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	Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Discuss this article Flame the author     In this article Introduction Dell PowerVault 775N Excel Meridian Data NetStor MVD Hewlett-Packard HP StorageWorks NAS B3000 First Intelligent Array POPnetserver 8000 Procom Technology NetForce 1800 Executive Summary | Web Links How We Tested Report Card

We were impressed with the NetStor MVD. The least expensive unit of the bunch, this NAS device has fine configuration and management features. However, the system's biggest drawback is its lack of integration with ADS, and its excellent performance numbers came with a minor caveat.

The MVD software is based on Red Hat Linux and is produced by a third party, Mountain View Data. The device we received came with 1 TB of external Ultra320 SCSI storage redundantly connected to the head unit. It can be expanded to 16 TB. The head unit comes with two copper Gigabit Ethernet NICs and can hold up to four more NICs. The heart of the machine is a 2.4-GHz Intel Xeon processor with 1 GB of RAM. The head unit is actually a Supermicro machine--a Supermicro case with a Supermicro motherboard. It has dual power inputs with dual hot-swappable redundant power supplies. The RAID controller is integrated into the external chassis.

The NetStor MVD turned in some good test results--so good we had to look twice. Turns out the vendor had enabled write caching on the head unit, and the external RAID array comes with write caching turned on by default. Turning on write caching will do wonders for performance, but it's a dangerous practice without using a UPS unit. This is not a big deal; however, the decision should be left to the customer based on performance and data-protection needs. That said, even when we turned off write caching, the NetStor MVD performed very well, turning in winning numbers on the CIFS linear read and the NFS linear write tests. The unit was snappy and deftly handled everything we threw at it.