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Lab-Tested: All That NAS July 12, 1999 Meridian Data Snap! Server  Meridian Data is establishing itself as the low-end NAS-market master. Its most recent version of Snap shows dramatic improvements in performance and capacity. The server costs less than any of the others we tested--call it a bargain. The Snap is surprisingly fast and offers a full array of features, which earned it our Best Value award.
It should come as no surprise that the Snap's setup was easy. The outer case of the server consists of only a power plug and a 10/100 Ethernet port, which is as simple as it gets. After firing it up and browsing to the IP address, a Web-based wizard quickly went through a setup for both network and drive configurations. System security is established by running though the security wizard, which points the server to the PDC and allows it to log on. The Snap then imports the user and group list. Because it doesn't keep a perpetual list of users, we had to rerun the wizard when new users were added on the PDC. To maximize performance we set up the Snap for RAID 0. We were floored by how quickly it performed single-user file reads and writes. Further testing proved that at fewer than five test clients, it actually had write times twice as fast as the MetaStor server. We did have a few quibbles with the Snap. It lacks user disk quotas, which could become a serious issue on a server with only 32 GB of data. Administration could also benefit from a real-time load meter to monitor usage. An integrated backup method would keep maintenance to a minimum. But on a server this inexpensive, you can't expect everything. Snap! Server 2.0, ranges from $995 to $2,495, Meridian Data, (888) 343-SNAP, (831) 438-3100; fax (831) 438-6816. www.snapserver.com
Cobalt Networks NASRaQ Topping the list of features is its ultracompact 19-inch rackmountable 1U case and backlit front LCD for setup and administration. Similar to the Snap, the NASRaQ is designed around a dual IDE hard-drive configuration featuring dual 16-GB drives. Like the Snap, the NASRaQ supports either RAID 0 or RAID 1 on its pair of drives. It also supports additional external devices via its SCSI port. NASRaQ setup was even easier than setup for the Snap. We quickly established network parameters through the LCD panel in the front, then went through the Web-based setup wizard to finish the setup of the drive configuration and specific network preferences. The Web-based management interface was easy to use and had a very similar look and feel to that of the Snap. By adding the NASRaQ to the domain, users and groups were synched between the two, making security and user management a simple task. In addition to security, this server also supports user disk quotas. But the NASRaQ has one major drawback: performance. Although the setup and management features are impressive, performance is merely adequate. It turned in the worst performance of the bunch, taking nearly twice as long as the Snap for both read and writes. In addition, it crashed a few times during testing when the benchmarks became unstable. Worse yet was the excessive reboot time after each crash. It required 10 minutes to get back online, hindered by a time-consuming RAID volume scan. NASRaQ, starts at $2,799, Cobalt Networks, (888) 702-6225, (650) 930-2500; fax (650) 930-2501. www.cobaltnet.com Send your comments on this article to Dave Fetters at dfetters@nwc.com.
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The Snap has unique physical dimensions. It is compact--roughly half the size of a shoebox. Although not rackmountable, you can easily tuck the Snap into any wiring closet and forget about it.
A relative newcomer to the NAS market, Cobalt Networks has released its first NAS server for workgroup networks. When it comes to the low-end NAS market, a low price counts. But while Cobalt's server doesn't come cheap, the company has done a superb job of producing a quality server with features you would not expect in this class.
