Seagate Unveils BlackArmor 440 - Great Design, Huge Storage

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

If there's one technology that's become huge over the past few years that I've been most pleased with, it would have to be network-attached storage. The concept is simple... have a dedicated box on the network that you can copy files to and share between computers. It's also great as a backup solution (and one I rely on heavily). Things like that become even more important for a business, which is why Seagate has unveiled their BlackArmor 440.

Although targeted at small businesses, there's no reason a media-heavy home user couldn't take full advantage of what it offers. I don't know about you guys, but I have to say that this is one of the best-looking NAS boxes I've ever laid my eyes on. It's also larger than most, and demands respect. The pure black matte and glossy aesthetic adds even more to the appeal.

This thing is built for security, so it offers a slew of hardware and software-based solutions. Each installed drive comes wrapped in a sturdy casing, or "armor", and are of course hot-swappable. Also included are a variety of security features you'd expect to see, such as password protection and encryption. You'll also notice the LCD display, which displays relevant information, although we're unsure what exactly.

Though this is one great-looking solution, it's not inexpensive. The 2TB model comes in at $799.99, while the 4TB jumps to $1,199 and 6TB to $1,699. Expensive, but if you run a small business, the extra security is usually worth it.

Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 storage server is a comprehensive business continuity solution to store, protect and secure your small business data and digital content. With multiple internal drives, BlackArmor NAS 440 is a self-contained network storage server designed with flexibility in mind. Centralize and expand your storage to reliably manage access. Securely manage and share digital business assets, locally or remotely through Seagate Global Access service.

Source: Seagate's BlackArmor NAS​

 

[Kougar]

Sounds a bit steep, but considering most NAS devices ship WITHOUT drives, its actually not a rip off.

Pricewise and feature wise I still recommend QNAP's products all the way though.

 

[Merlin]

I dont know if I would ever trust Seagate again after freeagent.

 

[Kougar]

I dont know if I would ever trust Seagate again after freeagent.

That's a good point. Their FreeAgent drives are the worst excuses of a drive that I have ever seen. What's worse, the drives were good... it was the cheap hardware they used with them that was causing most of the problems. I wonder how "cheap" the hardware in this is.

 

[Greg King]

I dont know if I would ever trust Seagate again after freeagent.

Thats total rubbish to sign off on an otherwise stellar company because of a bad line of products. Intel is soaring after their whole netburst fiasco. WD has had their troubles and to think about it, I can't name a single major player that hasn't tripped up once or twice along the way. ATI... NVIDIA... everyone has had bad priducts.

That said, everyone I just mentioned does not make products that if they go bad, would destroy your years of data so while I understand your fear of trusting them again, writing them off completely is silly.

 

[Rob Williams]

I agree that a company shouldn't be written off for one screw-up, but in some regards, I do agree. The FreeAgent issue wasn't small, and it caused a LOT of people grief. Just take a look at the related thread here... people are still posting in there with their problems. The worst of it is that Seagate just didn't seem to care too much, because I referred them to that thread three times and not once did they post an official response.

Still, I have no doubts that the company has made improvements since their original units, and this product here in particular is built for ultimate security, so I'm doubtful they cut any corners.

 

[Kougar]

Thats total rubbish to sign off on an otherwise stellar company because of a bad line of products. Intel is soaring after their whole netburst fiasco.

How about because Seagate is STILL selling FreeAgent external drives, and I don't believe they have fixed the problems with them? Intel is doing fine because they stopped selling Netburst.

Have Seagate's FreeAgent drives suddenly become reliable? If a company continues to insist on forcing a bad product to market then that isn't a promising management decision. It speaks ill of what else they may have "decided" whether in the design of or quality of components used in very similar products.

If anything a NAS is even more critical component than a single external drive... there could be 4x the data lost should anything occur to a RAID array in one of these things. Seagate has proven they aren't trustworthy building external storage solutions.

 

[Greg King]

How about because Seagate is STILL selling FreeAgent external drives, and I don't believe they have fixed the problems with them? Intel is doing fine because they stopped selling Netburst.

Have Seagate's FreeAgent drives suddenly become reliable? If a company continues to insist on forcing a bad product to market then that isn't a promising management decision. It speaks ill of what else they may have "decided" whether in the design of or quality of components used in very similar products.

If anything a NAS is even more critical component than a single external drive... there could be 4x the data lost should anything occur to a RAID array in one of these things. Seagate has proven they aren't trustworthy building external storage solutions.

