NAS below Rs.40,000

Thecus N 2200

This is a sleek, dual-bay, bare metal NAS device that has the lowest price amongst the lot. That doesn't hinder it from being the richest in features in this category. The device is ideal for small workgroups environments, and with two 3.5” 2 TB drives it can accommodate 4 TB of storage. It also supports hot-swap, hot plug and auto-rebuild capabilities that give you the option to change the hard disk on the fly. The LCD panel, which displays intuitive icons to show you system information including HDD access, LAN connectivity, and USB copy status, is easy-to-read. Despite having single LAN port, the LCD panel has two LAN icons for no specific reason.

The one-touch USB-copy button allows instant file transfer from external USB device to NAS. The N2200 is easy to set up, and the AJAX-based web interface offers complete control on the device with ease. N2200 can also be used as a simple surveillance station for scheduled recording by plugging in a USB web cam or IP camera.

If you are looking for an affordable NAS solution with all the great features, but can sacrifice on performance front, then this is the ideal buy for you.

Buffalo LinkStation Quad 1.0TB

The winner of the category, this black vault-like Buffalo LinkStation Quad holds four HDD bays and is shipped fully populated with four 250 GB Seagate 7200 RPM drives to offer a total of 1 TB of storage. Despite having four drive bays, a major con with LinkStation Quad is that the drives are not hot swappable. On the contrary, the user has the option to upgrade the drives for higher capacities, but in switched off mode. Setting the Buffalo LinkStation Quad is straightforward, and the LinkNavigator software automatically scans the network and detects the drive to start the setup wizard. The WebAccess option allows you to connect to the Buffalo LinkStation Quad over the Internet remotely to get access to your stored files from anywhere.

The slow processor and lower RAM capacity could be the reason to attribute towards its slower performance.

For its category, LinkStation is a technically impressive storage system that offers good features and is most suitable for small workgroups of an organization's department.

Dax



DX 2102E-NAS

The first thing to talk about this NAS is its performance and simplistic looks. Compared to slower data transfer rates of the other two NAS devices in this category, DX 2102E has almost double the data transfer speeds, thus taking it much ahead to them in terms of performance. The NAS is shipped with two Seagate Barracuda 1 TB HDDs that are pre-installed in the box, and is scalable upto 4TB. Amongst other standard features, the DX 2102E boasts of features that are found in higher end NAS servers, such as built-in iSCSI target service, policy-based unauthorized IP blocking, and remote replication. With the built-in iSCSI target feature, the DX 2102E can be an ideal solution for backup or storage expansion. So, users in the workgroup can easily create dedicated virtual drives on the NAS for their PCs or existing servers. To prevent the NAS from malicious attacks, the server administrator can create an IP filter policy to allow, deny, or auto-block IP address or network domains that attempt to connect to the NAS. All these advanced features and the best performance in the category justifies the high price tag that is put on this NAS device.

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