Update on IONE NAS
OMG, I'm such a dimwit! Having typed in three paragraphs of text I just managed to press "Discard" button and have to do it all over again! (Or is it Picasa that has censored my post because of coincidental proximity of words "Picasa" and "sucks"?)
Few people have asked whether this device supports NTFS. The answer is, I don't think so. Embedded version of Linux that runs this device (I think?) is very simple. I would very much doubt that it is capable of working with a drive that you have formatted yourself and just fitted in...
Since there's a chance, I'd post a summary of my experiences with the device so far. There are issues :(
It works flawlessly as a backup device, and it is well suited for storing media that can be streamed, meaning, after a file is located, reading from it is performed at a constant, moderate rate. Home videos work fine, and storing your music collection there does too. There is one scenario where performance may be intolerable, it is when you store your digital photo collection on it. Likely due to some issue with Windows drivers for network adapter, or due to some networking configuration in Windows that I was unable to resolve, performance is terrible in both Picasa and Fuji FinePixViewer. Mind you, slideshow would work OK if you set delay between pictures to 5-10 seconds. But to have to wait the same 10 seconds for a randomly selected thumbnail you double-clicked on to open, this is just maddening. I agree it is a typical YMMV case, because my other machine with either Solaris or Linux do not have the same issue, the lag is much more tolerable 2-3 seconds. There's some misunderstandanding between this NAS and my Win XP Home notebook as far as networking is concerned...
Few people have asked whether this device supports NTFS. The answer is, I don't think so. Embedded version of Linux that runs this device (I think?) is very simple. I would very much doubt that it is capable of working with a drive that you have formatted yourself and just fitted in...
Since there's a chance, I'd post a summary of my experiences with the device so far. There are issues :(
It works flawlessly as a backup device, and it is well suited for storing media that can be streamed, meaning, after a file is located, reading from it is performed at a constant, moderate rate. Home videos work fine, and storing your music collection there does too. There is one scenario where performance may be intolerable, it is when you store your digital photo collection on it. Likely due to some issue with Windows drivers for network adapter, or due to some networking configuration in Windows that I was unable to resolve, performance is terrible in both Picasa and Fuji FinePixViewer. Mind you, slideshow would work OK if you set delay between pictures to 5-10 seconds. But to have to wait the same 10 seconds for a randomly selected thumbnail you double-clicked on to open, this is just maddening. I agree it is a typical YMMV case, because my other machine with either Solaris or Linux do not have the same issue, the lag is much more tolerable 2-3 seconds. There's some misunderstandanding between this NAS and my Win XP Home notebook as far as networking is concerned...
posted by denka at 10:21 AM
14 Comments:
hi. first, thanks for the review on the Ione, i've been eyeing it for a while, but couldn't find a decent review anywhere. 2 questions:
1) does it support FAT32? 'cos i'd like to use it as a USB2 device sometimes(e.g. for monthly backup), and want to make sure I can switch between NAS and USB2 seamlessly.
2) Can I use both ethernet and USB2 interfaces together?
Thanks!
You guys keep on asking, FAT32, NTFS... Why would it matter? Are you trying to ask "Does it support long filenames"? Why wouldn't you, then? Yes it does support long file names. And it supports filenames in extended character sets, too. So, no problem here.
About simultaneous use of USB and Ethernet interfaces, it's yes and no. Yes, you can have it on Ethernet alone, then plug into USB port of your computer and start using it as USB drive. When you disconnect USB, Ethernet becomes active again. So, at least you don't have to power it down prior to switching interfaces. But, as you may have guessed, while USB interface is active, Ethernet is not.
Las bit: never agree to pay more than $90 for it :) I saw some weird people asking $130 (without a hard drive!), that's crazy! One year from today, 500 MB NAS with gigabit Ethernet interface will cost under $300, so keep that in mind.
correction, it's 0.5 TB above
Hi Denka,
thanks for the quick response. if i can quickly plug-in USB2, do my backup, then just unplug that to put it back on the network, that's just perfect! Regarding the file system, only reason i asked to make sure i don't run into the problem with the Linksys NSLU2-CU, which uses its own proprietary format, and hence you can't simply plug it directly into any computer using the USB2 connection.
$90..hmm...cheapest i see it online is at tigerdirect for $99...maybe i'll run down to central computer myself :)
Thanks again
denka wrote: "You guys keep on asking, FAT32, NTFS... Why would it matter?"
A few reasons, actually.
1) A friend recently went through two different NAS boxes, both using FAT32. Speed was OK when only 1 person accessed the HD, but when 2 users hit it, the speed dropped like a stone. The only acceptable workaround was: only 1 person can access it at a time.
2) NTFS is a transactional file system and can recover from crashes (if it were to happen, don't know how this box handles it) very easily without losing data. FAT32 is... not nearly so robust. Using NTFS would be a safety net, if nothing else. My friend also thinks that NTFS won't have the slowdown as mentioned above.
