Cisco NSS2000 review

The NSS family signals Cisco’s moves into the SMB network storage market. In this review we find out whether the NSS2000 has what it takes to stand up to the established names.

IT Pro Verdict

The NSS2000 hits the spot for value and is well suited to environments that abhor noise. Cisco’s drive encryption and virtualisation features are unusual for an entry-level appliance and it’s easy to configure but general file copy performance is comparatively poor. The optional CDP software could prove very useful for small businesses, but bear in mind it will work with any NAS appliance or network share.

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The appliance's standard share profile only supports simultaneous connections from 15 CIFS and two FTP users whilst a global advanced profile drops the CIFS count to eight and pushes FTP up to 16. The reason for these profiles is the NSS2000 can take CIFS and FTP feeds from IP camera motion detection triggers so you can select the profile that suits these applications.

The video recording features aren't anything radical as most IP cameras will send recordings to a standard Windows share or FTP server. If you want more surveillance features than look to appliances such as those from Qnap or Synology as these can display feeds from multiple IP cameras in their web interfaces, they provide basic motion detection and can record video directly to their disks.

Access controls for Windows and Linux users can be set using the appliance's local database or by integrating with an AD server. FTP services run from a dedicated share and options are provided for limiting bandwidth usage and restricting user access. Soft and hard quotas at the user and group levels can be applied to shares where the first threshold sends a warning and the second stops further access.

The NSS2000 doesn't come as standard with any backup software but Cisco does offer its CDP (continuous data protection) option. Costing around 103 for a three-user licence we'd recommend getting it. After installation, it asks for the folders and email clients that you want to protect and then seeds the remote location selected on the appliance.

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Dave Mitchell
Dave Mitchell

Dave is an IT consultant and freelance journalist specialising in hands-on reviews of computer networking products covering all market sectors from small businesses to enterprises. Founder of Binary Testing Ltd – the UK’s premier independent network testing laboratory - Dave has over 45 years of experience in the IT industry.

Dave has produced many thousands of in-depth business networking product reviews from his lab which have been reproduced globally. Writing for ITPro and its sister title, PC Pro, he covers all areas of business IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, network security, data protection, cloud, infrastructure and services.

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