Cisco Smart Storage NAS Options

Cisco has always been looked upon as a reliable brand in the IT world, even though a few problems with their "home" sub-brand, Linksys, got bad press. On the whole, Cisco remains a giant in the networking hardware market.

Some time ago, Cisco launched a new series of NAS devices targeting the Small Business segment, but in my opinion also eyeing the always eager SOHO market. This new series is the NSS 300 Series Smart Storage,
available with 2, 4 and 6 hard drive bays, and therefore allowing up to 12 TB storage. Features include 5 USB 2.0 ports, 2 eSATA ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, a 1.66 GHz Atom 2 core CPU and 1 GB RAM. RAID 0, 1, 5 and 6 are also available (0 and 1 only on the 2 bay enclosure, obviously) with a 5+1 hot spare or 6+1 hot spare also as options.

The reason I mentioned the SOHO market, and by SOHO please read "home market" primarily, is because these enclosures come with DLNA server, iTunes server and the likes. Not many small businesses will be looking into streaming HD movies in the office, but I know a few people who would love those features at home.

Other goodies are a web server, SQL server and WordPress integration, allowing you to host your own websites and blogs, and a e-commerce package that, in conjunction with the SQL database allows you to set up a store on the Internet in no time.

Speed tests have shown these enclosures to be quite fast, with the Netgear NVX beating it by a small margin, but a 5 year warranty on the enclosure, including a first year telephone and chat support will probably bring you the piece of mind you want when spending over £600 for this sweetie!

Maybe Santa will bring me a NSS 324 for Christmas!