Fair point.

With this NAS, I would like to think that there was a considerable amount of R&D that has gone into the BlackArmor. An external hard drive is a consumer device but a NAS of this size and price point is clearly aimed at the small to medium business market. This is a FAR less forgiving segment. I don't think it's fair to judge the reliability of this NAS based upon the FreeAgent problems. Aside from the 1.5TB firmware issues, their drives are still stop notch and Seagate is directly responsible for many WD drives coming with 5 year warranties now too. The problems that most have had with the FreeAgents has been that the PC has not been able to recognize them. This can be attributed more to the board on the external enclosure rather than the drives themselves being bad.

I take more issue with their willingness to back up the affected consumers more than the shitty track record of the device itself. Mistakes happen and its nice to think that a company will, in good faith, make good on the wrongs.

To be fair though, I was unaware that Rob has invited Seagate to come in and address the issue in the forums and that seems unfortunate that they wouldn't use our forums to reach the mass of people that have posted in that thread.

While I can't speak to the BlackArmor directly, for NAS needs, it's Synology or QNAP all the way for me. I have had nothing but phenomenal success in working with their products (both reviewed and purchased).

 

[Kougar]

That's very true... If they are targeting this as a business solution (You're right, they probably are) then they've probably ensured it isn't going to fail after a year of use.

Aside from the 1.5TB firmware issues, their drives are still stop notch and Seagate is directly responsible for many WD drives coming with 5 year warranties now too.

It didn't help their first firmware "fix" had a bug in it that bricked perfectly good drives. That Seagate paid for any critical data recovery was a nice comeback though I will admit. Don't forget Seagate no longer offers 5 year warranties though, they dropped them to 3.

I also agree, QNAP is the only NAS solution I'd recommend. Their products are great, they listen to customer/reviewer feedback on their designs, and their end user support looks to be as good as it gets.

 

[Greg King]

That's very true... If they are targeting this as a business solution (You're right, they probably are) then they've probably ensured it isn't going to fail after a year of use.



It didn't help their first firmware "fix" had a bug in it that bricked perfectly good drives. That Seagate paid for any critical data recovery was a nice comeback though I will admit. Don't forget Seagate no longer offers 5 year warranties though, they dropped them to 3.

I also agree, QNAP is the only NAS solution I'd recommend. Their products are great, they listen to customer/reviewer feedback on their designs, and their end user support looks to be as good as it gets.

This is kind of a needless back and forth because I also think that they totally screwed the pooch with the 1.5TB fiasco.

Well God damn, your right. They did drop the warranty to 3 years on everything but the ES line of drives. Sorry for not catching that.

I do love some QNAP NAS devices and my personal fave is Synology. Both those companies make top notch products. To be far though, Thecus has scored well in our reviews but it seems that Synology and QNAP continually improve performance through updated system software and my upping the hardware specs. They put a lot of time and effort into their products and it shows. Both also have a very active forum section and actively address user issues.

Franklin over at Synology is a good buy and I've worked with him in the past. He puts a lot of time into the forums.

 

[Merlin]

Yuppers, My little Synology 207 with 2 TB Hitachi drives is the answer to what I wanted and even a bit more with the Ethernet Security camera update with the firmware.
I had only one case when I messed up a beta firmware and then had to put the drive into the computer, reformat and then re-install and relaod the manager.
Even with all of that I could retrieve my files, backup them to PC and reload into the NAS.
Just what the doc ordered and I still consider the Synology one of the best purchases I have ever made.
I just can't trust an unknown entity when I am totally satisfied with this compnay

 

[Greg King]

Yuppers, My little Synology 207 with 2 TB Hitachi drives is the answer to what I wanted and even a bit more with the Ethernet Security camera update with the firmware.
I had only one case when I messed up a beta firmware and then had to put the drive into the computer, reformat and then re-install and relaod the manager.
Even with all of that I could retrieve my files, backup them to PC and reload into the NAS.
Just what the doc ordered and I still consider the Synology one of the best purchases I have ever made.
I just can't trust an unknown entity when I am totally satisfied with this compnay

I got a press release a few days from our Synology PR rep and they now support the 2TB WD drives. I wish I had the money to get a pair, I could use the extra space. I was sad when I sent back the DS209+ that we looked at last month but my DS207+ is more than enough for me.

How are you liking your security station? I don't use this feature.

