Hardware Review
Silverstone NAS312
Have you ever wanted to share files over your network without using a computer as a dedicated file server? Well, Network Attached Storage will help you out here. Network Attached Storage devices or NAS are basically external enclosures with a built in Ethernet connection. We'll take a look at an NAS solution from Silverstone. We would like to thank the Silverstone team for making this review possible.
About 2 months ago, I was thinking about a way to share my files over my home network. Traditionally, I would've just built up a dedicated file server for this purpose. But then, I've realized a storage network attachments are now available. Okay, let's take a look at Silverstone's NS312. Below are a few specifcations for the NAS312:
| Enclosure material: All aluminum enclosure with SECC HDD plate |
| Color: Black and silver mix |
| Power requirement: +5V/1.5A +12V/1.5A AC to DC adapter (included) |
| Cooling system: Side open vents Large thermal interface pad |
| Drive interface support: Enhanced IDE, ATA/ATAPI-6 |
| Drive support: Up to 48-bit addressing for large hard drive |
| IDE support mode: Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and UNIX |
| Enclosure interface: RJ45 Network Cable, USB 2.0 (480Mbps) |
| Net Weight: 1.2 kg |
| Built-in CPU: ARM9 Core (32-bit) |
| Built-in memory: 64MB SDRAM / 8MB NOR Flash |
| Max.number of users: 30 simultaneously |
| Dimension: 140mm (W) x 50mm (H) x 230mm (D) |
Click the image to see it full view...
Out of the box, the NS312 comes with all accessories you need, Ethernet cable, USB cable, manuals, vertical stand and a software CD. Looking at the outside, the NS312 is made of an aluminum enclosure. An activity display is at the front of the enclosure while Ethernet, USB and power connectors are at the back. Installation of the hard drive is very simple. The housing cover can be easily removed by un-screwing the six screws outside the panel.
Looking inside, you can see the IDE controller and circuit boards of the NS312. The NS312 supports IDE hard drives, though I would've preferred support for SATA. The NS312 is fan less, keeping noise acoustics very low. For testing, we used a 500GB Western Digital hard drive. Once we've plugged in the enclosure, we needed to setup the NS312 with the CD provided. There's a utility Silverstone has included to locate you hard drive on your network. You basically run the app and it gives you the IP address that the NS312 is using. Since I use DHCP on my network, setup was pretty easy. I just had to run the utility and found the IP address of the NS312. Once you have the IP, you can use your browser, similar process with a router, to log in to the NS312 setup screen.
Click the image to see it full view...
At the setup screen, you can set how you want the hard drive to be shared, user permissions as well as drive maintenance. I did however notice that the NS312 supports FAT32, ext and ext2 partition but doesn't support NTFS format. So instead of me just dropping in my 500GB hard drive with all my video, music files and not wanting to loose my files, I had to find another drive to test the NAS with. So after all that, I decided to just use a 80GB I had lying around.
When I've finally transferred all my files, it's time to test the NS312's performance. Since I have 3 desktop PCs and a laptop on my network, I decided to stream files from the NS312 to all my computers. Surprisingly, there were no lags. Video files did not skip and all files transfer was completely finished without errors. Overall, the NAS312 is a very good NAS unit. From the aluminum housing as well as USB support, the NAS312 is a very versatile NAS unit. Overall we give the Silverstone NAS312 a score of 8 out of 10 and our Unique Rigs recommendation.
Pros:
Aluminum Housing
Easy configuration
Easy installation
Upto 30 simultaneously users
Silent acoustics
Cons:
No NTFS Support
NO SATA Support
Manufacturer Link:
