So what do you get for the extra money compared to consumer-level NAS units? For one thing, more features, both in software and hardware. My $1900 review unit came with two 160GB cold-swappable 7200 RPM, 8MB SATA drives, plus Iomega's SATA-based RAID. The default configuration for the 320GB 200d with REV is RAID 1 mirrored mode (its default configuration), which reduced its capacity from the advertised 320GB to a usable 152GB in return for data redundancy. It's possible to reconfigure the 200d for RAID 0, which causes the 200d to appear to the user as a single 304GB drive, but with no data redundancy, or to JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) / Non-RAID mode which yields two separate 152GB drives. Higher-end members in the 200d product line support additional SATA drives and provide more robust RAID 5 data protection.

The SATA drives come mounted on individually-removable trays and can be cold-swapped in the event that a drive dies. Iomega says each drive contains a small partition of "approximately 8GB" with a mirrored (RAID 1) copy of the OS. But as I'll describe later, this doesn't mean that each of the two drives is equally simple to swap out in the event of failure.

Along with the standard functionality provided under Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003, Iomega bundles Computer Associates' eTrust Antivirus 7.1. They also throw in a copy of Iomega's own 320GB with Print Server model that will set you back around $2100 and doesn't include the REV drive. While this version supports up to five USB printers (but provides only four USB 2.0 ports), consider that the typical $300 consumer-level NAS throws in a print server in for free (although admittedly only for a single printer).

If you want both a REV drive and print server support, you're out of luck, since print-serving can't be added to the 320GB with REV model and there are no other models that include the REV drive.

Figure 1 shows the back of the 200d with a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, vents for two fans, a VGA connector, and a serial connector which can be used for attaching a UPS so the 200d can shut down gracefully in the event of a power outage.

Figure 1: 200d Back Panel

Figure 2, which is taken from the 200d's online user manual, shows an open-cover view revealing the three drive bays (two hard drives, plus the REV, two more USB 2.0 ports, power switch, and Disk Usage and Status indicators.

Figure 2: 200d front with cover open