Iomega StorCenter ix2-dl Review: Network-Attached Storage Can Be Used for Video Surveillance, Too

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Iomega StorCenter ix2-dl Review: Network-Attached Storage Can Be Used for Video Surveillance, Too

The Iomega StorCenter ix2-dl is the company's least expensive two-bay NAS (network-attached storage) product, and a notable step up from its more consumer-oriented Home Media Hard Drive. At $200 without disks, it's a good performer for reading back data, and Iomega's software features are solid, only a notch or two below Synology's and QNAP's.

That said, the ix2-dl's write performance for small files and folders is weak, so this is not a box for backing up more than a couple of networked PCs. Inside, the StorCenter ix2-dl is powered by a 1.6GHz Marvell 3282 CPU and 256MB of memory.

A basic black box, the ix2-dl features only power and status lights on the front panel, plus gigabit ethernet and a single USB 2.0 port on the back. The USB 2.0 port works with external storage drives or printers; or you could plug in a USB camera and use the drive for video surveillance.

The surveillance capabilities are available with the free MindTree SecureMind Surveillance app; you can also use the drive with the Axis Video Hosting System service and application, or with Iomega's own LifeLine Client. I took the first of these, the SecureMind app, for a spin; it's very easy to use and may be controlled locally or via the Web.

Beyond surveillance, the ix2-dl provides interfaces to social sites such as Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube; DLNA and iTunes media serving; bitttorrent downloading, iSCSI, and printer serving; plus integration with Amazon S3, Atmos Backup, and Mozy. The unit also provides its own backup routines as well as access via Iomega's portal-based Personal Cloud service.

For basic home media and storage use, this Iomega StorCenter is a full-featured NAS that will serve you well. Where the ix2-dl lags is in business-related applications such as email, Web, and VPN hosting.

While a decent reader, writing lots of smaller files and folders is the ix2-dl's weakness. With our 10GB mix of files, it wrote at only 20.2MBps—not the worst we've seen, but close to it. Write performance improved to 41.2MBps with our single 10GB file. If you're backing up PCs to the ix2-dl, you should opt for images rather than plain file backup for better speed. The ix2-dl read our 10GB file mix at a competent 35.5MBps and the large 10GB file at a healthy 86.5MBps.

For the average home or SOHO user, the ix2-dl is a two-bay NAS box that is easy to configure and use, and it won't cost you a fortune. Performance is fine for the price, and the features are all that most users will need. But small businesses should take a look at Synology's DiskStation DS212j or QNAP's TS-212, both of which offer cost-reducing server features for about the same price. (Our roundup from earlier this year can tell you more about some current NAS products.)

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Iomega StorCenter PX6-300d Review: Great Performance, Great Features

The Iomega StorCenter PX6-300d is a fast, fairly well-designed six-bay NAS box sporting many of the advanced features in network-attached storage that have emerged over the past several years. It's a tad unusual in that it mixes IT-type features such as management via the unit's LCD display with consumer-oriented perks such as support for social media sites Facebook and Flickr. And it's not cheap: As of March 23, 2012, its price was $1765 when packed with 8TB of drives (or $899 without any drives).

Flip open the front cover of the PX6-300d, and you'll find six slide-out drive trays. You secure the drives in the trays via screws, so they fall under the heading of user-serviceable, not quick-change. The back of the box has dual ethernet connectors with failover support in case one connection fails, but the ports don't support aggregation for more speed. Iomega includes two USB 3.0 ports, but no eSATA, which is unusual in a box of this price. The omission of eSATA may be an issue for buyers who want to use existing eSATA drives to back up the NAS box.

The PX6-300d's Linux-based LifeLine operating system is one of the few that comes close to matching the breadth of features available from the top-of-the-line NAS boxes from Synology and QNAP. It has an attractive design, provides animations to complement the configuration tools, and is easy to navigate. Features include DLNA-certified media serving, local backup, online backup to both Amazon S3 and Mozy, support for Time Machine and iSCSI, and onboard copy operations. The box also supports video surveillance--both local and over the Internet via the Axis Video Hosting service. In addition to handling backup, Iomega provides a Personal Cloud service that lets you share files easily across the Web. It uses Iomega's servers as a portal, but you can also access the box via normal ftp and http, which makes this a convenient feature.

With its latest firmware revisions, the PX6-300d, which sports a whopping 2GB of memory and a 1.8GHz Intel Atom D525 dual-core CPU, has significantly improved its performance. In RAID 5 mode, the box wrote our 10GB of mixed data and folders at 48.2 megabytes per second, and read the same file mix at 55.9 MBps. With a single large 10GB file, it wrote at 77.1 MBps and read at a very respectable 91 MBps. Those numbers are two to three times better than the ones we saw with last year's firmware, so if you already own a PX6-300d, by all means update.

The PX6-300D is fairly inexpensive, even when compared to most five-bay models in our 11-model roundup of NAS boxes. With good performance and features, it's a great choice for companies that want the capacity but don't need an eSATA port on board.

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