We Got Served

Over the past few weeks, we’ve had the chance to put a few Windows Home Server systems through their paces. Firstly, the British engineering of Tranquil PC which came in the form of the T7-HSA, a small and silent home server with great environmental credentials. From the USA came the HP MediaSmart Server, a more glamorous multi-drive server, with a few tricks up its sleeve in the form of exclusive add-ins. Our third entrant comes all the way from China, in the shape of the Norco DS-520G.

Norco has been around for the past 16 years, and specialises predominately in embedded systems and servers for enterprise. The DS-520 is positioned as a home/office NAS system, which can be pre-loaded with a wide range of operating systems, including Windows Home Server, Samba, Linux, OpenBSD, OpenFiler or FreeNAS. Like the HP MediaSmart Server, it’s a multi-drive server, but tops HP’s effort with 5 hot swappable drive bays. From a specification point of view, it comes well equipped with a lot of muscle, but how will it stack up against the clean lines and pretty lights of the MediaSmart Server?

We received an early pre-production unit straight of the line from China, and, fresh from last week’s HP MediaSmart Server review, we bring you the We Got Served Hands-On review of the Norco DS-520G.

What’s in the Box?

The DS-520G arrives well packaged with the following accessories and documentation:

• DS-520G Server
• VGA Cable
• Serial Cable
• PS2 mouse/keyboard adaptor cable
• 4 page user guide
• Power Cable
• Hard drive mounting screws
• Windows Home Server DVD
• Windows Home Server Connector CD
• Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore CD

The user guide is a relatively brief affair, detailing package contents, server specification (just in case you forgot), instructions to install additional hard drives, brief instructions for setting up the hardware, and some very brief instructions for working with Windows Home Server.

Compared to the lavish documentation received with the HP MediaSmart Server, the Norco documentation is a more spartan black and white affair - it gives the feeling this unit is for enthusiasts who know what they’re doing, whilst HP’s system is very much for the beginner, or more experienced user who just wants to set and forget.

First Looks

The Norco unit looks like a pretty serious piece of kit. It’s compact, just a little larger than the MediaSmart Server, but without its aesthetic appeal - whilst the MediaSmart Server looks like it’s designed for the home, you could imagine the more rugged DS-520 being just as at home in an office server room, or a factory floor. It’s a small, square, silver box, with a certain industrial quality to it.

The DS-520’s case is metallic, and, as is now customary with home server units, it’s small size belies the amount of components tucked away in that case - it’s pretty heavy to pick up.

The five drive trays at the front are manufactured out of steel, but come with blue and black plastic latches that are quite stiff and difficult to open. Unlike the HP’s drive trays though, Norco’s are a lot stronger - the DS-520 is rugged both inside and out, and the mechanism closes with a very secure click.

In terms of controls, Norco provide both power and reset buttons on the front of the unit, with status lights for power, fans and a temperature warning light. Each drive tray has two lights, one which registers that a drive is in the tray, and a second registering drive access. None of these system lights are actually covered in the user guide, and whilst it’s relatively simple to guess what they’re for, an explanation is a basic missing.

On the whole, Norco have done a great job with the DS-520’s assembly - it has been put together well, and whilst you’d be stretching it to call the unit aesthetically pleasing, it’s strong, sturdy and rugged - more Russell Crowe than HP’s Leonardo Di Caprio.

Around the Back

It’s when you get around the back that the brute force of the DS-520 starts to be realised - unlike other home servers, you’re presented with a plethora of expansion options - 2 Gigabit LAN ports,  4 USB 2.0 sockets,  and a mighty 3 eSATA ports. Combine that with 5 hard drive trays at the front, and you can see that the DS-520 offers fantastic storage options for those users with large digital media collections, with well over 12 Tb available if you wish.

The system is almost headless - just a VGA socket on the rear should it be necessary to access the server directly (with Keyboard/Mouse served by the USB ports). The rear line-up is completed by a power socket at the base of the unit.

