Why You Can Trust CNET Acer Aspire EasyStore H340-UA230N NAS server review: Acer Aspire EasyStore H340-UA230N NAS server
Acer Aspire EasyStore H340-UA230N NAS server
At around $500 with 2TB of storage included (or $400 with 1TB), the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 is one of the most--if not the most--affordable NAS servers on the market, in terms of how much storage you get for your money. It also offered fast throughput performance in CNET Labs' tests.
Acer Aspire EasyStore H340-UA230N NAS server
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
However, the Atom-based NAS server doesn't come with any extra features, apart from what Windows Home Server 2003 gives you, which is already ample for most situations. To make up for that, you can add more hard drives to the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340's three empty bays without using any tools. It also comes with five USB ports and one eSATA port to host more storage. Similar to other windows Home Server-based NAS servers, it doesn't support any RAID configuration but uses the Folder Duplicate feature to protect data stored on it.
If you are looking for a fast and simple Windows NAS sever, the Acer Aspire is one of the best choices. If you want to get even more of your NAS, we'd recommend the similarly priced HP MediaSmart EX495 or the significantly more expensive Synology DS209+ NAS server .
Design and setup
The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 is, at its core, a Windows-based computer powered by a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom 230 processor and 2GB of RAM. All it lacks is a mouse, a keyboard, and monitor support. That said, the server can be controlled from a second computer on the same network via its Windows Home Server Console (for home users) or via remote desktop (for advanced users). The strength of Windows Home Server-based NAS servers lies in the fact that they are very friendly to Windows users. This Acer Aspire is no exception.
The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 looks like cube, with a smooth front where the access to the hard-drive bays are. Each bay comes with a removable tray that can host a standard SATA hard drive. Accessing this can be done completely without tools. The server comes with its first bay preoccupied by a 2TB hard drive (or 1TB in the cheaper version) that includes the operating system. If you want to expand for more storage or duplicate to protect your data, you can install more hard drives, either via the other bays or use an external hard drive to connect to the server's ports.
The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 has one eSATA port and four USB ports on the back. These ports are solely for external storage devices. There's no support for printers or a USB camera, unfortunately. There's also another USB port on the front that works with the server's one-button copy feature. Just plug a USB drive into this port and press the Copy button above it, and the entire contents of the drive will be copied onto the server's internal storage. This is actually a very neat backup feature that a lot of NAS servers offer.
Setting up the Acer Aspire is as easy as popping its included "Software Installation Disc" into a network PC and following the onscreen instructions. The setup process, which includes detecting the NAS in the network and installing the Windows Home Server Connector software, took us longer than expected, at about 20 minutes. The process bugged out twice for no specific reason and we had to do it again.
The server also comes with two other DVDs, labeled "PC Restore Disc" and "Server Recovery Disc." The first restores a network computer from a backup image stored on the server and the second will recover the server from a backup if need be. This set of DVDs is standard for all Windows Home Server-based NAS servers we've reviewed.
Features
Apart from the quick Copy feature mentioned above, the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 doesn't offer any special features of its own--unlike the MediaSmart EX495 from HP, for example, which comes with comprehensive digital content management features that allow you to convert video files into different formats for different media streamers or upload photos to social Web sites.
The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 comes with only the standard features of all Windows Home Server-based NAS servers, including:
User account and share folders: Like any Windows machine, the EasyStore H340 features a standard user management setup. To create a new user, run the Windows Home Server Console and click on the tab called User Accounts. Here, you can create new users just as you would in a Windows computer, with one difference: you have the option of giving the user remote access to the NAS server. Once a user is created, the wizard will display a list of existing share folders that the new user can be given access to. Access privileges include Full (write and read), Read (read only), and None (no access).
Creating a new share folder is similar to creating a new user: simply click on the "Share Folder" tab and follow the wizard. Once a new folder has been created, the wizard allows you to assign access to that folder via a list of existing users. An unlimited number of share folders can be created.
The NAS server comes with four media-related default folders, including Photos, RecordTV, Music, and Video. Files inside these folders are streamed to any media server-compatible devices, including set top boxes, game consoles, iTunes, and other computers. You can turn the streaming features on or off at the Windows Home Server Console's Settings page. The server supports virtually all popular digital content formats currently available on the market.
