NAS Reviews

Share Creation

For creating network shares, the HN1200 has a number of options. Figure 14 shows the basic network share creation menu where the share can be set up and the access methods defined.

Figure 14: Share Creation

As you can see, shares can be accessed via a number of methods. Along with CIFS (or SMB), FTP, NFS and HTTP(S) access methods are supported. I first thought that HTTP access meant WebDav, but in reality, the HN1200 just allows viewing the disk via a simple web browser interface. The HN1200 also supports disks plugged into the USB ports. Hammer documents support for NTFS and FAT formatted disks on the USB ports. I didn't have an NTFS disk to test with, but normally on these devices NTFS support is read-only. There are two USB ports on the box, and the lower port can be used for backup purposes. When the "backup" button on the front panel of the device is pressed, specified shares are backed up to the USB disk plugged into the first USB port.

If the HN1200 is going to be used in a small businesses setting, user accounts are an important feature. Figure 15 shows the basic user creation menu.

Figure 15: User Creation

As you can see from this creation, users can be created, assigned administrator privileges, and be given access to the various share-access services. Users can also be assigned to groups for easier management of rights. Figure 16 shows the group creation screen.

Figure 16: Group Creation

Once users and groups are created, the network shares can be restricted based on these users and groups. Figure 17 shows the menu that allows the administrator to change access privileges.

Figure 17: Share Access Control

It's also important in a small business setting to have complete logging capabilites so that problems can be stopped in their tracks. The HN1200 has a nice set of logging capabilities, with events segregated into various categories. Figure 18 shows the log entries for FTP events.

Figure 18: ftp logging

As I finished reviewing the HN1200's options, I noticed a few missing features. I usually like to see a way to specify disk spin-down time. Most of the time my NAS devices are idle, so it's nice to be able to tell them to spin down, reducing power usage and noise. I also didn't find any specific backup capabilities except for the manual backup to the attached USB drive, so users will be on their own as far as backing up their data to the HN1200.

In addition, many NAS devices are starting to come with media-serving capabilities. Hammer documents that a new firmware release will add an iTunes server and support for the UPnP Audio/Video protocol, but my review unit didn't have this release, so I couldn't check these features.