3) There's that recently-upheld FAT32 long-filename patent in Microsoft's portfolio. ;)
Lemme ask you this: If you were setting up a WinXP (or Linux) machine, would you format the HD using FAT32? ;)
hi, Petrus
Whether I would format one of the drives with FAT32? It would depend on what kind of data this drive is intended for :)
You're saying you're concerned about FAT patent. Is there no patent on NTFS? I seriously doubt that NTFS would give big performance improvement. It's rather about ability of embedded OS to multitask and cache. And I doubt you will find a NAS for consumers with NTFS, ever...
I should think that the format of the box does matter -- don't you have to format the drive before you insert it into the enclosure? Does it support ext2/3?
thanks for the review -- I too have been looking for something like this.
No, you don't have to pre-format it. And what makes me think it could be ext2 or ext3 or something like that is the fact taht it formats in a blink of an eye :)
There is a way to know for sure. I need to pull the drive out, and stick it into a Linux box...
Hi,
Thanks for a great review.
I'm looking for a NAS drive to connet to my network of a PC and a MAC. I want to be able to have my 300GB backup drive mostly connected to the network in read/write mode but occasionally hooked up directly via USB2 to my XP Pro PC.
From what I can tell the file format has to be NTFS to be connectable to XP [since FAT32 is only 32gb max].
I was about to buy the IONE NAS but after reading this review am not sure:
So questions:
Will a NTFS formatted disk work with the IONE.
Is there another format that I could reformat the disk as that will work on the network and can also be plugged directly into XP Pro PC.
Thanks!
Phil,
see my other post on this.
The idea of pulling the HDD out of the cage sounds rather strange to me. I wouldn't bother, since there's USB 2.0 connector. Of course, if your computer does not have USB 2.0 interface, you're out of luck. But at least now you know it's not NTFS, but that it does support drives greater than 32 GB. How big a drive it can support, I think you can ask that from tech support guys. They are quite quick to respond, by next business day you will have your answer.
What are hw specs?
cpu, ram and other?
The box indicates ftp but what about telnet?
Does linux directory structure showup?
I just purchased the iOne over the weekend. I also have a SnapServer 4100 NAS box connect to my system so my first impresions of the iOne will also be in comparison to the SnapServer:
1. Very small and simple. The embedded OS does not come close to the Snap in functionality. But then again, you're not paying $1000+ for this either.
2. I only had a 120Gb drive lying around, so I formatted the drive using the NAS's built in Disk utility. I haven't yet hooked it up as a USB drive, only as a NAS.
3. Performance is so-so. On my 10/100 network with 1PC, 1 Mac, 1 SnapServer, 1 XBox and a couple of wireless devices, I can write at about 4MB.sec, and read back at about 3.2MB/sec. The Snap is in excess of 6MB/sec either way.
3. The unit only supports FTP and SMB. So you can either FTP in and out of it, or attach to it as a mapped drive. I was able to connect to it from both my Mac, PC and my Xbox. The XbOx connected to it wirelessly and streamd a movie without glitches.
3. If your system has other types of requirements, like for instance you're using an older Mac OS that only supports AFP (Apple File Protocol or AppleTalk) you won't be able to connect.
4. The box included a couple of sheets of paper that listed some troubleshooting "solutions" One had to do with the iOne not being recognized as a USB storage, and the solution was to re-format the drive with FAT32. The other was if the system was not recognized as a NAS, and the solution was to reformat usnig the native disc utility. I'm not sure what that means but it almost sounds like you can't have this unit work both ways (USB/NAS)unless you want re-format the drive each time.
5. Now, to the FAT32/NTFS issue. Besides performance and security, the biggest difference NTFS makes to most people is the ability to store files larger than 4GB. FAT32 has a 4GB barrier on files.
The biggest problem I see here though, is how you're going to format a drive with FAT32. Inside Windows XP, if you select a partition larger than 32GB, you don't even get a FAT32 option, it only NTFS. There are ways to partition and format a larger FAT32 partition, but not from within WinXP. You could us Win98 FDISK with a command line switch to format up to 64GB (FDISK /PRI: 65535), or you could use a 3d party FDISK like Free FDISK that would allow you to go up to 128MB. But that's the limit for FAT32. If you intend to use a drive larger than that I just don't see how you can make it work.
That's about it for now, so unitl I try it as USB drive...
The post here, I thought it should have clarified everything. So, for me it all works when:
- the drive is greater than 32 GB
- the drive is formatted by device itself
I am able to use the same drive using both USB 2.0, USB 1.1 and Ethernet connections. Hope the compatibility issue mentioned in the documentation (when one has to reformat the drive to make it available to either connection method) is encountered in very rate cases. Would be interesting to know which cases would those be exactly...
denka
I recently purchased this enclosure, and I am unable to write files > 4GB via SMB (from Windows XP client)
Anyone else have this problem?
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