Dual SATA HDD NAS Network Attached Storage Enclosure GigaBit IB-NAS4220-B

The unit reminded me somewhat of the difficulties in setting up an NSLU2 which has a similar philosophy - to use headless embedded linux to provide control and networking functions for NAS/FTP/Samaba disk access. The NSLU2 was not something I would recommend however.

The unit is very straightforward to setup but dropped the connection when performing the initial copying of a large data set that I want to backup in the RAID 1 configuration. There were some other peculiarities with the unit in that on powering down it resets the admin password to admin (which is I would say a security issue) and also that the reset button on the rear appears if held in for 5 seconds to do the same as the recessed restart button which is also on the back and is for causing a factory reset. However, despite the warnings that factory reset would erase all my data this wasnt the case although I guess it would have been if the data was encrypted as the username / passwords would have been lost. In the end re-flashing to the later firmware seemed to fix a few things.

For me the unit would have benefitted from SSH or telnet connections which are apparently available with the firmware upgrade. I did the upgrade and some of the previous instability issues, including the unit locking up, appear to have reduced but I still couldnt get SSH or telnet access even by adding the packages as per the user group instructions.

The pros of the unit are as follows:
1. cheap and likely to be reliable so long as not used for transferring very large amounts of data (e.g. > 100GB) at a time. (in which case the connection can be lost as the unit hangs - possibly a temperature issue of the HDD's). The cooling fan is inadequate when on.
2. the disks spin down reduces wear on the disks so the unit can
sit dormant for long periods.
3. is a cheap RAID solution and quite effective in this regard.
4. FTP/Samba/NAS access and torrent functionality.
5. JBOD for spanning two disks (if you wanted to do such a thing).

The cons of the unit.
1. still very buggy, no support for SSH, telnet.
2. unit hang when the disks get warm - even with fan running the cooling
power is not sufficient.
3. reset and restart buttons appear to do similar things (reset made changes to the config as did restart if held for 5 seconds - the former should only do this if held for 5 seonds, whereas the latter did the same if held for 5 seconds). Restart functionality was incorrectly documented and the two are confusing. A reset button would have sufficed and restoring config to factory defaults should be by holding this button in when the unit is rebooting. Its to easy to do this as things stand particularly as the other button isnt recessed into the case.
4. as above the manual is incorrect regarding these buttons on the rear and only one should have been present - the recessed one for reflashing the firmware. In the end press the power switch on the front once and the unit powers down which is as good as although admin password is lost for some reason.

Overall the build quality is very good and its a nice looking solid unit but I am afraid it needs a *proper* firmware revision to get rid of the many glitches. Would still recommend as there is nothing for a similar price and it is also good for linux nurds who like hacking.

If you stick with it and have the patience it will do the job very well. Given that the source code is available no doubt the linux hacking community will probably be able to produce a much improved firmware revision - although at present the product lacks maturity in terms of reliability issues and can be quite irritating. Good product but needs work to reduce all the hastle.

Robin Aspey

This complaint I just sent to Raidsonic tells the story...

Herr Sussmuth,

I downloaded and installed the firmware update you suggest below and the RAID array still fails to rebuilt. I then purposefully erased both my RAID1 drives and re-formatted them as a new RAID1 array from scratch (having long since given up using your product to actually store useful data...). Now the file server fails to operate (file transfer rates in the 10s of kb per second), leading me to conclude that your product is Unfit for Purpose.

Please allow me to recall the timeline of woe regarding your NAS 4220 B product:

* 27th March 2009 - purchased, had some problems with file throughput and dropping connections
* 6th June 2009 - updated firmware, throughput problems resolved
* 29th September 2009 - noticed that one of the RAID1 disks had failed with "disk occur wrong" error. Failed rebuilding RAID1 array
* 21st October 2009 - returned disk to Hitachi for replacement, assuming that the disk had indeed failed
* 11th November 2009 - purchased a third (Maxtor) disk which also failed to rebuild the RAID1 array
* 5th December 2009 - Hitachi disk returned. Still fails to rebuild RAID1 array
* 20th December 2009 - Requested new firmware
* 2nd February 2010 - Given Up! I've wasted dozens of hours of my precious time on this garbage product - time whose value could easily have bought me a large dedicated rack-mounted server let alone a NAS box.

I have rarely seen such a poor quality IT product as yours. I am myself an embedded software engineer these past 16 years and in the late 1990s I designed Storage Area Network devices not dissimilar to your own. I would never have allowed the release of such a bug-ridden and unsatisfactory device. My opinions are not unique: google "disk occur wrong" and you'll get over 7000 hits of people with Raidsonic products experiencing exactly the same frustrations as mine.

This, in my mind, proves a very simple fact: you can put all the pretty girls you like on your website but it doesn't indicate that the correct decisions and investing in engineering have been made. I can only guess that the original designer has long since left your organisation and you're left holding the can, for which I pity you.

I am returning my NAS 4220 B unit to the distributor for a refund. I will never again buy from or recommend Raidsonic to my friends, colleagues or acquaintances in the Cambridge area.

First things first, the speed of this device is not all it's cracked up to be, I put that mainly down to the software on the box itself as well as the operating system connecting to the device. The hardware is fine.

I'm using 1 x 1TB Western Digital WD10EACS Caviar, I haven't got another drive for RAID just yet. Make sure your drive is formatted as FAT32 before you put it into the box otherwise you will be wasting time getting it out again.

Once in, it's relatively easy to create a new share and access it across the network. File transfer speed is peaking at 12MB/s, which tbh, is not gigabit LAN speed, hence why I think the internal software is playing part in this. I was hoping to get around 100MB/s transfer speed, but as it's the same as I had before I am happy enough.

Support for the product seems to be dire and unless you can read german, don't expect to be able to use the dedicated site for the box, besides, it's pretty pointless anyway.

I have found that sending a large quantity of files is best done by FTP as you can easily restart the ones that failed to transfer (why this happens I have no idea).

I'm yet to try the media server capabilities...