Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E - NAS - $135 Shipped

Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E - NAS

previous best price i've seen lately is $150... price seems to bounce around a bit.

info below from Amazon...

Technical Details
Fujitsu Siemens SCALEO Barebone Home Server - Intel SS4200E (SS4200EHW upgraded to SS4200E, 256mb bootable DOM)
Intel® Celeron® 420 processor (1.6 GHz, 512 KB, L2 Cache), 512 MB DDR2 Memory
Compatible with 4 SATA Hard Drives (sold separately)
RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support, Gigabit Ethernet support
EMC Retrospect and Lifeline Software included

Product Description
The Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E is a complete yet flexible hardware and software NAS solution that instantly adds storage capacity to small business and home networks. Powered by software from EMC, the worldwide leader in information management, the Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E offers an intuitive user interface and easy 4-step setup process. Out-of-the-box RAID and Retrospect backup software together deliver the necessary security to protect irreplaceable digital data like business files, photos, videos and music libraries. With four USB 2.0 ports and four SATA ports, the Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E can be connected to most digital devices as well as the home network, for shared, centralized data access. The Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E was designed with flexibility in mind, allowing you to customize and differentiate your solutions.

Mods before you get all excited and lock this one this appears to be a different seller Deal Stop not Legend Micro. Might link the two since there is a lot of info on set up in the other thread.

The price is good with free shipping with Amazon prime. Debating it myself. It is a discontinued product but the price for a four drive raid system can't be beat.

Use bing CashBack on eBay for 8% off bring it down to 125

Holly hell that is one cheap ass WHS box. There is a ton of stuff about OEM's installing WHS on this. Blows the doors off of a HP MediaSmart 945x, and its about $300 cheaper. Installing WHS on this is not for the faint of heart though, as it has no onboard video. The best news is its using a Celeron 430 which has 64bit support (unlike the ATOM which is in the mediasmart boxes) so this will run on the next edition on WHS which will be based on Server 2k8 R2 and will require 64bit processors.

I don't see this offered by Amazon prime.

Buy.com offers this for $135 also, with free shipping.
link

yeah because there is no real warranty, the product is EOL; the software is questionable (doesn't matter since you'll format it anyways) and the whs is $99.

its not compact at all.

i mean really you try you could probably find a small desktop with more power than this for the same price. the celeron doesn't have advanced power like a core duo or core solo so you'll be burning up alot of wattage.

I found this link explaining the power consumption on Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ss4200-e-nas-raid,2076-2.htm...

"You may have been a bit concerned by the aforementioned 250 watt power supply, and unfortunately, we have to confirm those worries. The Intel SS4200-E is not an energy-saving wonder. The NAS device uses a full 35 watts, even with a configuration of two hard drives put into sleep mode. When doing read and write operations with four hard drives, the power consumption used hovers around 70 watts. As expected, we measured the highest power consumption when turning on the device on: about 140 watts."

Here's what my friend had to say about this NAS box:

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/ss4200-e/sb/ss4200e_thol_11.pdf

"It’s the hardware compatibility list.

It won’t take a drive over 1TB, try to imagine how big that thing is with 4 drives layed out
Flat in it in a 2x2 frame. Nice that it takes a lot of extra ram though. Intel, they only make
Good chips lol."

My friend also had this to say:

"Well, you may be right, but perhaps you should research a bit deeper too <g>

Foistly:

I can only go by the hardware compatibility list given by Intel which says I would have to
Use a Deathstar1000 drive, and if Intel’s Customer support is so great on this unit , why didn’t
They update the thol list to show it takes 2TB drives, it’s dated 2008. That’s a big deal. Read on …

It took me 4 years to collect on my class action suit from my last deathstar drives. The fact
That Seagate drives can’t be used in it makes me very suspicious. That’s a 5yr vs 3yr warranty.

I will say this, I wouldn’t buy it because horizontal or vertical its BIG. And it’s a pain in the butt
to change out a bad drive. About like finding and changing a bad HD on a Raided Computer.
It’s a bit .. well .. stupid to make a redundant drive array in a suitcase.

