Dr MadCow's Articles Web Portal V3.60

Article Properties

Article Title: Vantec Nexstar 375 LX USB2 / Value NAS External Drive Enclosure Review

Article Author: Daryl Quenet
Article Category: Hardware Related
Times Read: 2026
Date: 2007-10-04 21:15:00
Pages: 1

Vantec Nexstar 375 LX NAS Drive Enclosure

Cheap Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices / appliances have been in short supply, until recently. One of the first to hit the market was the Netgear SC101, which having read reviews and talked my favorite local computer shop I can recommend to definitely stay away from this NAS. The Vantec Nexstar 375 LX NAS Drive Enclosure is a mixed bag, so if your looking for a business NAS I would look else where after having read this review to find out what to look for in a NAS. I would only recommend the Nexstar LX as a home NAS appliance. You may also want to check out some of the Google NAS ads for more network attached storage devices.

A NAS is it is an external storage device that connects to a network. It can contain one, or more hard drives on which it stores data which is accessible via network shares. The Nexstar LX connects with a 10/100 mbit connection, ideally I would like a device with Gigabit (1000 Megabit). It also only takes one hard drive, which means there is no possibility of RAID. There are several levels of RAID, which can add both redundancy, and/or performance.

Sadly there is an issue with the 10/100mbit network connection, which is why I recommend it for home use only, and the lack of RAID. This NAS runs at maximum network speed of 100mbit half duplex, which severe limits the device’s throughput. With full duplex 100mbits can travel both ways concurrently, where as half duplex connection splits the 100mbit between the upstream and downstream bandwidth. I find the average speed to be around 3.3mb/s on large files. I was hoping for at least 8mb/s, based on theoretical speeds of over 10mb/s for 100mbit.

DU Meter displaying Nexstar LX Throughput

On the hardware side of things the Nexstar LX is a very nicely designed product. I had no issues with installation of the hard drive, or reliability after setup. I transferred over 200gb of photos, and the contents of My Documents. You can't imagine how long it took to complete this data transfer test, in my opinion any network attached storage has to be full duplex gigabit to truly perform.

The firmware based web interface contained all the options I expected for managing multiple share accounts, with directory management and options for hiding files and folders. Another of the down sides to this device is when running in NAS mode your partition must be FAT32, as NTFS isn't supported. The Nexstar LX does support NTFS partitions if your using it as an external enclosure through USB2.

If I had to guess at the Nexstar LX operating system, I would guess that it runs a very thin version of Link, as it refers to Windows Shares as Samba, which is the Linux programmed used for connecting to, and settings up Windows shares. I’d also recommend upgrading to the latest firmware as soon as you buy this unit.

Now given the fact that this cheap Network Attached Storage Device, doesn’t have RAID, and only runs at 3.3mb/s I can still think of several great uses for this unit. The first and what I will be using this device for is mirroring My Documents nightly over to the NAS Enclosure. Given the size of the Nextstar LX you can hide it anywhere you like.

For now the Nexstar LX will suffice as my home network attached storage, but eventually I will be retiring this unit in favor of a gigabit appliance with RAID. With a starting price of $500 however without drives for a quality NAS with the features I require, its going to be a long way!