SmallNetBuilder

Introduction

Last year when I reviewed Iomega's StorCenter Network Hard Drive, I found it to be an inexpensive little NAS with RAID support, gigabit Ethernet and a compact size. Now, a year or so later Iomega has an upgrade to the product that I'll try out in this review.

Iomega's ix2 has the same small form-factor as last-year's model, but they've doubled the maximum capacity while only increasing the price a bit. A 2TB ix2 is now priced in the $470 range. The ix2 also has some new fairly unique features. So if you're interested in a small, inexpensive RAID-capable NAS with some interesting capabilities, read on.

Setup

Figure 1 shows the back of the ix2, which hasn't changed from the original StorCenter, so I reused the same photo from last time.

Figure 1: Back Panel

You can see two USB 2.0 ports, power connector, gigabit Ethernet port (no support for jumbo frames, however) and a fan. While the ix2 was running it drew a fairly low 22 Watts, and I judged the fan to be of medium noise-level.

The first time you log into the device, a configuration wizard walks you through the minimum configuration steps of setting the password (Figure 2), time zone, network parameters, etc.

Figure 2: Setup Wizard

Setup software is provided for both Window and Apple users and Linux users are directed to the web interface for their setup. If you have simple requirements, the Wizard does everything you need and the device can be used with a couple of default shares, "backup" and "public". But if you want to configure further, there are plenty of options. Figure 3 shows the main configuration screen which is accessed through a secure HTTPS connection.

Figure 3: Configuration Menu