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SMC 7208BR Barricade Router and Storage Server
Page 2
Author: Tim Higgins Review Date: 3/29/2001
File
Server Features
The server part of the BSS is for File and Printer sharing only,
with no Internet serving capability such as Web, FTP, Email, etc..
Since this is my first review of a networked storage product, I
may miss mentioning a feature that you're interested in. So
you can download
the PDF manual here to look for yourself.
You can serve both Microsoft Networking and AppleTalk clients
and set the Workgroup Name and AppleTalk Zone respectively.
The MS configuration also lets you register the BSS with
a WINS server if your LAN has one so that Network Neighborhood/Places
browsing works across subnets.
If you've administered a server before, the controls for
the BSS will be familiar with the ability to define Users,
Groups, and Shares. The Users screen lets you
set a disk quota for each user and assign them to a Group.
The Groups screen shows you the number of members
and shares for each group and lets you jump to screens where
you can change this information.
The Shares screen is where you can view the information
of existing shared directories and create new ones.
(The window shown to the right is the Share Properties screen.)
There's also a Browse screen that lets you look at the directories
and folders, but you only see one directory/folder at a time.
Utilities
and Other Features
In addition to setting up the router and server, the BSS has a
number of other administration features. Here's the list:
You can enter the time, date, and time zone
for the BSS's clock.
You can have the BSS email up to three addresses
when it's unhappy and needs to warn you about something
You can name the built-in print server for both
Windows and MacOS machines and set the printer type for MacOS
(LaserWriter compatible or other).
You can schedule system shutdown, hard drive
sleep, and reboot the system. Disk scans can also be scheduled,
and you can upgrade firmware, too.
When I first started using the BSS, I dutifully went to the
shutdown screen to power the box down for the night.
Didn't take me long to find that the easier way was to press
the momentary-action power switch once. This initiated
the shut down sequence nicely, without the hassle of logging
into the BSS. Nice feature!
You can check system status, disk stats, view
the server log (mostly startup and shutdown info), check the
printer queue (and delete print jobs, too).
Server
Performance
I didn't get too fancy with my server performance checking.
My client was a Win98SE PC connected via a 100BaseT NIC.
A drag-and-drop copy of my 11.9MB FONTS folder to the BSS
took about 19 seconds. A reverse copy from the BSS
to my PC took an almost 50% faster 14 seconds!
Router
Performance
Due to the port forwarding limitations that I previously described,
I had to rely on my good-old browser file download method for
all WAN-LAN testing. I was able to get some Qcheck LAN-WAN
tests done, but couldn't get the UDP streaming to run in either
direction. Here are the results:
[Tests run with V 2.5 R07 firmware]
Test
Description
Qcheck
Transfer Rate (Mbps)
[1Mbyte data size]
Qcheck
Response Time (msec)
[10 iterations 100byte data size]
Comments: The router appears to be quite
fast, on a par with only the 2Wire HP100 and Sonicwall Tele2.
The "web dl" numbers are limited by the test method.
Summary
SMC has dared to go where no one has gone before, and looks like
they've got some more work to do before I'd trade in my trusty
8 port Barricade for the BSS! The router part of the product
simply isn't up to the standards set by the existing Barricades,
with buggy features, insecure WAN ports, and not-too-useful port
forwarding capability.
The File Server half of the box looked fine to
me, but, again, I'll need to see other products before really
being able to properly rank it. I will say that I
would have liked to see a backup or disk mirroring utility bundled
with the BSS. I don't really need more storage space on my LAN
right now, but sure would like to regularly backup more than the
one machine that I do now!
As for pricing, I'd say SMC has some work to do
there, too. A NETGEAR ND520 20Mb Network drive, plus
SMC 8 port Barricade would set you back only about $580
($430 + $147... prices from Pricegrabber.com on 3/29/01), while
putting a BSS on your network will cost you about $150 more.
For now, I think I'd pass on that opportunity.
