Setting up virtual servers is a cinch, as you just require an image provided by Ecobyte, which is copied to one of the logical disks. From the menu, you simply provide a name, select an image from the list and enter an IP address for it. Using the VNC Viewer, we were able to Telnet to the command line and fire up remote access to the XWindows console and configure it as though it were a physical Linux server. At present, all images must be supplied by Ecobyte, but an option to create your own images of virtual servers and store them on the appliance is on the cards. To keep the virtual server protected, it’s run from the hard disks and not from the IDE Flash Disk, which looks after the NAS OS. Where you go from here is up to you, as you have a full Linux Enterprise server to play with. You can even create multiple servers for different roles, and run anything from web, email or FTP services.
The NAS16SXE delivers a good range of features for the price, along with extensive hardware- and software-managed RAID arrays. The virtual server makes the Ecobyte system very unusual, and there’s more to come from this company. It advised us that support for iSCSI targets is expected later this year.
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