Review: Central Axis Storage Server Is The Center of Small Networks

With the continuing downward spiral in hard drive prices, we are more likely to save things, "just in case." The days of carefully deciding whether or not to save an e-mail, the attached file, or goofy pictures, are long gone, thanks to the wide range of external storage devices on the market.

Yes, more storage space is desirable, but a larger box is not. Users, whether at home or at business (regardless of size), want more, better, and cheaper storage. But they don't want a bigger unit, because desktop and rack space is at a premium. The Test Center took a look at just such a product, the Central Axis network storage server from Seagate's Maxtor division.

Measuring less than seven inches high, 2.5 inches wide, and six inches long, Central Axis weighs about 1.5 pounds. It resembles the Maxtor One Touch USB hard drive, with its trapezoidal shape, but instead of the steel surface, the Central Axis is a sleek, black unit. It can easily stand next to speakers or the unit, and be out of the way.

The Central Axis is currently available only in a one-Tbyte configuration, but that's on a 7200rpm drive and 32 Mbyte cache buffer. The hard drive is not user replaceable, which is disappointing. When in use, it vibrates a little, but it is very quiet. There is no fan inside but the unit has vents along its side. It does get hot to the touch after some time, however.

Unlike the aforementioned Maxtor One Touch, Central Axis is a network drive -- with a Gigabit Ethernet port to put it on the local network. There is a USB 2.0 port for printer sharing or to expand storage space by attaching a USB hard drive.

Human nature being what it is, saving things and sharing them are both instinctive. Depending on user needs, the product can be used as a backup drive, a secure file sharing server, or as a media streaming device.

Once the Central Axis is connected to the network, it obtains an IP address automatically. An enclosed CD is used to install the Maxtor Manager application on to a computer on the network. The application finds all connected Maxtor devices, and displays the host name, IP address, and MAC address. The admin password, time zones, and user accounts can be set up at this point. The user accounts allow multiple users to access the Central Axis at the same time. Guests can also be authorized to upload and view content. The device can also be linked to the Seagate Global Access account to make the data on the Central Axis available to others over the Web. Privacy levels can be adjusted on the folders to restrict access to the data. The Media streaming button on the application is used to set up the server to stream media to any networked UPnP-AV compatible entertainment device. It also sets and schedules backups. There is also a Web-based interface where you can manage settings, users, and folders.

The Maxtor Manager works on the Mac, as well. Actually, under Mac OS X Leopard, Central Axis shows up as its own network under Shared, so it's possible to access the files without using the Maxtor software.

The server's interface is very simple -- some may call it very rigid -- in what it offers and can do. While the basic tasks for backup and setup are straightforward, advanced features are not clearly explained or guided in the interface or the documentation. Setting up the media streaming was a confusing process, as well as identifying which account Central Axis means when it prompts for "user account" (the local one on the computer or the one on the drive), because it varied with the situation.

The backup is basic, and works just fine. The Drag and Sort view automatically sort files in to appropriate folders based on file type. However, there is no one-click option backup an entire hard drive -- all the backups created are on the folder level, and only those associated with a user's profile. It would be better if the application allowed backing up any folder. And it would be better yet if it could take the entire hard drive.

Expanding storage capacity by plugging in an external drive (we tried a Maxtor drive as well as a few non-Maxtor products, with no problems) to the USB port was straightforward -- but it wasn't clear from the documentation that the Central Axis will detect hard drives formatted as FAT32, not NTFS. It's not a deal breaker, especially for backups, but a little disconcerting. The external drive is accessible through the computer and does not require Maxtor software.

Speed wise, it is fairly fast. Using the Iozone benchmarking tests, Central Axis performed slightly better than the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, but not as fast as the LaCie Ethernet Disk, two NAS products the Test Center have reviewed in the past. Performance was even, with similar throughput results on reads and writes across various file and record sizes. The Central Axis took a little over a minute to read 1.2 Gbytes of data, and about a minute and a half to write the same data.

Maxtor generally targets consumers for its storage products, but the Central Axis would fit in just as well in small businesses. Larger businesses would also find the units handy for specific departmental and group needs. Priced at about $300, it is a great buy, especially considering the speed and capacity, but the interface might be a little tricky for the most basic users.