 

[Rob Williams]

I got a press release a few days from our Synology PR rep and they now support the 2TB WD drives. I wish I had the money to get a pair, I could use the extra space..

That's the humorous thing. These drives keep getting larger, but we keep filling them up. I'm in the same situation. I have a total of 2.25 TB in this machine and 1 TB in the NAS, and I feel like I need more space. I tend to back up a lot of Techgage-related data though, that weighs into the 1 TB alone. I'm just glad that storage is less-expensive than ever. But it's too bad that the nicest NAS boxes out there throw "inexpensive" out the window.

 

[Greg King]

They aren't cheap, but a good 4 bay NAS is relatively affordable and you can upgrade it with more storage as you go along. Get the NAS and a single 2TB drive (sadly that is still around $800) but then you have a VERY solid expandability path as your data storage needs grow. When fully populated, RAID 5 the four 2 TB drives and your looking at 6 TB of storage.

Wow, that's a total "perfect scenario" . No one has that kind of money laying around.

Even with a good 2 bay NAS, you can get 4TB of storage but your looking at RAID 0 and that shit just isn't trustworthy. I love having the safety net of RAID 1 to fall back on in the event of failure.

I currently have about 800GB of data that I don't ever want to loose. These include family pictures that I will never be able to get back (I also back those up to tape once a month but that's a completely different topic). I also have a lot of music and videos. All the programs, drivers and miscellaneous data that I have collected over the years, I could care less about.

To be honest, I am really liking Windows Home Server. There isn't RAID as we all know and understand it but there is a certain level of redundancy and the data is compressed and readily available. With WHS, you can add storage as you go along and regardless of size, any additional storage is mapped and added to the overall total of the box. It's pretty slick.

 

[Rob Williams]

To be honest, I am really liking Windows Home Server. There isn't RAID as we all know and understand it but there is a certain level of redundancy and the data is compressed and readily available. With WHS, you can add storage as you go along and regardless of size, any additional storage is mapped and added to the overall total of the box. It's pretty slick.

See, when taking a look at NAS boxes, I tend to think, "You might as well build your own server", and for the most part, I believe that would be a better idea, if space wasn't a real issue. Nowadays, you can build a modest SFF machine with a small Dual-Core CPU and a copy of WHS, and still probably cost a little bit less than the most robust NAS boxes out there.

Of course, it's not just the hardware that's expensive for NAS boxes, but the software, so in the end, I guess it really depends on what exactly your looking for. As for not having RAID available on WHS... isn't that more of a hardware option than an OS option?

 

[Kougar]

From reading y'alls post, are ya saying WHS replaces the need for any kind of RAID hardware, and actually manages this in software?

It'd be interesting to see a comparison with a complete SFF file server build using WFS compared to a NAS like the TS-409... It's only $400, and WHS by itself costs $100... I'd be willing to bet any NAS would consume less power as well, they use everything from Marvell SoCs to Intel Atoms now.

Although speaking of which maybe a file server built on an NVIDIA Ion platform or some other micro-sized board could be interesting, quite a few of those out...

 

[Greg King]

God no. WHS does not replace RAID and I am actually somewhat disappointing that it doesn't provide that option in setup. What it does do is provide a central location for all of your files, media and anything else that you want to store in digital form. I love it for it's simplicity. If you can install an OS, you can use WHS. It's ease of use opens it up to a MUCH larger crowd than those that would benefit from a NAS box. It's also built off of Server 2003 so it's stable as a rock.

I'm actually in the early stages of a look into WHS, NAS and the feasability of doing just what you said, building your own media repository with cheap components.

 

[Kougar]

Well, if a WHS box still requires RAID then I really don't see it being a cheaper option than many NAS's already out there!

I haven't used WHS so I can't honestly compare it to QNAP's configurability, but so far every setting I've wanted or needed has been easily available. WHS would have to be damn good to cost more than Vista Home Premium. From what I've heard lots of people seem to love WHS though, once they fixed the file corruption issues with Power Pack 1...

 

[Greg King]

Yeah, the PP1 issues were stupid and Microsoft couldn't have got the patch out quick enough. PP2 adds better Media Center support and I am in the process of testing it out now.

You can pick up WHS for $99. Far cheaper than every edition of Vista except the home basic upgrade installer. Perfect for that old PC that you might have laying around collecting dust.

 

[Kougar]

That's the same price as Vista Home Premium OEM. The retail version is only $20 more, sometimes drops to less though.

Had no idea PP2 even existed yet. Still in beta?