SmallNetBuilder

Network Setup

As you'd expect, under the Network menu, standard options are available for setting the IP address manually, acquiring it via DHCP, changing the SMB workgroup name, etc. If you'd like to join an existing Active Directory domain for share authentication, you can do that as well (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Domain Setup

In addition, for mixed environments, there's an option for turning on NFS (Figure 9), which is an appreciated feature for Linux and Apple users.

Figure 9: Network Service Setup

Although I appreciate the NFS support, it has an issue. When mounting an NFS share, the client needs to know the full path of the shared directory on the server. Just knowing the logical name, e.g. "Public," isn't enough. I couldn't find this path documented anywhere, so the NFS server was unusable (more on this later).

For management of the disks, the HN1200 has a number of options. Basic status of the disks is shown under the "Disk Management" menu (Figure 11).

Figure 11: Disk Status

The RAID settings of the disk are changed under the Volume management menu. The HN1200 supports three different modes, as shown in figure 12.

Figure 12: RAID Management

Stripe mode (RAID 0) spreads data across both internal disks for better performance, but with no fault tolerance. Mirror mode (RAID 1) duplicates data on both disks; if one fails, nothing is lost. In this mode, the total capacity is cut in half. Span mode (JBOD) combines the two disks into one logical drive, providing no data protection or increased performance.

To check out the recovery possibilities of the HN1200, I put the device in Mirror mode, added some files, opened the case, and pulled one drive out. From a user perspective, nothing happened. My network shares were still available, readable and writable. I assume that if I had alerts working, I would have gotten an alert at this point, but since I didn't, the only indication that something was amiss was a blinking blue LED on the front panel. Plus, when I logged back into the administrator's console, a warning was posted (Figure 13).

Figure 13: Disk Failure Warning

Next, I shut the system down, replaced the drive, and booted back up. Still from a user perspective, there was no change. However, behind the scenes, the drive was being recovered and a check of the system log (described later) showed periodic status messages as the drive was rebuilt. The rebuilding process took around an hour and a half.

I should also note that opening up the case and moving the drive in and out was simple. The SATA drives had small plastic guides mounted on their sides that allowed them to easily slide in and out. The only annoyance of this procedure was the need to break a "void your warranty" warning sticker when opening the case.