Installation:
Installation of the Mini NAS was quick and easy; it's a task that can be performed by almost anyone. Two screws remove the top cover and after the SATA hard drive is installed, two screws hold it firmly in place on rubber mounts. While I had it open, I was surprised to see a little 20cm fan inside. This fan points down at the circuit board and Addonics says it is there to provide some general airflow inside the device. Due to the small size of this enclosure, it would be impossible to position a fan blowing directly over the hard drive without nearly doubling the height. The enclosure housing itself is well vented on the sides and bottom so heat built-up shouldn't be anything to worry about with only a 2.5" drive inside.

After the physical install was done and it was connected to my network I ran the small application on the included CD to detect the IP address of the NAS. If you're going to be using the NAS's settings a lot, using FTP or the Bit Torrent client, then you will want to set a static IP for it. Having to always search for the device on your network when you need to change something or add a torrent download can be an inconvenience. To keep things uniform on my network configuration I chose to set the static IP through my router (D-Link DGL-4300). Since I will be using FTP access as well, I needed to set the router to forward port 21 to the static IP I set for the NAS.

Testing:
The basic functionality of this NAS worked without a hitch for me. The Bit Torrent download client worked smoothly and I was able to download several files with it during testing. The media server worked well too, although I don't have iTunes to see how that end of it works. My Brother 2040 laser printed was able to share nicely on the network and the FTP received some heavy use when I was in another city over the weekend. Although these features may not be as complex or customizable as on more expensive units, they are still at a level that most home users wouldn't complain.

I ran a simple file transfer benchmark using ATTO Disk Benchmark. I find this program gives a very straightforward view of the read/write speeds and allows easy customization of the transfer sizes being used. To keep things simple, I used the default transfer sizes. Since many other reviewers use this setup when using ATTO, it will give better grounds for comparisons. My results are shown below.

One thing that did bother me a little was the rather loud 20cm fan inside the Mini NAS. As I was only using a 4200RPM drive that does not get very hot, I simply disconnected the plug on the fan and let the enclosure passively cool itself. After running for several consecutive days the temperature was not alarmingly hot and the case seemed to do well for only using passive cooling.

I knew from the beginning that the biggest bottleneck of the Mini NAS would be the 10/100 ethernet port. 10/100 is great for web surfing and basic home network use, but when you're using it to transfer files then gigabit is becoming a must-have. I'm sure that adding a gigabit LAN controller would raise the price e a bit, but for the added speed I would be willing to pay a small amount more. The next bottleneck will be the drive itself, if you're not using an SSD then you must remember that laptop drives are commonly 5400RPM unless you spend a little extra and get a 7200RPM one. Unfortunately for this review I only had a 5400RPM drive available.