LG's New NAS Devices Are Powered by Dual-Core Intel Atom

Besides netbooks and DirectX 11 graphics, there is another product category that, while not as rapidly, saw an increasing adoption over the past year. Network-attached storage devices (NAS) are being used more frequently in home and small office environments, as they can centralize data for use by multiple PCs. In order to improve both the performance and energy efficiency of such products, Intel has announced that it has optimized its latest Atom central processing units for use in such storage mechanisms. One new pair of products in this category comes from LG, whose N4B2 and N4R2 NAS units have been showcased at this year's CeBIT Expo in Hanover, Germany.

According to the company, devices based on the new D410 and D510 processors, along with the Intel 82801IR I/O Controller, will supposedly have an up to 50% better performance and such features as storage expandability, plug-and-play capabilities and support for six PCI Express lanes, 12 USB 2.0 ports and eSATA connectivity. With the N4B2 and N4R2, LG aims to prove the advantages of the new technology.

The only difference between the two units is the type of optical storage they use. The N4R2 comes with a DVD burner, whereas the N4B2 boasts a Blu-ray burner. As for the actual specifications, the two NAS devices are powered by the Intel Atom D510 dual-core central processing unit, which has a frequency of 1.6GHz.

This chip is supported by 1GB of memory. Both units can store up to four hard drives in RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, as well as JBOD configurations and the maximum read and write speeds achievable are of 70MB/s and 57MB/s, respectively. The storage devices also come with hot swappable features, which allow a drive to be safely removed in case of failure, without affecting the others.

Other features of the two NAS devices include three USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA connector, a Kensington lock port, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, ICE Backup and Multi user Streaming at 95MB/s. Moreover, both devices support Apple's Time Machine, wake on LAN (WOL) and are compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

Pricing and availability details are, regrettably, currently unavailable.

Live report by Traian Teglet from CeBIT 2010 in Hanover, Germany.