Seagate's Black Armor NAS 400

With so much electronic documents and pictures piling up in our computer, GrabTechDude.net believe that it’s about time to get a good data storage with big capacity to store more than what we have right now.  Well, it's pretty obvious that you were wondering why not buy some of those sleek designed data storage that is available in the market.  That’s good, if you’re in mobile with less than 1TB of files but if you have more than and you’re planning to have it in the house or in the office where it is much secured from the possibility of accidents then go for bigger storage device.  Much better if it is a network attached storage device.  And perhaps that's a big start as we at GrabTechDude.net elevates.

Since we’re searching for some good grabs for the future of Grabtechdude.net, we are searching and trying to know some of the brands has good data storage features.   So we will be having a possible test of different devices more often (hopefully and if we can afford).  First on our list is the Seagate Black Armor NAS 400.

For a start let us get to know a bit of the brand first, Seagate has been well known for having great line of products when it comes to hard drives. They are the number one manufacturer of hard drives and storage solutions worldwide. So it’s a good start to know what Seagate has to offer especially with their Black Armor NAS 400, by the way NAS stands for Network Attached Storage.

I believed Black Armor NAS 400 was released a few years ago already and many tech experts have shared their thoughts about this product. There were positive reviews and of course there were negative reviews already but since we are on the look, testing and trying wouldn't hurt at all.

Product Features and Capability
The Seagate Black Armor NAS 400 has some good features to offer.

• Good hardware. This network storage device carries a good capacity to store data, with its four empty bays, clear and ready to accommodate four (4) Seagate drives or compatible drives but much better if it is a Seagate brand drive.  Hard drives are not included in this network storage device and the hard drives are each sold separately.  For our testing purposes, it accommodates four hard drives with 500GB capacity summing a total storage capacity of 2TB.  It supports RAID 0/1/5/10 and JBOD configuration as well.  It has two Ethernet ports for local network connection, a port failover and NAS to NAS backup; it also has four USB 2.0 ports for external drives, printers and UPS if you don’t want to get interrupted; and its running capacity with 1.2 GHZ processor with 256 MB RAM.
• Data protection and security. The Black Armor NAS 400 provides layered protection to keep data safe and secured. Some of these features are the incremental and full-system automatic backup, bare-metal restore to recover the entire system in case there’s PC hardware failure, Seagate volume recovery in the event that the drives are accidentally removed, and the ability to choose the level of encryption security.  With this feature, we weren't able to test its full potential due to minimal devices.  
• Data management. Black Armor NAS 400 does not only restrict its capability in a network or in an office but let’s you command your data even when you’re away in the field. These are its specific features remote management using DDNS, secure FTP server functionality that lets you access remotely all files over FTP with SSL/TLS protection, plus the use of Seagate Global Access service lets you securely access files from any popular web browser with no special software required.
• Accessibility and capability. With its feature of storing and protecting data, the product speaks for it but I don’t know if it is due to the LAN that I’m using or due to the computer, the speed is quite erratic.  All in all, the product is well and good especially for home or a small startup business.  Also according to them these devices can accommodate up to 50 units of computer.

Design
The Seagate Black Armor NAS 400 design is a little bit old fashioned it’s more likely compared to the armor worn during the medieval era. Perhaps they should have a much better design. A more sci-fi and futuristic look. The taste of the color black is great and just right for its name. The four compartments of drives are just fine and it’s not too hard or too complicated to attach and detach. The LCD monitor is just fine and it’s readable enough, perhaps if they’re going to re-design it they should consider also the look of the LCD screen.

Unit Price and Where to Buy
Locally the price of a Seagate Black Armor NAS 400 varies from different tech and gadget stores. I was able to list down some of the stores (online and offline) that sells a Seagate Black Armor NAS 400.

STORE/ ONLINE	PRICE
Sulit.com (http://sulit.com.ph/5570242)	Php18,000.00
PCWorx	Php14,999.00
Ayosdito.ph (http://m.ayosdito.ph/vi/4295050.htm?ca=5_s)	Php19,499.00

Among the three who sells Seagate Black Armor NAS 400 I find PC Worx the cheapest.   Not yet sure if there are others cheaper than that.

Conclusion
Using one laptop and one netbook we were able to use the Seagate Black Armor NAS 400 as data storage.    The transfer and sharing of data is much more accessible without sacrificing the processing and storage capacity of each computer.  Thus, a more recommended device for use not only in a home network but much better in an office network where data transfer is needed often.