Under the Hood

The DS-520G offers a fair bit of power under the hood, as well as the aforementioned range of storage expansion opportunities. Let’s compare the specification to Microsoft’s Minimum and Recommended Specs for WHS:

In terms of hardware, the big story is the storage expansion options - whilst the base configuration only provides a single, meagre 250Gb Seagate hard drive (therefore preventing Folder Duplication from running out of the box), there are plenty of internal and external options for expanding storage quickly, and, like the HP MediaSmart Server, internal hard drives can be dropped into a drive tray and closed to install. It’s very simple.

Elsewhere, the 1GHz Celeron Mobile chip is not the fastest, which is a concern, although the server runs without too much slowdown. 1 Gig of Kingston memory is plenty to keep your server chugging away, and 2 Gigabit LAN ports are probably more than you need for your home network. All in all, a decent package from Norco.

Running Windows Home Server

Whilst the hardware specification is relatively strong, booting the server opened up a cacophony of problems. First issue, WHS would not let me log into the unit until I had gone through product activation. Easy, you think, just click activate and off you go. Only problem was that the server couldn’t establish an internet connection, and of course, as I couldn’t log in, I was unable to see why.

So, it was on to my robotic friends at Microsoft’s automated telephone activation service, typing in 422 thousand numbers into my phone, to be then given another 422 thousand numbers to type into the activation wizard. Worked first time though and… yes, I was able to discover that whoever had installed Windows Home Server had configured the unit with a Static IP during the installation, and had neglected to remove it before shipping. A quick reset of the TCP/IP properties, and my connection was up and running.

Upon installing the WHS Connector on my home computers, I tried to open up the Console, only to discover an error - an update was available for the WHS Connector, but it could not be downloaded. Clearly, Norco have not been keeping their WHS builds up to date, as upon checking Windows Update, there were 25 updates waiting for me, including a host of Windows Server 2003 updates, the IE7 upgrade, and the WHS September update which was causing the upgrade conflict. Again, for the initiated, this is no big issue to resolve, but for a first time Windows Home Server user? Not great.

Furthermore, upon checking the Windows Home Server Console, there were ghost computers and hard drives which were reported as missing by Windows Home Server. Clearly, this system had been used as a test system at Norco, and not cleaned up before it was sent for review. In the state it was received in, WHS was barely functional - in fact, it needed needed wiping and reinstalling as the backup service was failing.

Someone at Norco really needs to sit down with Microsoft’s OPK (OEM Preinstallation Kit) for a few hours and learn what a clean install looks like! That said, what I can report is that it’s a vanilla RTM build, with no additional software included, as expected. I’m currently awaiting confirmation that Norco will supply the unit with a pre-installed copy of WHS, as pricing indicates it’s for purchase without RAM and the OS (which in the latter case, may actually be a blessing).

All in all, a poor experience that I hope is not repeated in Norco’s production systems if they do indeed offer a WHS pre-install as an option.

The Verdict

And so to the verdict? Having now spent time with a number of OEM systems, it’s becoming increasingly clear that whether intentionally or not, a number of hardware niches are appearing in WHS Hardware.

On one side, you have the HP MediaSmart Server - very definitely focused on the home user, new to the home server category, with great looking hardware, new add-ins to maximize the benefits of Windows Home Server and fantastically detailed documentation for support.

Elsewhere, companies like Tranquil PC are developing small footprint, low powered, silent hardware, designed to be as unobtrusive as possible and offering a clean build of Windows Home Server from which to build your digital media collection.

In the DS-520, Norco have delivered a high specification home server - with a dazzling array of storage options, driven by a decent hardware specification. Make no mistake, though, this is a top end server for the digital enthusiast who knows their way around Windows Home Server. The user guide is extremely limited and the OEM software build (that I received anyway) leaves a lot to be desired - in fact, it was pretty broken - if you’re looking for grunt, then the Norco hardware looks the business and delivers in spades.

But take my advice - buy it clean, or wipe it and ensure you do your own install of the Windows Home Server software - you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches going forward.