Features
This bulleted feature summary below provides a bit more feature set detail.
Storage
- Network file sharing via SMB/CIFS, NFS, AFP
- WebDAV support
- Windows DFS support
- HTTP / HTTPS file and admin access
- FTP, SFTP and TFTP servers
- JBOD, RAID 0, 5, 10 volumes *See note below
- iSCSI targets with ISNS support
- EXT4 filesystem
Backup
- Network Backup: Schedulable (smallest interval is one day) to / from rsync targets and SMB/CIFS shares
- Apple Time Machine backup
- Auto file copy from PTP-enabled digital cameras
Media
- Recording and viewing of up to 16 IP cameras [supported models] via MindTree SecureMind (1 camera license included)
- AXIS Video Hosting System support
- UPnP AV / DLNA media server (Twonky Media)
- Photo slideshow
- iTunes server
- BitTorrent downloader
- Auto upload to Flickr
- Auto upload to Facebook
Cloud
- Secure Web-based remote access and site-to-site backup (Personal Cloud)
- Amazon S3, Mozy, EMC Avamar, EMC Atmos cloud backup
Other
- Dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces with VLAN and failover modes
- SNMP support
- Joins NT Domain / Active Directories for account information
- Compatible with Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 R2, VMware VSphere ESX5 iSCSI and NAS, XenServer, 5.5, 5.6 (w/ MPIO), iSCSI & NFS
- User level quotas
- Email alerts
- Logging
- File upload via Bluetooth
- USB printer serving
- UPS shutdown synchronization via USB
Iomega hasn't tweaked the OS since our last look at the px2-300d. The apps haven't changed, but here they all are in the All Features screenshot below.
All Features
Volume configuration is fairly unsophisticated compared to other RAID 5 NASes. First, there is no RAID level migration or expansion. If you want to do either, you need to delete the existing volume. Once you choose a RAID 5 or 10 volume, you'll need to wait a long time while it syncs. Full RAID 10 sync of the 8 TB review sample took 10 hours and 45 minutes!
The Drive Management screenshot below shows the volume creation options. Note the absence of drive select checkboxes and no RAID 1 option. So you can't create multiple RAID 1 or 0 volumes, nor can you create a three-drive RAID 5 volume with a spare drive. The None option actually creates a single JBOD volume with all four drives. The default for write caching is Enabled with UPS as shown, but you can also select Always enabled and Always disabled.
All Features
I found you can acutally create a RAID 1 volume, by pulling two drives. But you can't create two RAID 1 volumes or a mix of RAID 0 and 1. No matter how many drives you put in, you can create only one volume.
A few other competitive weaknesses remain including:
- You can limit access to shares by user and/or group. But you can't control access by service. So you can't shut off FTP access to certain shares, for example
- No iSCSI encryption or authentication and no target multiple connects
- No IPv6 support
- Unlike px-series NASes, the ix4 doesn't support volume or folder encryption.
If you want more screenshots of the ix4's features, check the ix2-dl review gallery.