Review: Maxtor Central Axis 1TB Network Storage Server

I bought a Maxtor Central Axis NAS for a client yesterday. The install was so simple and the device was so easy to access that I decided to buy one for myself. Here are my impressions of this little NAS.

Technical Specifications:

• 1 x 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet Port
• 1 x 1TB 7200RPM SATA II Hard Drive with 32MB Cache
• 1 x USB 2.0/1.1 port for external hard drives or printers
• UPnP AV 1.0 Compliant

What’s In The Box:

• Maxtor Central Axis Storage Server
• Maxtor Installation CD
• Quick Start Guide
• Maxtor Manager Software
• Ethernet Cable
• AC Power Adaptor

The unit also comes with a 5-year limited warranty. Considering this is a hard drive with moving parts, I would imagine that this warranty doesn’t really protect you much.

How Much Space Is One Terabyte, Anyway?

According to the box label, a terabyte of disk space will give you enough room to store 320,000 digital photos, up to 1,000 hours of digital video or up to 16,660 hours of digital audio. Let’s break this down for your average consumer.

If you have an 8 megapixel digital camera, each picture consumes approximately 3MB of disk space. So, a 1TB drive would allow you to store 1024MB * 1024GB / 3MB of pictures total. That about 349,500 pictures. So their estimate is pretty close.

For video, let’s assume that one hour of AVI video is about 350MB. That means you could store 1024MB * 1024GB / 350MB hours of video total. That’s about 2995 hours of video. So their estimate is half what I think you could get out of this NAS.

For audio, let’s assume that each track (lasting around 3 minutes) is about 6MB. That means you could store 1024MB * 1024GB / 6MB tracks of audio. That’s about 175,000 tracks. I challenge you to buy that many MP3’s from Amazon. :-)

So, suffice it to say that this NAS feels quite roomy.

Based On Open Source Software

Maxtor— like many other consumer NAS companies— built the Central Axis on GPL’d software. That being the case, there is a small but active community of hackers/developers who have created various plugins for the Central Axis.

There have also been problems with the Central Axis firmware. Although I wasn’ta ble to test the issue myself, I’ve seen widespread reports that firmware 3.4.0 had one serious bug. If you rebooted the NAS, all your files disappeared. When you trust a NAS with your vital data, that’s not something you really want to hear. At the time of this writing, the firmware is at version 3.5.7, which does not display this issue.

Firmware updates can be downloaded and installed automatically as they become available, behaving similarly to how WIndows Update performs updates. You can also upgrade the firmware manually.

Initial Setup

The initial setup is performed using the Central Axis Installation Software CD. It includes Windows and Mac versions of the Maxtor Manager software, which is nice. Also included is an electronic User Guide.

Installation is straightforward, using a wizard style setup process that allows you to set the name of the NAS (I chose “CENTRALAXIS”), the Windows workgroup (in may case “HOME”) and an administrator password.

It assumes that you have DHCP available on your network, so if you plan on setting up this NAS on a network that only uses static IP addressing, you may need to setup a temporary DHCP server until the NAS is setup (I haven’t tested this). I would recommend tftpd32 for Windows users, which includes a mini DHCP server.

You can also configure the NAS to alert you of any unusual conditions. You simply enter your email address. In order to avoid any SMTP filtering from your ISP, alerts are forwarded to globalaccess.seagate.com, which then relays the alert to the email address you configured.

My only complaint about the installation process is that Maxtor installs the management app, which runs in the background. Since there is a web interface on the device that allows you to configure all of the features, I think it would have been better to focus on that interface rather than require a dedicated management application. That said, the management app does include a backup utility that will be discussed later.

Advanced Configuration

The first thing I did was reconfigure the NAS from DHCP to static IP addressing. Since I’ll be accessing this NAS from a combination of Linux, Mac OSX and Windows boxes, I thought it would be simpler to have a known IP address. Since DHCP could potentially change the IP address, I set it to an IP address outside of my DHCP scope.

Next, I configured the Media Server, which is disabled by default. My goal was to be able to stream to my PS3, as well as other computers running the Boxee media center application.

Boxee streaming worked well, once I added the Central Axis as a media source. Streaming was of good quality, there was no video stuttering and the audio was properly synced.

PS3 streaming, on the other hand, has been a mixed bag so far. I am able to see the Central Axis as a media source from the PS3, but when I browse the available video there is no media available. I may not have the video files in the appropriate location, but the media server setup indicated that the files could just be dropped into the “Our Movies” folder on the Public share. I put three AVI files in that folder, but they don’t show up as available media on the PS3.

Similarly, MP3 show up fine in Boxee once the source is added, but the PS3 doesn’t see the music files.

I’m at a loss why the PS3 doesn’t see any files. It’s obvious that the PS3 is connecting to the Central Axis, it just doesn’t see any media. *hrumph*

Transfer Speeds

I performed a couple of transfers. I tested transfers of large files, then smaller files.

First, I tested three large files totalling 1GB. Average transfer speed was 6.8MB/sec, taking 2 minutes 30 seconds to complete the transfer. Transfer speeds could be faster, though. I’ve only got a 100MB switched network, so I’m not able to take full advantage of the gigabit ethernet connectivity the NAS supports.

I also transferred 50 smaller files (MP3s), totalling 277MB. The average transfer speed again came out to be 6.8MB.

Based on these transfer rates on my current network, it would take 42 hours for me to copy 1 terabyte of data to the NAS. Not great, but not terrible either.

Backups

Backups are performed from the Maxtor Manager that is installed on your Windows or Mac OSX system when you perform the initial setup of the Central Axis. To perform a backup, you must have a user account created on the Central Axis.

Once you’ve got an account created, the “Backup” tab of the Maxtor Manager gives you three options: “Simple Backup”, “Custom Backup” and “Delete Backup Plans”.

The “Simple Backup” option automatically sets up the Maxtor Manager to backup your profile directory once a day (the default is 10:00pm).

The “Custom Backup” option gives you the ability to specify the folders to back up on your hard drive. However, in my experimentation I was unable to create a custom backup job that would make a backup of the entire C: drive. So, at this time I don’t think there is the capability to perform a full backup of your computer. For that, you may need to purchase 3rd party backup software.

The “Delete Backup Plans” option simply allows you to remove any schedule backups.

Overall, backups are fast and efficient, but I’m disappointed that there aren’t more options when performing backups. Also, the apparently lack of full backup capability is a big minus.

Conclusion

I intend to continue looking into the PS3 streaming problem. I’m convinced that it works but I haven’t put files in the appropriate locations. I will provide an update when I’ve succeeded or if I finally decide that PS3 streaming isn’t possible.

The hard drive in the Central Axis is fast and quiet. So transfer speeds are what you would expect for over-the-wire file storage.

Backups— though simple and very limited— can protect your personal files but not your operating system as a whole. Of course, that can be easily remedied with third-party backup software that performs full backups.

Even with the media streaming issues to the PS3 and the simplified backups, the Maxtor Central Axis 1TB Network Storage Server is a great deal. With gigabit Ethernet, a USB port for shared printing or hard drive expansion and tons of disk space, the Central Axis is definitely worth the ~$250US price.