Iomega's StorCenter ix2-dl ($199.99 (diskless) MSRP) is the company's latest NAS offering for power users and small business. The ix2 is unique in that it combines the easy-to-use consumer features of Iomega's Home Media Network Hard Drive with capabilities of Iomega's weightier StorCenter business-class NASes. For example, the ix2 offers sharing content over the Internet with a personal cloud, and unlike the Home Media device, is not an enclosed NAS. The ix2 supports up to 2x SATA I or II HDDs.

The result is a NAS that is superior than the Home Media Network Hard Drive. It's got business-class capabilities, awesome video-surveillance support, and very good Read/Write speeds. However, some issues I had when setting up a personal cloud for the Home Media Network Hard Drive still linger in the ix2.

Specs The ix2 includes a Marvell 6282 processor, 256 DDR II DRAM, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and a USB 2.0 port for connecting a printer or external USB drive.

Two bays support either single or dual drive configurations. The ix2 supports up to 6TB capacity and RAID 1 mirroring with dual drives. Adding or removing SATA drives is a tool-less and effortless task. There's a removable front panel to access the drive bays. The drive trays are thin, plastic frames that snap to the drives and can serves as a handle for removing drives. The plastic frames are far easier to work with than traditional metal drive trays.

Setup Once the drives and installed and the system is powered up, the device is setup via a web portal at http://www.myiomega.com. The ix2's setup process reflects an emerging trend among networking hardware vendors; that is, bucking a setup CD in favor of online setup.

When I browsed to the Web portal once my ix2 was connected online, I saw the message Your ix2 is online and ready to use. From here, users can backup data and consolidate existing files, create a personal Iomega cloud (more on that later), or can manage the ix2.

Most users are going to want to first set up the device, so I opted to manage the ix2. Upon initial visit, the site offers walking you through basic set up options such as configuring the time and date, establishing email notifications, and setting up a personal cloud.

Six folder shares are created automatically: Backup, Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, and Shared Media. These folders also had automatic mapping created in my Windows Explorer.

The setup process using the online portal is fine, as long as you have a good, working Internet Connection. I prefer to download Iomega's StorCenter manager, which previously was shipped on disk, to ensure that my NAS is online and receiving proper network information. You can still download StorCenter Manager to use with the ix2, though. The setup process is not as cut-and-dried with the personal cloud setup, unfortunately.

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Iomega StorCenter ix2-dl