14 DAY TRIAL // Network-attached storage devices are fine pieces of work, even if most consumers never need their services and, thus, don't come to appreciate how useful they can be.
The multitude of businesses and small offices that do use them, however, more than compensate for the regular people's disinterest.
The newest NAS from Gigabyte is called GR-EZI04H and has four bays, meaning that it can hold 1, 2, 3 or 4 drives.
The top capacity of each HDD is 3 TB, even though the best HDDs of today have 4 TB. Still, 3 TB is a lot, and 12 TB ought to be more than sufficient for any network.
After all, NAS devices mostly perform backup roles and, even if they do act as storage hubs, the PCs connected to the same network usually have their own files on their individual storage units. But we digress.
The Gigabyte GR-EZI04H would qualify as an actual PC if it looked any less like a block of metal and plastic.
It even has a VGA display output, allowing it to play media files or perform any PC-like tasks available on the Windows Home Server 2011 and Embedded Linux operating systems.
The hardware within follows the standard PC layout too: an Intel Atom CPU (1.8 GHz) manages the four drive bays and I/O ports.
Nevertheless, this is still a network-attached storage device that performs best as an auxiliary storage solution for multiple PCs at once.
To that end, two Gigabit Ethernet ports are available, along with two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 connectors.
As for the HDDs themselves, they can be configured in RAID 0/5/10 modes, depending on whether the need for security outweighs the need for performance and/or capacity.
Finally, Gigabyte used custom NAS management software, but did not give details. The price is of $700 / 537-700 Euro.
