies from anywhere there is Wifi. This works from a PC as well as iPhone (through free Seagate or Asus Icloud apps). I get great speed within my LAN, 20-30MBps when copying files from a PC.
I am thinking of getting a second one to back up the first.
I have not had any issues with the network drive, it is always accessible from PCs, MAC, iPhones. - Cons: The "preferences" page of the drive is a little confusing, but no big deal. I am not a fan of the multiple pre-set shared drives (public, personal, etc.) and have not found out how to disable them. I only use "public" for now.
- Other Thoughts: Have not used USB slave drive adapter yet.
-
Reviewed By:hogges,6/12/2013 8:45:26 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is Somewhat High and has owned this product 1 week to 1 month.
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Did you find this review helpful?
Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
|