Mobo mfg’s do a much better job of info sharing. Intel just has too much to do with Chip Design,
Mfg. They got sued bigtime from the EU and that’s in all likelihood why they’ve halved the price
of this unit dumping them off to resellers. My bet is the resellers are profiting nicely from these.
It originally came with no OS in it as an option which in 2004 isn’t instilling confidence.

The guy who wrote the BIG review from Adobe, loaded it up with ram. That’s what makes the
biggest difference in speed is file caching. Again, I do like that. It looks like programmers are
grabbing them up.

http://www.Amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A20KIH3G3HNRRD/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp

The ready nas is still king. 3 reviews on Amazon when this things been out since 2004 doesn’t
Yet instill confidence in me.

And this may be of interest to you:

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/pcn10971600.pdf

Customer Impact of Change and Recommended Action:
Contact your local Intel Sales Office or Distributor if you require
more information or need assistance in selecting a replacement product.

That Adobe guy is full of beans dude, great support ?? . Intel is discontinuing this product which
Means support will dry up on it and no updates. Netgear readynas’s are selling like hotcakes, I
expect them to be around a while. But then anything can happen. All I can say is stay in the
main stream and look for good deals on that. I’ve never had one problem with mine and I’ve
had it for 2 yrs. And upgraded it once. I haven’t checked recently. Its still under warranty.

Like I said, I’ll buy Intel Chips on Mobo’s but never ever an Intel product. Rule of thumb."

Bought one earlier this month. Having it humming in the basement with an Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 and 2GB of memory, learning WHS as we speak. I wanted NAS, backup, and streaming to my DSM-520.

ablang said: I can only go by the hardware compatibility list given by Intel which says I would have to
Use a Deathstar1000 drive...
..The fact That Seagate drives can’t be used in it makes me very suspicious.

OMG, not only a repetition of the deathstar crack whcih marks you as totally unknowledgeable on hard drives, but a recommendation of seagate (I)which for are the least reliable drives out there right, now completes the absurdity of this post.

FYI Deskstar have proven to be the most reliable drives on average ever made. When IBM had it there were over 220 deskstar models, two of which had problems during their initial few months of production.

Seagates long warranty is completely useless. In year four if your drive fails that means it is probably 1/5 of current capacity in other words if you bought a high end seagate four years ago it would be a 240 or 320 gb drive worth about $10 today. who cares if they will replace it? It is a gimmick desinged to fool fools. (And before you say seagate will give you a new current model the hardware forums show they will give you an ancient refurb.)

ablang said: The ready nas is still king.

The ReadyNAS hasn't been king for a while. Go to smallnetbuilder, there are more capable quality systems and for less money. QNAP is crushing them on performance and features right now and they have good service too (except for a few countries like Singapore where they sold the rights to sell and service their products to a lesser company).

The other big problem with the ReadyNAS has been that the NV+ is way out of date and the NVX wasn't offered in a 0TB configuration for those who want to make an affordable system themselves. But this last part has changed now. You can get a ReadyNAS NVX Pioneer edition (0TB) on Amazon now for $700, which is right in line with the offerings of other companies.

I do find it weird to even compare a ReadyNAS or QNAP in a thread which is about getting a server for $150.

aero1 said:
Seagates long warranty is completely useless. In year four if your drive fails that means it is probably 1/5 of current capacity in other words if you bought a high end seagate four years ago it would be a 240 or 320 gb drive worth about $10 today. who cares if they will replace it? It is a gimmick desinged to fool fools. (And before you say seagate will give you a new current model the hardware forums show they will give you an ancient refurb.)

Not to mention Seagate charges you shipping when you RMA the dead drive.

davneil said:
I am unable to get my WHS working, I bought OEM but still no luck. Could you point me to FreeNAS install instruction for this? (Unattended).

Did you try the instructions at WHS-Wiki ?

I haven't tried it yet since my SS4200 is still on a UPS truck, but most people seemed to have had success, so am just curious. Also, note, that one of the posts on a forum thread, someone had mentioned that only one USB port had worked for him. So, if you already have the USB image all created, you may want to try with difference USB ports and see if one of them works for you.

