The appliance's capabilities can be upgraded with a good range of freely available software modules.
The appliance's capabilities can be upgraded with a good range of freely available software modules. The IP camera module supports up to five cameras and provides basic surveillance features. However, it's not as good as the equivalent features on QNap or Synology appliances as you can't view live feeds or enable motion detection and it can only take scheduled snapshots at intervals of between one and sixty seconds.
The download station module can be used to retrieve remote files via BitTorrent, HTTP, FTP or eMule and home users will like the new Piczza module which provides a handy remote web photo server for organising galleries, sharing pictures and adding Google Maps links to show where they were taken.
The N5200XXX delivers plenty of NAS and IP SAN storage features along with some serious performance improvements over its predecessor. It's very good value although if you can afford it, QNap's TS-559 Pro II is superior as it offers far more features, supports the latest SATA3 hard disks and is slightly faster.
Verdict
The N5200XXX may not be as featured packed as QNap’s excellent TS-559 Pro II, but it's much value with a 5TB model costing nearly £400 less. Performance is on a par with most Atom based desktop appliances and its extensive NAS and IP SAN features makes it a good network storage choice for small businesses on a tight budget.
Chassis: Desktop CPU: 1.8GHz Intel Atom D525 Memory: 1GB DDR3 Storage: 2 x 128MB IDE DOMs; 5 x 1TB WD GreenPower SATA2 hot-swap hard disks Ports: 5 x USB2; 1 x eSATA Network: 2 x Gigabit Ethernet Software: Setup Wizard, Acronis True Image Personal single license
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