Polar Space Private Cloud New Z4 Review
Our world is being fully transformed into digital creation, and "data" is not only an important asset for business users, but also a valuable asset for individual and home users, requiring secure, reliable, and easy-to-use storage solutions. With the number of various types of intelligent terminals growing geometrically, many users' data volume has already exceeded the TB level, at this time, if you use the traditional mobile hard disk backup, or network disk storage method, either inconvenient access, difficult to find, or limited by the bandwidth of the service provider or forced to buy members, the comprehensive experience is difficult to satisfy.
Some netizens may say that they can set up a personal NAS (Network Attached Storage) server, but this is a way with a high threshold and expensive equipment, the product is generally complex and expensive, and the hardware update such as CPU is slow, which makes many ordinary users prohibitive.
The product we reviewed today may allow you to use a personal storage server in a simpler way, which is the new Z4 private cloud storage of Jichang. Different from the traditional NAS products, the product design logic of Polar Space is completely different, and the development focuses on software system services and user experience. Can the new Z4 bring us a different experience? Here's the details.
Artistic split body 3.5 inch four-disc position
Seeing the first impression of the new Z4 of the polar space private cloud, it will feel different from the common NAS products on the market, and the "Z" shaped fuselage is full of design sense, and compared with the general "black box" NAS products, the value is much higher.
In terms of material, the pole space private cloud new Z4 uses an aluminum alloy shell, and adopts a split design, open the upper part, you can see the motherboard and heat sink, which is to facilitate users to install SSD (support PCIe 3.0) in order to use as a cache.
In terms of specifications, the new Z4 of the polar space private cloud uses the four-bay bit commonly used by mainstream NAS products, supports 2.5/3.5-inch SATA interface hard disk, the single disk capacity is up to 20TB, the total capacity is up to 80TB, and supports ZDR mode, that is, the Zspace Dynamic RAID mode, which will synchronize the content of the user device double backup on two hard disks to ensure data security, and the utilization rate is higher than the traditional RAID1 mode. It is a model that balances safety and space.
In this test, we used two purple disks with a capacity of 2TB from Western Digital, which are also large-capacity mechanical hard disks specially built for surveillance use by Western Digital, which has good reliability. However, it should be pointed out that after the installation of the hard disk, it may be that the connection with the rear interface is too tight, and it is particularly difficult to pull it out, and the handle on the upper part of the hard disk bay is not very reasonable, and the finger buckle can not pull out the hard disk.
It is worth mentioning that the front cover of the new Z4's hard disk compartment adopts a magnetic suction method, which is more convenient to remove than the snap of the old Z4. However, it may be for the visual unity of the front panel, the entire cover is designed for full coverage, and the USB interface under the front panel is also covered after the buckle, and the author suggests that it is better to narrow the lower edge of the cover and expose the interface part more easily.
The middle of the fuselage is designed with switch keys and equipped with four hard disk operating indicators, which can keep abreast of the operation of the machine according to the combination of off, solid light, flashing, and different states and colors such as red and green.
In terms of hardware configuration, the new Z4 of the Polar Space Private Cloud adopts Intel's eighth-generation Celeron J4125 quad-core processor codenamed Gemini Lake, with a maximum operating frequency of 2.7GHz and a thermal design power consumption of only 10W. Built-in 16GB eMMC storage, memory provides 4GB/8GB DDR4 two specifications, the whole machine configuration is still very powerful, in the same price point of the product is not common.
The back interface part of the fuselage, from left to right, is the USB2.0 interface, the dual 2.5G network port and the power jack, and the two network ports that pay special attention to can be aggregated through the network link to achieve a connection speed of up to 5Gbps. In addition, in order to solve the heat dissipation problem, the new Z4 of the polar space private cloud adopts a large 14cm fan, 70cfm large air volume, and a self-developed rail-type path-type air duct to ensure good heat dissipation under high load.
The easy-to-use ZOS operating system Docker application is the highlight
All along, the installation and configuration process of NAS products is relatively complex, and the software operation logic is also biased towards professionalism, but Jili Space has been committed to allowing more users to easily use NAS products, developed the ZOS operating system, fully supports mobile phones, TVs, Windows and macOS computers, WeChat Mini Programs and browsers and other types of terminals, especially the Zconnect function of the browser, does not require any additional configuration or third-party software, does not need to apply for extranet IP, compatible with various smart devices. And ZOS has iterated more than 50 versions in the past year, achieving weekly updates and continuous upgrades, which can be said to be a clear stream in the industry.