Please post your experience if you have any success.

YumRaj said: davneil said:
I am unable to get my WHS working, I bought OEM but still no luck. Could you point me to FreeNAS install instruction for this? (Unattended).

Did you try the instructions at WHS-Wiki ?

I haven't tried it yet since my SS4200 is still on a UPS truck, but most people seemed to have had success, so am just curious. Also, note, that one of the posts on a forum thread, someone had mentioned that only one USB port had worked for him. So, if you already have the USB image all created, you may want to try with difference USB ports and see if one of them works for you.

Please post your experience if you have any success.

1. I faced two issues, my final image transfer to USB stick gives error message DOSNET.inf not found, although it is there.
2. Then I have prepared the USB key and copied all files and I cannot say what my system is doing because it is just accessing and working (How long for install not sure?).
3. I have one 640gb drive in it, not sure do I need all four. My main reason of WHS is to have different size drives.
4. Good point on USB port I will try that. I can still see from Web via EMC SW that my 640gb is on 1 which I think is also required for WHS install. ----> When I was writing this reply I realized if I can access this via web then it has not booted via my USB.. Dang!
I think my Image is fine and my PC died where I wanted to test it first. Essentially just checking the initial boot. -- I am testing in now VM after comment on 4 when I learned it is not doing anything.

Does anyone know how to test the USB slipstream installation on VMware or Fusion before trying on SS4200?

YumRaj said: Does anyone know how to test the USB slipstream installation on VMware or Fusion before trying on SS4200? I tested the ISO by mounting it. But, Yes I am also wondering about the same. VM does not give option to install from a folder.

MY USB creation is faulty. I had older version and there were missing option. Trying on XP creation will post how it goes.

aero1 said: A proper working slipstream with ss4200 drivers will be in the wild very shortly.

aero1: While I absolutely appreciate what you're trying to do, honestly, I'm personally a little paranoid by nature, especially with the recent stories related to Google, China and 20-34 other companies, and would rather not install my NAS with an image downloaded over the internet.
I stand by my earlier comment in the other intel thread, copied below, and would advise others to use caution. Ideally people should create their own images, the instructions are fairly clear, though as I mentioned I haven't received my SS4200 to haven't tried them yet.

My other comment:
No offense intended, just being extra careful: While I do absolutely appreciate benben888's instructions above and the fact that he even uploaded his/her ISO, I would actually caution people from directly using that ISO to install on their SS4200's in case there is some malware. Again, absolutely no offense intended, but unless you know the person personally, installing the OS of the NAS which will contain loads of personal information from an unknown source is dangerous. Call me paranoid, but this is just IMHO.

Did you remember to detach the DOM before trying your WHS USB install?

davneil said: YumRaj said: davneil said:
I am unable to get my WHS working, I bought OEM but still no luck. Could you point me to FreeNAS install instruction for this? (Unattended).

Did you try the instructions at WHS-Wiki ?

I haven't tried it yet since my SS4200 is still on a UPS truck, but most people seemed to have had success, so am just curious. Also, note, that one of the posts on a forum thread, someone had mentioned that only one USB port had worked for him. So, if you already have the USB image all created, you may want to try with difference USB ports and see if one of them works for you.

Please post your experience if you have any success.

1. I faced two issues, my final image transfer to USB stick gives error message DOSNET.inf not found, although it is there.
2. Then I have prepared the USB key and copied all files and I cannot say what my system is doing because it is just accessing and working (How long for install not sure?).
3. I have one 640gb drive in it, not sure do I need all four. My main reason of WHS is to have different size drives.
4. Good point on USB port I will try that. I can still see from Web via EMC SW that my 640gb is on 1 which I think is also required for WHS install. ----> When I was writing this reply I realized if I can access this via web then it has not booted via my USB.. Dang!
I think my Image is fine and my PC died where I wanted to test it first. Essentially just checking the initial boot. -- I am testing in now VM after comment on 4 when I learned it is not doing anything.

found some refurbs for sale... not bad price... $179 after shipping
link