In between the fans you'll find the ports and connectors. Two Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000) ports provide network connection and one can be configured to provide DHCP services. There are also two USB 2.0 ports that support attachment of external hard or flash drives, which appear to the NAS as "usbdisk1" and "usbdisk2".

USB drive attached

Temperatures for both the backplane and the motherboard inside the SS4000-E are monitored and if a threshold temperature is exceeded, the system is shut down automatically. Thanks to an auto-sensing power supply, the device is also able to work anywhere in the world with an operating input voltage from 90 to 264 Volts.

What comes in the box

Along with the device, you'll find in the box a short power cable, an Ethernet cable, and two software CDs. The manual is well illustrated, and even explains helpful maintenance tasks such as swapping out the fans. Additional information and tutorials are available online as PDF files.

One of the two included CDs contains the client software for logging onto and configuring the NAS, as well as the backup function that the NAS provides to help secure files and data from the network. The second CD is bootable and contains a special disaster recovery program. If files go missing on a client computer or the machine is damaged, this CD can restore a drive image quickly and completely (even on a new or reformatted drive).