Supplier: ProVantage
Price: $161.49	Reviewed: Mar 1, 2009

TRENDnet TS-S402 NAS unit Author: Gh0sTly -- Posted: 2009-03-01 TRENDmicro is one of the leadning network device suppliers in the industry, and it really shows in their devices. Today we will be looking at the TS-S402 Network Attached Storage device. The TS-S402 is designed very well, and is much smaller than I imagined it would be. I was very happy with this, because not everyone has tons of desk space. The unit will hold upto two 1TB SATA hard drives, for a grand total of 2TB in JBOD, RAID 0, or RAID 1 configurations. This may be able to increased later with a firmware update. You get 5 indicator LEDs in the front for Power, System, HD1, HD2, and LAN that are bright and clearly labled. You also get one USB port in the front, but more on that a bit later. Once you open the faceplate door, you will see the 2 hard drive bays, as well as the SATA power/data connectors for each bay. I personally feel this could have been better designed by using a PC board and SATA connectors on the back of the board, but the cables have their merit as well. If you have a odd hard drive that isn\'t standard, you can still use it in this unit. The drive door is made of plastic, and is semi flexible. It only latches, but has no lock. I think I would have liked to see a lock of some sort, but its not needed. The TS-S402 has 2 USB ports and can be very useful. You can expand you NAS storage by adding more USB external hard drives and making them part of the NAS, or use it to copy files from an external device, be it flash drive, USB hard drive, or just about anything else. The USB ports are located on the front and back. The cooling capacity of the TS-S402 is well thought out, and should be able to cool two 1tb hard drives with ease, so heat should not be an issue for anyone. There is plenty of ventilation, as well as a 80mm fan that is efficient and quiet. It keeps my test unit hard drives cool with no issues. The firmware in the TS-S402 is actually quite impressive, and includes a iTunes server, UpnP server, a BitTorrent Client, and a NAS Printer server. The TS-S402 also can function as a FTP, allowing full file access over the internet, so you will never be without your data. The settings for each of these functions are very straightforward and very easy to use. It can also be accessed via Samba, and over HTTP. The NAS Utility can be used to access the files directly, as well as gain access to some of the more basic functions of the firmware in the TS-S402. When it comes to actual network connectivity, you get plenty of bandwidth in the form of a gb ethernet connection. This can be configured to run in DHCP or Static IP mode. I suggest DHCP, as it will be easier to setup. When it comes to our testing configuration, we used two Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500gb hard drives, in JBOD mode( both disks act as 1, for a total of 1tb of space. ) The TS-S402 is connected to a gigabit network, and the computer that will be transferring files to it will also have a gigabit network connection. We will be using a ISO file that is 3.65gb, and we will time the transfer, as well as record the average transfer speed. Transfer to TS-S402 from PC: Average transfer speed: 11.6MB/sec Total transfer time: 5:27 Transfer to PC from TS-S402: Average transfer speed: 12.7MB/sec Total transfer time: 4:58 As you can see, this setup is quite capable of any large backups you may need to do, and lag should not even be an issue if you was to use it to stream music or HD video over the network. I tested the HD video playback from the TS-S402 to my Playstation 3, and it never missed a beat. As you can see, the TS-S402 from TRENDnet is a ideal Network Attached Storage device, and has lots of flexibility. At its price point, its a great buy, and with the price of 1tb hard drives coming down every week, this could be a NAS box with 2tb of hard drive space for less than $400. I would definitely suggest it to someone looking to get a full featured NAS box. I would like to thank TRENDnet for letting me review this fine product, and I look forward to reviewing more from them soon. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

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