Why You Should NOT Buy A Seagate BlackArmor NAS!

First off, let me say that I like Seagate as a company. My very first computer that actually had a hard drive had a Seagate drive that kept going for years. I still prefer them over other manufacturers.

So when I saw the BlackArmor 220 at a reasonable price ($279 at Newegg) I jumped on it. Bad move. Usually I'd just buy more storage for my server, but I thought this would be interesting to try out. Dedicated hardware tends to be a little more reliable, right?

Before anyone asks all of the machines, including the NAS are connected to the same Linksys 100MB switch. Speeds are pathetic. Its backup option is awful. It's firmware auto update never works (by the way, it is running the newest firmware). Its buggy in general.

Worst of all though is the device has been out for almost a year now and not much has changed. Seagate's support forums are filled with people having problems with their BlackArmors and no one responds, other than customers who also have the same problems.

Ultimately I hope that this video will motivate Seagate to work on firmware that fixes these issues. If not? Well -- it's a warning not to buy it. If they're not willing to fix it then give users telnet or SSH access, so individuals can go in and fix whatever is screwed up themselves.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• seagate
• black
• armor
• blackarmor
• nas
• sucks
• hard
• drive
• networking
• network
• attached
• storage

[bobcurwen24]

Everyone has this problem, the speeds are stupidly slow, customer support is poor, and they blame my end...

It has a gigabit ethernet, gigabit? Like that would ever get used...

FTP access has now failed too, so i have to send it off. They said I will probably lose all my data. This is awful because most of it is priceless. I hope people read this comment and watch this video before they buy so they don't make the same mistake as I did. Please please make a micro atx server yourself, i wish i did

[qahtani]

@bobcurwen24

You might want to have a look at Seagate's forums. One member finally enabled SSH access and open source firmware might be on the horizon. I haven't had to use my BlackArmor in months, so I haven't been following the progress like before.

But yeah -- I bought a PC sans monitor or optical drive a while ago for probably $150. Slap as many HDs as you want in it and install Linux and save yourself some frustration, plus you'll have a torrent box and a web server.

[ivojvodicp]

You're right.. I have 2 laptops (XP and Windows 7), and it is taking me 2 days to copy an external 320 GB disk to the NAS 2 TB (directly attached) and I'm not done. Transference rate is a real disaster, I am considering returning it. I was aware before I bought it that it had big MINUS and big PLUS and I decided to take the risk.

The software that is supposed to make it easy to install does not work. It makes things more complicated. The guides are also poor.

[qahtani]

@ivojvodicp LOL. You'll really love it when you open the logfile and find out many files didn't actually copy because the rsync script bugs out over certain characters and sequences of characters. You'll also enjoy knowing that it is incapable of doing incremental backups, so if it took you 2 days to back it up the first time, it will take you 2 days to back it up the week after. Also, the logfile never deletes itself -- or at least mine doesn't; it is just appended over and over . . .

[ivojvodicp]

@qahtani What NAS do you recommend? I only need FTP capabilities, torrent capabilities might be nice :) and to keep family pictures safe from any it-disaster.

[qahtani]

@ivojvodicp Really I think your best option is a cheap PC -- even if incredibly outdated ($50 find on Craigslist) with FreeNAS.

[bartsandifort]

your work on a mac thats make problems xD

[tino730]

@1asdaiscool1 WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU, THEIR'S NOTHING WRONG WITH MAC OR APPLE. They make great products!

[1asdaiscool1]

ITS BECAUSE YOU HAVE A SHITTY CUNT MAC U NOB HEAD! GO BUY A REAL FUKING COMPUTER YOU DUSHE BAG ! WHAT A CUNT AND ALL YOU WHO HAVE SHITTY SPAK BOOKS U R ALL CUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[luki1a]

@bobcurwen24 NAS are made to work in a gigabit LAN. At work I've a Seagate BlackArmor 220 with a gigabit LAN and it's very fast. I've tried with a 10/100 lan and it's slow as hell.

With gigabit NAS speed is similar to an USB drive.

I also use it in FTP mode with dyndns and it's fast.

[42Justwatching]

Ok, it makes sense that the interface would be slow while you're uploading a file (these things are designed to use as much resources as they can to file transfers). I'm betting it's not that slow when you're NOT copying to the NAS.

@ivojvodicp try assigning a static IP, attach the NAS to your PC using a crossover cable. The only thing that will limit your speed writing to the NAS will be hard drive speed (either your PCs or the NAS, whichever is slower).

[docsis3]

Freenas is where it's at suckers.

[matejpostolka]

I suggest you mute the sound before watching this video...

[gemini5865]

@ivojvodicp I agree qahtani.... a cheap PC is best, depending on whether you want to RAID or not will define what kind of second hand PC you need, but overall, other than having just one (or two) external HDD whether it's Seagate or WD, most cheaper NAS boxes just don't seem to do what they say. I set up a HP rack server with FreeNAS with a total of 1.2 Tb RAID 5 storage ... works a charm. Not saying everyone has to do it but with FreeNAS ... was soooo easy. Using a PC would be a piece of cake.

[AllGearNoSkillz]

Thanks for posting this. You probably saved me a big headache. I'm thinking I might just take the other commentor's advice and build a cheap LINUX box and configure it for RAID1. Sure it will be a little more expensive and 25x the setup time, but should be worth the effort in stability.

[FuzzyLogicxxx]

@bobcurwen24 Never heard of backups? Loosing your data is your own fault!