NAS products are a little less common than motherboards and videocards on our “to-review” list, and thus it was a pleasure to finally be able to take a closer look at the long awaited Western Digital ShareSpace, in our case a 2TB version running in striped RAID mode.

First, a quick primer is needed for both RAID and NAS, which stands for Network Attached Storage – a very literal description of this little box’s purpose as a device. RAID means Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives, or Independent Drives, depending on who you ask. The “Inexpensive” description is in reference to server drives used extensively before the advent of affordable RAID arrays, during the heyday of SCSI drives. This device supports RAID 0, 1 and 5, which corresponds respectively to striping, mirroring and parity-supported mirroring.

                                             Minimalist is perhaps the best approach for something holding enough data for dozens of 90's computers.

Striping is simply combining two or more drives into one big “partition” or “virtual drive” that will be recognized singly in operating systems. RAID 1 is relatively easy to understand – mirroring takes the data you have on one drive, and duplicates it (in real time) on another drive. RAID 5 uses a sort of “filing system” that stores data about the items on the hard drives and is able to “rebuild” lost data through these “filed-away” data when a drive fails.

                                             Vents on top are intakes designed to serve the rear exhaust fan.

The NAS is designed to be attached to an existing network to serve as a centralized storage location for the other devices on the same network. While this is the simple explanation, there is a whole load of implications from this description – the combination of a storage device (akin to hard drives, flash drives, portable hard drives and removable media) and network device gives the user an extraordinary range of capabilities, more so than a simple storage device.

                                             Sleek indicator strip keeps things clear and simple.

                                             Front-mounted USB for one-button backups of an external device.

For example, the ShareSpace serves as storage for one device, but the same data stored there by one computer on a network can easily be disseminated to the other PCs simply by sharing those files. On the other hand files can be secured on the same central storage of the NAS by simply putting these files into a private folder. An external storage device is also a practical answer to the backup conundrum faced by many a small business – the ShareSpace is able to handle the backup requirements for many concurrent users – 4 users will have a terabyte of storage each if the ShareSpace is set to striped or “Spanning” mode.

                                             Rear USBs plus ethernet connection and power merely round out the physical inputs.

The popular iTunes utility can also utilize the ShareSpace to stream a music collection to all PCs on the same network – again underlining its “central storage” purpose. Remote access (accessing your files in the ShareSpace from another computer outside of the network using a password) through WD’s MioNet service further extends the concept of a “central storage” to literally anywhere with an open internet connection.

                                            A cooling fan more fitting for a full-size casing is tapped for cooling duties.

Physically, the ShareSpace looks almost petite considering it holds the equivalent of 870+ DVDs or 5990+ CDs, although it’s a serious heavyweight at nearly 11 pounds. Front indicators for the four internal drives, with streamlined buttons for power and backup on the top and bottom of the indicator strip line the front of the device, while the sides and top of the ShareSpace is of a plain, grayish color that reminds one of a bank vault. Near the bottom portion of the device there is a recessed USB socket for the one-touch backup capability. The rear almost looks like that of an HTPC, what with the 80mm fan seemingly coming from a PSU, and the thumbscrews holding down the “side panels” of the device. The inside is packed solid with drives and circuitry, but efficient packaging is evident – the device runs cool and quiet even with all the hardware packed inside it.

                                            There is space for a total of 4 drives.

So with this product we have two central themes: storage and connectivity. Excelling in storage is easy enough – with four slide-in (but non hot-swappable) slots that by default holds either 2 or 4 one-terabyte “Green” Western Digital drives, a potential maximum storage capacity of 4 terabytes (4,000 gigabytes!!) minus a few hundred megabytes after formatting, is available when four drives are striped together (RAID 0). Default configuration for the 4 terabyte ShareSpace is RAID 5, where a portion of available capacity is reserved for parity data, which enables rebuilding a drive if it fails – a perfect solution for multiple redundancy when using the ShareSpace as a networked backup device for your PC. RAID 5 reduces available space to “just” 2.66 TB – which is still much larger than an average PC’s storage space.

                                             The circuit board controls RAID functions and the different connectors.

Connectivity is an aspect well-covered by the ShareSpace – in addition to its Gigabit Ethernet connection, the ShareSpace also provides three USB slots on its chassis – one front and two rear ports. The front USB connector is designed to host another storage device; it also has a one-button backup feature wherein pressing the front-mounted button for three seconds will transfer all of the data on the attached drive to the ShareSpace’s “Download” area. The two rear USB connectors serve as additional storage potential in the form of other external, USB-based storage devices.

                                             Bundled items including two types of power cable,a LAN cable, brackets and the manual.

The Ethernet connection as mentioned opens up all kinds of avenues for access to your data – but then these capabilities are intrinsic to the nature of attached storage devices – the ShareSpace offers these so seamlessly however that using it for storage duties is a liberating experience. Flexibility in RAID array choices, the choice of how many actual drives to use, easy physical transfer through the USB ports, easy setup for storage and access through a network, and even the remote access software MioNet – all of these features really expand the meaning of “NAS”.