As the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 is just another Windows computer, it's very easy to access its share folder by browsing your network with Windows Explorer. Mac users will also see it automatically in Finder. Unfortunately, unlike the HP EX495, the Acer Aspire doesn't offer any support for Time Machine.
Storage and backup: Despite the fact that this is a four-bay NAS server, the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 doesn't offer support for RAID configurations, which would allow you to set up hard drives in redundant settings to protect data. Instead, the server uses Windows Home Server's Folder Duplication feature as a redundant backup. You can turn this feature on or off for any share folder. Once turned on, the content of the folder will be duplicated across different physical hard drives to be protected against single hard-drive failure. When a new hard drive is installed, the server will automatically rebuild the copies of data that have been lost. You can use this feature with any folders of your choosing; however, you'll need at least an additional hard drive installed. This hard drive can be internal or external (connected via the USB or eSATA connections), but it must be added as an extension of the server's storage.
The NAS accepts extra hard drives in two modes: extension and backup. In extension mode, the added drives will be the extension of the internal hard drive, with their storage blended together. You won't have control over which hard drive your data is stored to, unless you use the duplication feature mentioned below. In this mode, the NAS will format the drive before you can use it, meaning you won't be able to use a hard drive with existing data on it. In order to add a drive that already contains data, you'll need to use the backup mode. In this mode, the added drive will act as a separate volume that can be removed later. You can use this drive only to be the destination to back up the NAS' internal hard drives. This is also useful, as it allows for backing up the server's main hard drive for recovery in case it fails.
The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 offers an excellent backup solution for PCs. The server can silently pull backups from any network computers that have a Windows Home Server Console installed, and do so without any interaction from the user. The NAS can even automatically wake the computer from standby mode to do the backup if need be. Restoring files is made simple thanks to the interface. When viewing a backup file, the NAS will convert it into a virtual drive. Then, you can just browse for files and copy them over using Windows Explorer just like you would do with an external hard drive.
Unfortunately, the NAS doesn't allow for backing up one PC and restoring another simultaneously, so you if you have multiple machines in a network, you might run into a situation where you have to disable a backup that's in process before you can restore. It doesn't come with any backup software for Macs and has no support for Time Machine, either. To use the server to backup a Mac computer, you'll need to get third-party backup software.
Remote access: The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 offers remote access via the free Windows Live Custom domain service. You can use this service as long as you have a Hotmail or MSN account.
The setup process of the connection was pretty simple, but if you don't have a Hotmail account, it will take a few minutes longer, as you will have to register for one first. Then, just type in the Hotmail account information and everything is set up for you, provided that your router supports the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol, which most of them do. Now you can remotely access the server from anywhere via the Internet by going to xyz.homeserver.com, where xyz is the name of your Hotmail account. If you have an old router that doesn't support UPnP, you'll need to manually forward certain ports to the IP address of the NAS to make this work.
This feature grants access to multiple accounts on the server that have the remote-access feature enabled. You can browse files stored in the shared folder that your account has access to and upload or download files from those folders to the remote computer. The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 lets you download multiple files or an entire folder from the NAS server to the remote computer. If you choose to download a folder, you have the option of downloading that folder in the form of a ZIP file or an executable file that will decompress the downloaded content for you.
Performance
The Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 offered fast and interesting performance in CNET Labs' tests.
Though not equipped with the latest Intel Atom 330 processor, the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 still excelled in our Write test. In this test we copied gigabytes of data from a network computer to the server's storage, at a rate of 347Mbps. This is currently the fastest among Windows Home Server-based NAS servers and faster even than most USB external hard drives.
In the Read test, where the information was copied back from the server to a network computer, however, the number was kind of reversed, registering only 303.4Mbps. Though significantly worse than it did on the Write test, this score still meant a very fast throughput speed, but it was the slowest among Windows Home Server-based NAS servers we've tested.
Overall, the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 worked well in our testing, without any hiccups, and it ran quietly.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | Read | | Write |
Service and support
Acer backs the Aspire EasyStore H340 with a parsimonious one-year warranty. Its online support Web site is rather scant, with allowance for only one download for the manual in digital format. There's no phone support listed at the company's site for its Aspire NAS servers.