Introduction
The growing acceptance of NAS appliances has lead us to review a product from an organization that claims to have implemented the first Network Storage Processor manufactured specifically for the NAS environment, and with 1 terabyte (TB) of disk storage as standard, and a price tag that is a tad under £1.00 per megabyte, we were keen to get our hands on the product and put it through its paces.

Nexon Technology, Inc, headquartered out of Orlando, Florida, with a UK office based in West Moseley, Surrey, is a relatively new player in the storage arena that focuses on providing Network Attached Storage solutions.

Nexon submitted to our labs their latest offering in the shape of the NexonNAS 1000, a compact pedestal case that measures a mere, 20cm(H) x 22cm (W) x 27cm (D), and houses 1 Terabyte of storage spread across a quartet of 250GB Serial ATA WD drives, mounted directly behind the front panel. The front panel has a series of vents to allow the heat to dissipate from the drives and keeps the temperature to an average of 40 degrees centigrade, depending on the environment it's placed within. Overheating does not seem to be too much of a concern as the power supply fan seems to be adequate and bolsters the flow of circulation.

Vital Stats
As far as the innards are concerned the NexonNAS 1000 has a few tricks up its sleeves an area where all the magic occurs. Many of the NAS appliances offered in the market are made up of server motherboards, with either Intel or AMD processors, the NexonNAS 1000 is rather different, a 32-bit RISC processor, with RAID functionality, four Serial ATA channels and Gigabit Ethernet all integrated sets it apart from the crowd, and creates its own uniqueness and adds panache to the current NAS platform. A Network Storage Processor (NSP) designed specifically for the NAS storage environment, a neat touch we felt, and certainly a candidate to bring NAS to the masses.

When it comes to the operating system, the NexonNAS doesn't disappoint, as the OS (NexOS) has been streamlined to fit on a 64Mb compact flash module, allowing for more hard disk storage to be shared over the network. The OS is based on a Linux-Kernel and not, as many are, on the Windows Storage Server 2003. (Microsoft has elected to appoint selected OEM's only, which, somewhat restricts choice for buyers if Windows is the preferred platform).

Talking with clients is a walk in the park for the NexonNAS, as it supports the CIFS/SMB, NFS and AFP file-sharing protocols to communicate simultaneously with Windows, Unix/Linux, as well as NetWare and Macintosh volumes, making it a strong candidate in a mixed environment where it's not feasible to install SMB or NFS protocol software on those clients.

Installation is a breeze, once out of the box all that is needed is to attached the Ethernet cable provided to the hub and the power cable to the mains, turn on and install the designated CD provided and you are in business under 10 minutes. Nexon supplies the unit ready configured with RAID 5 for data striping with parity, and if you are content with that and do not have a need to change, then you will be up and running in no time. Discovering the unit on the network is made simple by a neat little utility called RAIDar, as it obtains a random DHCP IP address.

Snapshot happy
As for the software features, the NexonNAS 1000 packs a mighty punch, with pertinent features that are very useful to ensure integrity and smooth operation without undue operational disruptions. The one feature that stands out amongst the crowd is the Snapshot feature. One of the major gripes for data backup and restoration has been the time needed to carry out these tasks and to verify integrity of the backup sets. Tape archive continues to suffer from time constraint backups as well as reliability of the backup when restoration is required. This is further hampered by undue interruptions to operations when backup is in progress; inevitably, backup is usually carried out in the wee hours, to avoid "open file" syndromes and interruptions to daily operations. So what are snapshots? Snapshots are fast point-in-time copies of volumes. Taking snapshots is so fast that the "Backup Window" issue plaguing most IT departments becomes virtually non existent. Up to one terabytes of data can be backed up in less than a second. Not impacting server performance and operational activities, it is the ultimate solution to satisfying short-term backup needs. Snapshots can play an important role in backing up data, disaster recovery and populating a secondary server with live data. Using snapshot technique requires some location where the snapshot metadata and copied data can reside. This location is referred to as a "diff area" short for difference area. The NexonNAS has made an allowance for this and has allocated 34MB to the "diff area"; the size can be increased if necessary. The snapshot feature also has an inbuilt scheduler that leverages continuous replication of snapshots with no manual intervention.

