IEI NAS 4120A
This IEI device from Westan came in as the least expensive solution. You could virtually buy three of these units for one HP unit. We had never seen an IEI product before and after some research we found this device is made by ICP Electronics based in Taiwan.
The drive cradles on this unit are locked using a key. Each cradle has to be unlocked before you can pull a drive out. This is all well for improving security, but this sort of equipment should be tucked away from the public in any case, and it would waste valuable time if drives needed to be changed, particularly in an emergency.
The drive cradles don't slide out and push into place as smoothly as the other units. The interface used to connect the drives to the main board looks like an ISA type edge connector. It's a little clunky compared to the high-density D style connectors that the other NAS units use.
The IEI unit uses the same 250GB Western Digital IDE drives that are used by the Snap Server. Inside the unit was a 1.2GHz Intel Celeron processor with 256MB of RAM. The mainboard also has an extra memory slot.
The mainboard looked like a general-purpose server board. It had quite a few embedded components that a NAS unit wouldn't use like standard IDE connectors or a PCI slot. At the rear of the unit was a serial port, SCSI connector, and two gigabit Ethernet ports. The unit also has two redundant power supplies.
Setting up the IEI was a piece of cake. We were able to get this unit up and running faster than any of the others. All we had to do is configure its network settings from the LCD panel and open up an Internet browser and type in its IP address.
The IEI was the slowest NAS device at transferring small files (under 500MB) we can only suggest some more RAM for this device if it is to perform better in this area.
| Product | IEI NAS 4120A |
| Price | $4779.50 |
| Vendor | Westan |
| Phone | 03 9541 8888 |
| Web | www.westan.com.au |
| Interoperability |  |
| Supports all standard protocols. | |
| Futureproofing |  |
| Relatively little expansion potential, improved by the external SCSIconnector. | |
| ROI |  |
| Moderately priced for its features andperformance. | |
| Service |  |
| Two-year RTB warranty with upgrades available. | |
| Rating |  |
