Such technological convergence was sure to foster devices that fall in the middle, able to suit both business and personal needs, and Iomega’s solution for this market is the StorCenter Pro 150d.
The first thing one does upon unpacking the StoreCenter 150d is unlocking the front panel and removing a protective foam insert, thereby revealing the four drive holders. Two front-panel USB ports and a power button are seen below the door opening.
Our 1TB StorCenter Pro sample uses four Seagate 7200.10 250GB drives on easy sliding racks, which connect internally to a hot-swappable controller.
This design allows for on-the-fly rebuilds without having to power off, should any of these rugged disks fail unexpectedly. (However, it should be noted that Iomega doesn’t actually sell any replacement disks through its online store, which shouldn’t pose much of a nuisance for most users.)
Around back are two more USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit network port, 92mm hard drive cooling fan, and 110/220V switchable power supply.
The power supply looks strikingly familiar, so let’s take a closer look inside!
The StorCenter Pro 150d turns out to be nothing less than a complete computing system! A 400MHz PowerPC MPC8347 processor is surrounded by 128MB of PC-3200 SDRAM, a Spansion S29GL064M11 64Mbit ROM, Silicon Image SATALink Sil3114CTU SATA controller, Vitesse SimpliPHY VSC8201XRX Gigabit PHY, and an SMSC USB2504 USB 2.0 4-port Hub. All this is powered by a quality AcBel 300W ATX12V power supply, part number ATX-300CT-SN6GN.
This platform mismatch isn’t so bad since the former part was far slower than the network interface it was connected to, and it at least gives us a frame of reference when moving from a 100Mbit NAS to a 1Gbit NAS!
The StorCenter Pro 150d doesn’t even get close to 100Mbits, let alone a Gigabit, but the same was true of the former 100Mbit NAS, which didn’t even approach 10Mbits. In spite of this cap, Level 0 significantly outperformed RAID 5 on the StorCenter Pro, except when relying on drive cache alone.
The newer StorCenter Pro 150d NAS shows huge reductions in latency, so maybe all those beefy components really were a good idea!
We couldn’t find a drive test for sub-folders, and since any USB drive connected to the StorCenter appears as a sub-folder, we instead chose a simple "timed copy" of a 203MB file. Besides allowing the internal RAID 5 array performance to be compared to a StorCenter-attached USB drive, it also allowed a comparison of the StorCenter’s FTP performance. The attached USB drive is comprised of a NexStar GX enclosure and Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 internal hard disk drive.
Pros:
- Redundant network storage secures data with support for RAID 5 and 0+1
- Hot swap support for spare disk in emergencies
- EMC Retrospect Express backup software license support for five clients
- Gigabit network compatible
- Hot-plug USB drive to network folder support
- Built-in USB printer server
- International power cable kit
- Easy configuration software
- Two-year limited warranty
Cons:
- 1TB array leaves only 686GB available in RAID 5 to support five networked PCs (however, 2TB unit also available)
- "Gigabit" performance near the expected practical limit of 100 megabit technology
- Spare disk not available through Iomega store
- "Read Only" mode for NTFS USB drives, "Write" privileges require FAT format
- Pricey for home users
The Verdict: A nice redundant backup and mass storage solution for small office and home networks. Home users with large media files should consider the slight-more-expensive 2TB StorCenter 150d after considering the loss of space required for RAID 5 redundancy. [via]
