The 4500 is the smallest of the devices tested at just 1RU and, not surprisingly, its internal mass storage capability is less than the larger units. The 4500 has four 3.5in drive bays that accommodate PATA drives -- the least number of storage bays of the units tested. While the 4500 was provided with four 250GB drives in it's RAID 5 configuration, we only see around 750GB of storage. If you want more, the 4500 is available with 400GB drives for a total capacity of 1.2TB. Up to two external Snap Disk 10 expansion arrays can be controlled by the 4500, each with four storage bays for a maximum capacity of 3.6TB, again the lowest expansion potential of the units tested.
The hot swap drive cradles are quite impressive, solid metal fabrication that guides the drive into the bay to ensure accurate mating of the connectors with a minimum of fuss. The remainder of the 4500 chassis is also reasonably robust although the cooling, while apparently adequate, is the least impressive of the units tested. There is a small fan to cool the two PCI-X slots, one of which is occupied by a SCSI card to enable a tape backup to be directly connected to the external port it provides.
Admittedly, the unit we tested arrived fully configured with RAID 5, but the RAID Wizard in the Web interface is straightforward making it a painless exercise if you have to configure it yourself.
Interoperability is very good with support for Windows, Unix, and Apple file systems and many of the most common clients are also supported. Network connectivity is via a pair of gigabit Ethernet ports and the 4500 has iSCSI target support.
There is a useful collection of bundled software supplied although only two are full copies; Bakbone Netvault Workgroup Edition and Symantec Powerquest Datakeeper (desktop backup); the remaining software packages are supplied as 30-day or 45-day trial editions.
Given its low price, the performance of the 4500 was also a surprise. The 4500 was at times quite close to the Sun in terms of throughput per second, and during the simultaneous Read/Write test it was slightly faster than the Sun. And because of the 4500's low cost per GB, it was by a large margin the lowest of all the units tested at just AU$9.73/GB.
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