Mapower KC-31N NAS – evaluation
What is a NAS? – NAS means Network-Attached Storage. essentially just a box with a difficult drive (or several drives) which plugs into your LAN to offer extra storage which can be accessed by individuals on the network. checked out the full Wikipedia meaning HERE.
Why Do You requirement a NAS? – many of us are gathering much more as well as much more digital media -“ MP3s, films as well as Photos. domestic networks are ending up being typical location now as numerous of us have much more than one PC at home. This combination of elements makes it extremely desirable to have a big central storage gadget on your LAN, that can be accessed by all the machines in the home whether PC, Mac or Linux, as well as externally through the web as we’ll see later. If you currently have a PC running 24/7 then it’s a certainty that utilizing this NAS will save you money as a devoted PC based fileserver can expense much more than you most likely realise to run.
We determined the system utilizing a small 18 Watts during sustained reading as well as writing, compared to around 150 watts for a contemporary PC. If you were to run both gadgets 24/7 the annual running expense for the NAS would be around £17.00 compared to around £145.00 for the PC! It’s likewise possible to set the drive to spin down after a configurable amount of time (5 – 60 minutes, 0 to disable) for even more savings. It’s worth discussing that the Sonos whole home music system (see our long-lasting evaluation HERE) is developed to run without a PC as well as so this system would be suitable to store all your music in a Sonos setup.
Mapower NAS
Click picture for larger version
Installation – Some NAS units at this cost can appear rather basic, however the KC-31N’s stackable style has a high quality look to it. While the system does have a little 4 cm fan in the rear, the aluminium fins of the situation likewise assist with passive cooling. In our tests (with a 5400 RPM Maxtor drive), the situation barely even got somewhat warm to the touch. setting up this NAS was a 10 minute job. The set comes total with an allen key, as well as 4 difficult drive screws, so you don’t have to go hunting for anything other than a star screwdriver to total the job. The situation available to expose a couple of circuit boards, one at the front as well as one at the rear of the case. It’s remarkable to believe that these two small boards turn an normal difficult drive into what truly amounts to a total fileserver! The system can take any type of typical 3.5″ (PATA) IDE drive as much as 400 GB. set your difficult drive to master, decrease it in, link the IDE ribbon cable television as well as the power connector as well as protected the drive with four screws. put the lid back on the situation as well as tighten the four hexagonal screws as well as you are prepared to configuration the drive.
Inside the Case
Click picture for larger version
Mapower NAS – Front View
Click picture for larger version
Mapower NAS – rear View
Click picture for larger version
The next step is to configure the system. link the power adaptor (an in-line transformer similar to a laptop power supply) as well as then link to your PC through the USB 2.0 port (cable included) or 10/100 Ethernet (cable not included) as well as hit the power button with its stylish blue LED. I utilized my laptop for this stage as the system has its DHCP server enabled my default, making it simple to configure when directly linked to a PC not on a LAN (you don’t requirement a cross over cable television for this).
Status Screen
Click picture for larger version
Once the PC has acquired an IP from the units DHCP server it’s just a matter of opening your browser as well as going to http://storage to view the web interface. go into the default username as well as password (admin as well as admin – finest to modification that asap) as well as you are in!
IP Configuration Screen
Click picture for larger version
Disk utility Screen
Click picture for larger version
I disabled the DHCP server (my router takes care of that) as well as altered the system to a fixed IP. Formatting the drive is brought out with the web interface. The NAS utilizes the FAT32 data system as well as it only takes a few seconds to format.
Dance the Samba – when up as well as running the NAS just appears as any type of other Samba share on your network. right here are a few screen grabs showing us accessing the NAS from a Windows Vista PC, an OS X Mac as well as an Ubuntu Linux box.
Viewing the NAS from Windows Vista
Click picture for larger version
Viewing the NAS from OS X
Click picture for larger version
Viewing the NAS from Ubuntu
Click picture for larger version
Providing individuals rights to specific folders is set with the web interface. producing a new folder can be done from the Samba screen too, or just with the OS of your computer. After the password has been configuration only individuals with the password will be enabled gain access to to those folders. Folders without passwords are available to all.
Samba Server Configuration Screen
Click picture for larger version
Folder Password security example – Windows XP
Click picture for larger version
FTP – By plugging the system into your Broadband router or a switch connected to it, you can likewise quickly make all your data offered from anywhere in the world through its built-in FTP server. FTP accounts are easy to configuration with the administrator able to select username as well as passwords for every in addition to enabling or disallowing anonymous FTP clients to connect. You can likewise configure the port the server utilizes which some may feel reduces the attacks on FTP servers on the common port 21. You’ll requirement to ahead whichever port you select in your NAT router to ensure that it points to the IP of your NAS.
FTP Server Configuration Screen
Click picture for larger version
I’ve taken our system to the house of a household member as well as I am utilizing it to store a backup of all my essential files as well as digital photos. I’m utilizing the totally free version of SyncBack which performs an automated nightly backup to the FTP server. This is one more suitable application for this unit, an low-cost method to have a safe, off-site backup!
What might Be Better? – Where budget plan NAS units do tend to autumn down somewhat on their full-blown PC counter-parts is in speed performance. In our test it took just over 12 minutes to copy 2.5 GB of data off the KC-31N to a PC. This compares to around 6 minutes from PC to PC across the 10/100 LAN in the Automated house labs making the PC precisely twice as quick in our un-scientific test. nevertheless unless you are on a regular basis moving significant amounts of data back as well as ahead this is unlikely to cause any type of genuine world issues. The system is much more than quick sufficient to cope with streaming video as well as audio (to several clients simultaneously) in addition to routine data serving as well as backup duties. With 750 GB drives already on sale as well as the 1 terabyte drive rumored to be offered before the end of 2006, we’d have liked to have been able to in shape a drive bigger than 400 GB. other good features like gigabit Ethernet as well as a USB port to enable the addition of an outside USB drive to be plugged into as well as shared by the system would be good, however, at this cost we truly can’t grumble at the features of the KC-31N. 400 GB is a significant amount of area as well as for many people this will be much more than adequate. (If you are a tradition computer individual as well as have a collection of smaller difficult drives that you still want to utilize instead of replacing, then you may want to develop a PC based NAS like our job HERE).
NAS next to a TV Remote for Scale
Click picture for larger version
Support – The system shipped with an older version of the firmware so I acquired the most recent (currently v41) from the Mapower site HERE. The firmware update didn’t working utilizing FireFox however worked fine with IE. also altering the web interface to a much nicer font style as well as cleaner looking page layout, V41 obviously enables data to be as much as 16 GB each (up from 4 GB in the old version) as well as adds support for Intel powered Macs as well.
Maintenance Configuration Screen
Click picture for larger version
Conclusion – Network-attached storage was when priced at a level that made it truly only appropriate for big corporations. however now NAS, like numerous other technologies has come down in cost to a level that makes it useful for the masses. For many users, a NAS has numerous advantages over a PC. The simplicity of configuring the system with a browser interface coupled with the stability, reliability as well as lower running costs make a NAS a extremely desirable choice. If, like us, you have a choice of spare difficult drives lying around, then you can develop your own budget plan NAS for £75 too.
Range of similar gadget offered HERE
Want More? – Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, or sign up for our RSS feed. You can even get these news stories delivered through email, directly to your inbox every day
Share this:
Facebook
Twitter
Reddit
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Email
More
WhatsApp
Print
Skype
Tumblr
Telegram
Pocket