This is the third post in the SMB/LAB NAS review. This review compares the following products on features and performance:

- Cisco NSS324
- Iomega IX4-200d
- Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6
- QNAP TS-859U-RP+
- Synology RS1511+

Today I describe my experiences with the Iomega IX4-200D. It was a pretty wanted device among virtualization fanatics somehow. Iomega, part of the EMC legacy these days, has come up with a couple of different 4-bay NAS devices.

One of the strong points of the Iomega is that it dynamically allocates space for iSCSI LUN’s, NFS shares, AFP shares, SMB shares; you don’t have to worry about that at all. Another unique feature is the Bluetooth upload (additional usb Bluetooth dongle needed). It is a bit of an outdated feature when you ask me; every device these days has wifi, but nevertheless a unique feature.

Compared to the other devices this is the only one that has no removable drive bays and therefore has no hot-swap functionality.

The device is, feature wise, the least attractive; it has the basic functionality but don’t expect any other plugins. The interface, I can’t say it otherwise, looks from the stone ages. Even though this device is the one that is on the market the longest I have to say this Iomega; this is not an interface you can offer in 2011, really!

In my eyes a con, but for some maybe a pro; it has an external power adapter (which in my case, made a pretty annoying high squeaking sound).

I really tried to make the part about the Iomega a bit more spicy and interesting but I’m just going to be honest here; this is no exciting device so my inspiration ends here. In my eyes this device definately does not deserve the EMC logo on it!

+ Bluetooth support
- Very outdated interface
- Limited functionality
- No hotswapping disks

STAY TUNED: Since this isn’t all; next week after the general reviews we’ll present to you a feature comparison and some performance indicators and of course the general conclusion.