Taking the Windows client as an example, ZOS is very easy to use, similar to the operating system-like interface design and operation logic, so that ordinary users can easily get started, the desktop placed files, polar albums, polar movies, safes, document synchronization and other functional icons, you can also add functions such as device monitoring, FTP backup, Mac backup and other functions to the desktop in the settings.
In terms of mobile clients, taking the Android client as an example, the design unity of ZOS is very strong, the operation logic and functional options are highly consistent with the PC side, and uploading files, backing up photos, and viewing the status of the device can be easily completed, even if it is the first time to use, it is easy to complete.
Let's take a few typical applications to interpret in detail. The first is the album collation and film and television entertainment services commonly used by home users.
Many NAS users are enthusiasts of high-definition movies and television, and one of the important purposes of using NAS is to better organize and access high-definition movies. The polar film and television application launched by Jili Space starts from Thunderbolt and PT download, to ISO packaging, BDMV original disk, local NFO support, and then to source code/transcoding output, and finally decodes and plays on mobile phones, computers, TVs and other terminals, providing an end-to-end complete solution, perfectly supporting ISO, BDM, MKV and other original Blu-ray film and television files, supporting hundreds of video formats, and providing perfect subtitle functions, almost replacing professional Blu-ray players. In addition, Ji space has a stable high-speed extranet penetration capability, using the 4G network can access the private cloud new Z4 at home anytime and anywhere, smooth playback of high-definition movies including storage, that is, on demand, equivalent to having a high-definition film and television website of its own.
The second is the album part, for individual and family users, polar space can provide a large number of mobile phone photos automatic backup, intelligent photo album automatic classification, intelligent photo checkup, with portrait recognition, scene classification and other sorting methods, but also can control the family album members and set members of the operation authority. Polar Space has also specially developed the Extreme Space Affection App for parents and elders, simplifying the operation and making it easier for elderly users to view the family affection moments.
For small teams, the new Z4 can also be a practical tool to improve the efficiency of team collaboration. Pole Space New Z4 can be used as a network disk for small and medium-sized enterprises, or mounted as a network hard disk in the form of SMB, team space is convenient for collaborative office, and administrators can also set group settings to different members such as read/ write/read-only, which is convenient for management. In addition, it supports online editing of multi-terminal documents on computers and mobile phones, and keeps the computer documents in the office and home synchronized in real time, and no longer needs to carry the computer home. In mobile office scenarios such as business trips, even if you forget to carry a USB flash drive with important files, you can access the new Z4 of Polar Space at any time through the extranet, remotely open or download files to the local area, and ensure the completion of the work.
Another feature worth mentioning is Docker, which is the "little whale" that players are familiar with. For ordinary users, this function may not be used, but for professional NAS users, the NAS product without this function is like something missing, and the new version of the polar space Z4 can already support this function, which is on par with the professional NAS products.
In simple terms, docker is an open-source application container engine that allows developers to package their applications into a portable image and then publish them to any popular Linux or Windows operating system, or virtualize, giving users the opportunity to realize more possibilities. It is a function that is biased towards high-order operation.
However, it should be noted that the docker function supported by the new Z4 of Polar Space has not yet opened the Roleeged permission, and the mirror involving this permission still cannot run, and it does not support the IPv6 network in bridge mode for the time being, so it may not be friendly enough for some heavy players.
The NAS is also easily accessible to ordinary users
On the whole, the product positioning of the new Z4 of Polar Space is also very clear, it is different from the professional traditional NAS, but it also provides core data management, synchronization, sharing and other functions, and in a more easy-to-use operation mode to achieve multi-terminal function unification, which is still worthy of recognition.
In the past, only a few enthusiasts had massive data management needs, but now it has been popularized to the majority of ordinary users, but not everyone has a wealth of professional knowledge to buy NAS hosts and hard disks, complete a series of operations such as wiring to build personal storage servers, and the advantages of this time are reflected in the advantages of extreme space private cloud storage products.
Compared with traditional NAS products, many players may find the docker extension function of the new Z4 of Polar Space more chicken and not open enough. However, we believe that this relatively restrained open way of functioning on the new Z4 can better ensure the experience of ordinary users using NAS products, and as for enthusiast-level NAS users, we believe that it is not the target user of extreme space products.
In the private cloud market, the functions of the new Z4 of the polar space private cloud can be said to meet the storage needs of "Generation Z" users, coupled with better software services and user experience, bringing a new wind to the dull private cloud industry. In addition, in terms of price, the new Z4 of Jili Space also has obvious advantages, the price of 8GB memory version (excluding hard disk) of 2799 yuan is also relatively competitive, and it is still worth considering for users or small teams that have the need to form a family data center.