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Bring the power and security of a NAS Server with the SS4200-E from Intel. It handles up to 4 SATA II drives in its internal 3.5" drive bays for a massive 4TB storage space. You can add drives to the 2 eSATA ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports for capacity expansion.
The SS4200-E supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10, giving you plenty of options, so you can keep your data in safety. With one Intel Gigabit LAN port, it also supports FTP and HTTP/s for web based transfers. The whole thing is powered by a 250W power supply so the system will get all the power that it needs.
Pros: Runs EMC Lifeline from a 256MB IDE flash module. Lifeline is a Linux based distro (custom uclibc) and has both a serial console with BIOS and Linux console access (there's a knockout on the rear, and you will need a standard serial breakout cable, easily obtained from Newegg. 115200 bps, 8n1) and SSH console access once Lifeline is running.
CPU, RAM, and disks can all be upgraded using standard desktop parts.
PCIe x1 slot could be useful, though it's under the disks with little clearance
Performance as a NAS is excellent, and generally limited only by disk throughput.
Can install any Linux distribution that supports a serial console (e.g. RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, etc.)
Fans are automatically spin down to be nearly inaudible after a brief blast during startup. This is the case with the standard CPU and also with an upgrade to dual core.
Hardware seems well designed, though the exterior appearance is up to personal taste.
Cons: EMC Lifeline functionality is OK for basic NAS tasks, but less feature-ful than some open source solutions. FreeNAS does not run well on this hardware because FreeBSD support for ACPI is limited-- should work OK in the future.
While the chipset has VGA support, there is not connector on the motherboard or rear panel (per MS WHS guidelines). Some people have successfully used the PCIe 1x slot for a video adapters with a special riser card/cable.
When booting, if the drives available have changed since the last boot (including USB flash drives) the BIOS reconfigures the device order to boot from the first SATA drive. While annoying, this is a MS WHS compliance requirement.
The "source code" available from EMC looks pretty deficient as it includes only standard tarballs from kernel.org and other places. No idea how they compiled things to produce Lifeline (e.g. HIGHMEM support in kernel seems to be unavailable, which is not the default kernel setting).
Other Thoughts: This device works great as a consumer NAS out of the box, and has great potential for anyone who wants to add functionality. It's almost disappointingly easy to set up (disk installation requires no tools at all-- thumbscrews only).
NAS functionality is based on standard Linux LVM2+RAID. CPU and memory can be upgraded (Lifeline will only use the first 1GB, but other Linux distros and MS WHS can use at least 2GB).
Very pleased to see this for sale at Newegg for such a low price. I will probably buy another for play.
48 out of 49 people found this review helpful.
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Entry Level, So Be Warned!
Reviewed By: E. Nusbaum on 9/4/2009
Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Pros: Case and Hardware installation are very well designed and make setup a breeze. The EMC TrueLife software is fairly easy to use and makes management a breeze. The system shipped with v1.0 but you can download the latest release of v1.1 from Intel's web site. RAID5 performance is through the roof compared to other NAS devices that support RAID5 in this price range.
Cons: The SS4200 is certainly ENTRY LEVEL, to a fault. You can only have ONE CONTAINER even though the device. It lacks any advanced configuration options or configurations. An example is that you can only turn the FTP daemon on or off. There are no options for port, user access, quotas, etc., etc. So be warned that you should only buy this if you need a simple, reliable NAS and you don't mind missing advanced features.
Other Thoughts: It's curious that Intel would release a NAS that supports four drives but only one container. This means if you have two drives on a RAID1 and you install two more drives, you have to erase EVERYTHING and re-stripe the drives as a RAID5. Talk about limited upgrade options!
26 out of 28 people found this review helpful.
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Pros: I think of this thing as a little headless PC, which is pretty much what it is. It becomes a lot more capable when you install your own Linux distro on it.
Its Celeron is leaps and bounds above the CPUs in a lot of ~$100 NAS enclosures, and upgrading the memory to 2GB is pretty cheap -- it takes normal DDR2 DIMMs. It also has a great ethernet chipset, which means that it has absolutely no problem saturating a gigabit ethernet link with fast disks.
Power consumption isn't quite down to Mac Mini levels, but mine runs ~40w with 3 disks installed and only one of them spun up.
The fans are powerful, but spin down. My case stays at room temperature and I have a hard time hearing the fans.
The mechanical setup is awesome. The case is completely screwless including drive installation. The drives sit on dampeners to keep down noise and vibration. They're also on little platforms that can swing around for easy access to the case underneath. You don't have to unplug any cales e
Cons: The IDE port running the DOM is useless. It seems limited to ~2mb/s. So, if you intend to reuse it for something else, you can probably forget it.
