LG N4B1 Super Multi NAS With Blu-ray Rewriter

LG N4B1 Super Multi NAS With Blu-ray Rewriter



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Key Specs
Capacity: Drive-dependent
Interface: Gigabit Ethernet; USB; four-format memory-card reader
Spin Rate: Drive-dependent
Dimensions (HWD): 11.4x7.5x10.7 inches
Weight: 15.4 pounds (without drives)

Review
Reviewed by: John R. Delaney
Review Date: July 2009

Small-business and consumer-grade network-attached-storage (NAS) drives have grown like topsy over the last several years, thanks to the ever-expanding need for network access to (and backup of) bushels of media and data files. There's certainly no shortage of drives on the market (we recently looked at 13 of them), and most of the ones we've seen don't differ tremendously from one another.

As a result, we have to give props to LG Electronics. The company's N4B1 Super Multi NAS With Blu-ray Rewriter is a unique four-bay NAS enclosure featuring a built-in Blu-ray burner, plus a smart mix of connectivity ports and a user-friendly interface. In addition to FTP, print-server, and iTunes-server support, it provides an easy way to archive optical media, and it's a snap to install. Our only complaint: At $799, it’s expensive, given the fact that you have to supply your own hard drives.



The N4B1 is larger than most four-bay enclosures.



Measuring 11.4x7.5x10.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 15.4 pounds, the N4B1 is much bulkier than other four-bay enclosures we've seen, such as Seagate’s BlackArmor NAS 440, which is nearly 4 inches shorter. The enclosure is a glossy white cabinet with the LG badge affixed to each side. Behind a silver door on the front of the unit are four bays for hot-swappable hard drives. Above them are a tray-loading 8x-write Blu-ray burner, a small two-line LCD status panel, and four function buttons (Set, Mode, Power, and Disc Open). A flash-memory-card reader (supporting the SD, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, and xD-PictureCard formats) and a USB port are located below the drive bays. Around back are two additional USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and an external Serial ATA (eSATA) port for connecting an external drive.



A card reader and a USB port are located on the lower front.


Each of the four drive bays contains a numbered drive caddy with a locking latch that holds it firmly in place. Included in the box are screws for securing the drives to the caddies, as well as a set of screws that can be used to hold the caddies in place to prevent accidental removal. What are not included are the actual hard drives, which you’ll have to supply yourself. (LG did send us four 1TB drives for use in our tests.)



The numbered drive trays slide easily in and out of the enclosure.


Pressing the Set button displays key status information, such as the NAS IP address, storage capacity, and cooling-fan speed, while the Mode button is used to perform quick and easy backups to and from the Blu-ray drive. The drive supports rewritable media, which means you can perform multiple backups on a single disc using BD-RE and DVD-RW media, so long as you keep the writing session open. Data can be archived as backup sets or burned directly to disc. Copy-protected content, such as movies, cannot be archived, however. The Mode button is also used to back up USB drives or flash-memory cards and to manually change the IP address.

As with most NAS devices, the N4B1 is a multifunction appliance. In addition to its primary role as a shared data-storage repository, it can be pressed into service as an FTP server, and it has iTunes and print-server capabilities, as well. The Web-based interface is straightforward and intuitive, making it easy to create and manage user accounts, shares, and groups, as well as schedule backups using the included Comnso backup-and-restore software. From within the management console, you can view and edit drive volumes; set up power-saving features such as timed hibernation; tweak IP and other LAN settings; and synchronize with external devices.



The back-panel port array: Ethernet and eSATA, plus two additional USB.

Installing the N4B1 was fairly easy, thanks to the well-written quick-install guide, but it was time-consuming. After the drives were installed and the device was connected to our four-port router, we were prompted to insert the included LG NAS Installer disc, which walks you through the RAID-configuration choices. We chose the default setting of RAID 5 (RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD are also options), since we were using four identical drives, and it took a little over 16 hours for the N4B1 to format and configure the drives. Once the drives were ready to go, we set up a public share folder, which was immediately recognized in Vista’s Network folder. The Blu-ray drive also showed up as a network optical drive. It’s worth noting that the N4B1 is extremely quiet; if not for the blue glow of the LCD panel, you would never know the device was running.

Performance-wise, the N4B1 turned in mixed results on our transfer-speed tests. It needed 15 minutes and 46 seconds to write our 10GB test folder, which was almost twice as long as the Seagate BlackArmor’s write time, but almost identical to that of the ZyXel NSA220. Its read time of 5 minutes and 35 seconds was only 1 minute and 44 seconds shy of the Seagate BlackArmor's time, however, and 41 seconds faster than the D-Link DNS-343, another four-bay small-biz-focused enclosure we tested recently. We burned the same 10GB folder from the NAS to an included BD-RE disc using the Blu-ray drive; it took 37 minutes and 54 seconds—not terribly fast, but not surprising, either, considering the supplied media was only capable of 2x write speeds.

The LG N4B1 offers several ways to archive and share your data, and the inclusion of a Blu-ray writer makes it easy to transfer data between the storage drives and various optical-media formats. Still, it’s a pricey solution when you factor in the cost of outfitting it with four high-capacity hard drives. For a few hundred dollars more, the Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 offers a complete and more compact 4TB NAS solution, if you can make do without the Blu-ray burner.
Price (at time of review): $799 (list)

Editors'
Rating
8.0

Pros
Built-in Blu-ray drive; generous port selection; easy installation

Cons
Expensive; bulky; price does not include hard drives

Editors' Take
With an integrated Blu-ray drive, the N4B1 is one of the most versatile four-bay NAS devices around, but you'll need deep pockets to afford it—not to mention the hard drives it requires.