Tagan Icy Box IB-NAS4220-B

CONCLUSION

Once setup was complete, I began a series of tests to check out the performance of the Icy Box IB-NAS4220-B. Being rather practical myself and more interested in "real world" performance than a bunch of statistics, I decided upon a fairly practical method of testing. Here's how I set it up:

• I connected the IB-NAS4220-B to a Gigabit Ethernet switch (Zonet ZFS3108)
• I also connected my main system (Abit IP-35 Pro with Intel E6750 Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of PC-6400 DDR2)to the Gigabit Ethernet switch via an onboard Gigabit Ethernet connection.
• Additionally, I connected two older computers to the Gigabit Ethernet switch via Linksys 10/100 Ethernet cards. One system is a P4 3.06 GHz with 512MB of RDRAM. The other is a P4 Celeron system running at about 1.5 GHz with 512MB SDRAM. These were thrown in to add network traffic and were set to download large files from the Internet during testing.
• Using my main system, I transferred 2 large files to the IB-NAS4220-B and then transferred them back from the NAS to my PC. I did this 5 times and averaged the results.
• All PCs used in the test were running Windows XP so results may vary with Vista users.

Here's what I found:

• Transferring a 105MB file from NAS to PC took an average of 5 seconds (21 MB/s)
• Transferring a 664MB file from NAS to PC took an average of 33 seconds (20.12 MB/s
• Transferring a 105MB file from PC to NAS took an average of 7 seconds (15 MB/s
• Transferring a 664MB file from PC to NAS took an average of 51 seconds (13.02 MB/s)

Interesting results! Sending a file to the IB-NAS4220-B actually takes longer than pulling it back up. With an average speed of about 20.56 MB/s from NAS to PC, this Icy Box should have no issue acting as a media server or other network storage device on any modern network. And with an average rate of about 14 MB/s, sending large video files to the IB-NAS4220-B is definitely a tolerable and worthwhile endeavor.

For the last little bit of testing, I tried an even more unscientific experiment. I ripped a copy of the DVD "The Descent" and copied the files over to the Icy Box. I then launched a software-based DVD player on 3 computers at the same time and played the same movie file on each simultaneously. Even serving up the exact same file to 3 different systems, the Icy Box performed flawlessly.  Playback on all systems was smooth and continuous, as if the DVD were actually playing directly on a local drive on each system. It was at that point that I realized just a fraction of the potential for this device and decided it would make an excellent foundation for a home entertainment system.

Final Thoughts

My initial thought when I found out I was going to be reviewing the Icy Box IB-NAS4220-B was that it was going to be very similar to some of the external storage solutions I've used in the past. I was at first disappointed that it only had a USB 2.0 interface and not ESATA, but again, I guess I was thinking about simple external drive boxes that attach directly to a PC - not Network Attached Storage (NAS). Since the Icy Box attaches to a network (hence the whole Network Attached thing!), it wasn't until I received it that it hit me - this thing uses a Gigabit Ethernet connection for communication. The USB ports are really for getting data into the NAS rather than out. Their other purpose is to provide a port for setting up a print server.

Anyway, my point is that I had to rethink the design and purpose of the Icy Box, and I realized that the people at Tagan really did know what they were doing when they built this thing! I was very impressed and the more time I spent with it, the more ideas I came up with as how to use it. The Icy Box IB-NAS4220-B is a well constructed and versatile device with a ton of functionality. I highly recommend it for home users looking for a better way to store and serve data of any type, whether it be movies, music, photos, or just data files.

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