Tagan Icy Box NAS4220 NAS Enclosure

Examination:

The Tagan Icy Box NAS4220 is elegantly small and measures in at 9.4" x 5.3" x 3.1". We would compare it to being a very small shoebox. The unit is black and on the front are the power button, Icy Box moniker, front USB port, and the one-touch back-up button. On the front are also a series of holes for ventilation. There are also two LEDs for OS and HDD activity. The sides as well as the top and bottom of the unit are bare and it's actually a single piece of metal that slides away when installing the SATA disk drives. We are quite fond of this solid metal construction and is industrial grade. The NAS4220 has a black matte finish.

On the back of the unit is the second USB 2.0 port, RJ-45 Gigabit network port, a sticker containing the MAC address, exhaust fan, reset button, reboot button, and power connection. For securing this devise is also a Kensington lock slot, which we are quite fond considering how easy someone could walk off with this device containing potentially sensitive data. The two USB ports on the Tagan NAS4220 are used for connecting a USB flash drive, USB hard drive, or printer. If a USB printer is attached, this device can double as a USB print server over your network, therefore increasing its versatility and value. The reset button is to flush the current settings and force the device back to its factory defaults (this can also be done through the web control panel) and the reboot button is to reload the Linux operating system. This fan is automatically controlled based upon the internal temperature of the unit, to ensure that the fan is only working when needed.

To access the innards of the Tagan Icy Box NAS4220 are screws at the bottom of the enclosure. When opening up the unit the PCB is easily on display and there is the thermal probe as well as two Serial ATA power cables and two data cables. This NAS device only supports Serial ATA 1.0 and 2.0 devices.

Powering this network storage device is a 400MHz ARM9 processor with 8MB of flash memory and 64MB of SDRAM. As was mentioned earlier, this device does run Linux and its source-code can be found on the Internet or by contacting Tagan. Tagan is very interested in having its customers modify the device and write their own software for this unit. In fact, coming up soon may be a joint competition between Tagan and Phoronix for hosting a software coding competition for this unit.