Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Lindy USB 2.0 NAS Personal Server for SATA & IDE Drives
Iain Laskey finds cheap isn't always cheerful
| Product | USB 2.0 NAS Personal Server for SATA & IDE Drives |
|---|---|
| Company | Lindy |
| Web | www.lindy.co.uk |
| Price | £69.99 |
| We like | compact, FTP server |
| We don't like | slow, expensive |
| Rating | 5/10 |
| Requirements |
If you only have a single PC, an external USB hard drive is all you need for back up or data storage. Things get more complex when you have a small network and the ability to have storage space available to all the PCs without having to keep a dedicated PC up and running is useful.
The Lindy USB 2.0 NAS Personal Server for SATA & IDE Drives pretty much does what it says on the tin. You need to provide your own hard drive of either IDE or SATA flavour then connect it to your network. No network cable was supplied although you do get a USB cable for when you want to use it as a more usual external USB hard drive. The case is attractive enough and Lindy kindly include the screwdriver needed to fit the hard drive. A small removable board lets you swap between IDE and SATA connections.
Configuration is straight forward despite a stunningly badly translated manual. There is another version of the manual online which is a little better but clearly two halves stuck together, one written by someone who speaks English and one translated. However, the browser based interface is simple and straightforward so it wasn't really needed.
We tested with a 160GB IDE drive and once formatted by the firmware to FAT32 (the only supported option) we were off.
Features
The facilities are fairly basic. The 10/100 Ethernet interface is as expected but we'd have liked to have seen Gigabit even at this price. As noted, it can also be used as a USB drive. There is a simple FTP server for accessing the files remotely. If you're after printer sharing or the ability to add more storage via a USB connection, you're out of luck. You can password protect folders but it's a single password for the lot, hardly flexible. There is a front mounted power switch, reset button and lamps to indicate power and data access. We did like the ability to set a timeout value after which the device would go into sleep mode - in these power conscious times, a nice touch. It wakes up in a second or two so this is well worth enabling even if the device doesn't use that much power anyway.
Performance
This is where things go downhill. No matter what we did, we couldn't coax more than 3.5Mb/sec out of the device. Other NAS's can run at 2 or 3 times this speed to this looked very poor. We tried Lindy tech support who were very thorough and suggested several things, asked for a drawing of our LAN to assist with diagnoses and generally did their best so hats off for effort. However, the speed seemed stuck at 2-3.5Mb/sec. We then started to Google the problem and it became apparent this is an OEM device, much re branded through the world. The chip revision and firmware of the Lindy seemed to match what others were using and this sort of speed seemed to be the norm so we can only assume it's as good as it's going to get. We did also note that what appears to be the same device is considerably cheaper elsewhere in the world - Around £20-£25 in the US!
We did find the FTP server useful. After configuring our router, we were able to log in to the NAS remotely and drop files off (or pick them up) with no real problems. Occassionally the FTP timed out when waiting for the drive to wake up from sleep mode but a retry always worked. Speed was pretty poor again at around 1.5Mb/sec but that could also be the speed of our Internet connection although the link we used should have been capable of far high speeds.
Conclusion
On paper, the Lindy Personal NAS Server looks a good buy. It's cheaper than most other NAS's but prices are falling fast and we've seen some others complete with a fair sized hard drive for only a few pounds more. Furthermore, at £70, you're paying a lot more than an equivalent USB only external case for the ability to see it on a network. If it was nearer the £30-£40 it might be worth considering if you're pinched for cash. The poor performance and limited facilities don't help and we're afraid we can't recommend this particular NAS which is a pity as to date, all the Lindy products we've seen have been good.