Salient Features
Another pleasurable feature is "Background RAID sync" which lets the RAID sync process work in the background whilst releasing the use of the volume without having to wait for hours. Smart "sync resume" is a feature that allows you to continue from where you left off, in cases of a power outage, or any accidental loss of power during the RAID sync process. Most us would be contented with 1 terabyte of storage, but for others it may just suffice and ultimately users will need to be restricted to a portion of the overall storage available, and the Nexon's "Disk Quota" feature does exactly that. Allocation can be set per user, or per application password protected if required dictated by the security setting level selected.

Another feature that rates as a must have is "Data Journaling" this means that changes to the contents of a file itself are written to the journal. Essentially, writes are double buffered to ensure they can be recovered, just like metadata. This type of journaling provides the highest level of protection for your data. Office users that have little or no urge grappling with IT related issues will applaud salient features such as; UPS monitoring that allows the continues monitoring of UPS attached to the NexonNAS that sends alerts whenever a power outage occurs and the UPS battery takes over, or when the battery runs low the NexOS shuts down to avoid potential file corruption. Alerts are sent via email not only for UPS monitoring - but, for all issues relating to problems occurring with the appliance. As much as this is a nice touch, a word of caution, if a power outage does occur; it is highly unlikely your system will be operational to receive email alerts, so dependency on this should be minimal if power outages are an issue in your location. Another feature for users that is cool is; Print Server readiness - this allows for printers to be attached via the USB port and are instantly recognised by FrontView the GUI portion of NexOS that automatically creates print shares.

Backup with Genie
The icing on the cake for us was the bundled backup software, GBM Pro Network from Genie-Soft. Backups can be achieved from any windows system directly onto the NexonNAS and automatic scheduling makes it easy to ensure backups are timely. Any user that currently does not have a structured backup solution will do well to get the NexonNAS 1000 as it offers everything that is required for a cost effective backup solution. Genie-Soft are offering a competitive upgrade to the full version of GBM Pro at a special discounted price for Nexon users. We were unable to confirm upgrade pricing at the time of going to press.

Our Verdict
Our performance testing was done by mapping a volume to a Windows Server 2003 system, and using the open source Iometer. Over the Gigabit Ethernet Iometer reported a transfer rate of 72MB/s which is good, as it compares with other NAS appliances in its class.

This is where the comparison ends. The NexonNAS 1000 form factor is appealing as it can be tucked away neatly without being obtrusive. It offers a huge helping of network storage, at a price that will appeal to small and medium sized companies, where ease of use plus the built in dynamic expansion, snapshot and backup facilities make it an excellent choice.

The price and specification of the NexonNAS 1000 sets standards that other vendors will struggle to follow, let alone beat. The NexonNAS 1000 deservedly scoops our prestigious One2Surf Excellence Award.

Product	NexonNAS 1000
Vendor	Nexon Technology
Phone	020 8002 9693 / 020 8224 0444
Web	http://www.thenexon.com
Pricing inc VAT (UK)	£995.00 (1169.13 inc VAT)
Warranty and support	One year parts and labour
Drive bays (total/free)	4/0
Drive manufacturer	Western Digital
Drive size	250GB
Total (raw) storage	1TB
Drive RPM	7200
Disk connectivity	Serial ATA
Network connection	Gigabit Ethernet
CPU	32-bit RISC - NSP
Memory	128MB DDR SDRAM
NAS OS	Linux-Kernel based NexOS, with FrontView GUI Management.
Dimensions (H/W/D)	20cm x 22cm x 27cm
Weight	9kg (with 4 drives)
Protocol Support	CIFS, NFS, NCP, AFP, HTTP, and FTP
USB ports	Yes x 2 / UPS / Printers / Wireless