Snap Server 4500
The 4500 is a NAS device in a 1RU chassis -- it has four 3.5in drive bays that accommodate PATA drives. While the Snap Server was submitted with four 250GB drives, in a RAID 5 configuration you would see around 750GB of storage. If you want more, the device can be configured with 400GB drives and a total capacity of 1.2TB -- about it in terms of internal storage. 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, which is a decent amount of storage for a small-to-medium enterprise.
The hot-swap drive cradles are impressive; solid metal fabrication that guides the drive into the bay ensures accurate mating of the connectors with a minimum of fuss. The remainder of the 4500 chassis is also reasonably robust. 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.
The 4500 is straight forward to install and remote configuration and management is also easy on a user friendly browser interface.
Interoperability is very good with Windows, Unix, Apple file systems, and a reasonable swag of common clients supported.
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).
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