The BIOS seems to have a few issues remembering which device to boot from, especially if the configuration changes. But, as long as you don't mess with it, it seems OK.
Other Thoughts: Good, solid product but not perfect. 4 eggs.
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Intel SS4200-E Slipstream WHS
Reviewed By: JamesT on 11/15/2009
Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Pros: Price point and you can install WHS or regular windows server 2003 without any additional hardware or cable, just need a 2gb minimum usb flash drive and you can slipstream WHS into the flash drive and you can do it unattended using nlite or qs.ini since WHS is already automated. its a little tricky i have to try it like 4-5 times with the slipstream before i got it to work. i removed the DOM flash NAS before proceed, its just too basic for me i couldn't remote home from work and other thing i want to do. WHS work very well with this, you can even upgrade the memory to 2GB using 1 slot, and cpu if you desire more horsepower you can even upgrade that to dual core use the E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz or 2.4GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor. i perfer the none removable hard drive server base since if you leave this at your office you don't wnat any one to walk in and just pull the hard drive out and walk out the door with it. the way this case is design is perfect for my need
Cons: heavier than i thought. not external swappable drive. only 1.6Ghz celeron. not enough RAM. but you can easily upgrade RAM and CPU. Originally without WHS this server will not work with 1 drive. chipset heatsink is way hotter than cpu heatsink so i have to rotate one of the fan to blow cool air in.
Other Thoughts: if you want to slipstream your whs into this box google for slipstream whs and the article from wegotserved stated something about dos driver, this mean for you to get intel sata driver, network driver etc... don't need the chipset driver, you can get all the driver from intel site. you don't need mouse and keyboard or anything else to set this up i use anothher computer with xp to connect to the nas after it finish install and setup the final admin pass and finalize the installation remember to only plug one drive in when first install WHS.
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Great Little Pain!
Reviewed By: ghostman on 11/15/2009
Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Pros: Construction 4-drive bays
Cons: Pain to install WHS if this is your goal. I ended up installing Server 2008.
Other Thoughts: Current build is: Original processor 2 gig ram upgrade http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134187 4 drives(2 750, 2 1 tera) All WD greens with the 1 750 being a samsung that came with the last deal.
After struggling to install WHS I eventually gave up. Frankly I think it was the version that I was using but Server '08 works just fine for me. (Version of WHS was from Technet)
Other parts ordered: PCIe connectors/expanders(both from a popular auction site), search for: StarTech.com PCIe X1 to X16 Slot Extension Adapter PCI Express PCI-e Riser Card Extender Ribbon Cable 7I
I also purchased a serial adapter but in the end the video adapter proved to be more useful.
Overall a fun project and it works great now that I have it up and running.
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Main
Brand
Intel
Model
SS4200-E
Processor
CPU Type
Intel Celeron Processor 420 running at 1.6 GHz
MAX Processors
1
Memory
Installed Memory Size
512 MB
Memory Type
DDR2
Storage
HDD Interface
SATA II
Raid Level
RAID 0 , RAID 1 , RAID 10 , RAID 5
Max HDD Capacity
4.0TB
Networking
LAN Ports
One Intel Gigabit LAN port
Expansion
Other ports
USB 2.0 eSATA
Power
Power Characteristics
250W PSU
Physical Spec
Temperature
10 - 35° C
Humidity
Up to 90% non-condensing
Features
Features
Supports up to four 3.5" SATA (3.0 Gb/s) Hard Disks eSATA support to expand beyond four hard disk drives Disk-on-module socket
Introduction
Bring the power and security of a NAS Server with the SS4200-E from Intel. It handles up to 4 SATA II drives in its internal 3.5" drive bays for a massive 4TB storage space. You can add drives to the 2 eSATA ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports for capacity expansion.
The SS4200-E supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10, giving you plenty of options, so you can keep your data in safety. With one Intel Gigabit LAN port, it also supports FTP and HTTP/s for web based transfers. The whole thing is powered by a 250W power supply so the system will get all the power that it needs.
Highlights
Fast Data Transfer The Intel SS4200-E NAS Server features a speedy Intel Celeron 420 processor running at 1.6GHz with 512MB DDR2 RAM for powerful data-processing capabilities and supports four 3.5" SATA II hard drives for over 4TB of storage at ultra-fast transfer rates.
Data Protection The Intel SS4200-E NAS Server supports multiple RAID modes including RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 to ensure data integrity.
Excellent Connectivity The Intel SS4200-E NAS Server features 2 eSATA ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port for all-in connectivity options.
250W PSU Included The Intel SS4200-E NAS Server features a full 220W internal PSU that delivers strong power to all components.
Reviewed By: HtpcUser on 7/25/2009
Tech Level: high - Ownership: more than 1 year
