IT Pro Verdict
The Sentinel DX4200 scores for ease of use and offers a generous storage capacity for the price. It works hand in glove with Windows networks but performance is a mixed bag and you should ignore the buggy SmartWare Pro software
Pros
- +
Easy deployment, Good value, High storage capacity, Windows Storage Spaces, SFF boot disk
Cons
- -
SmartWare Pro software of limited value, Parity disks hurt performance
SMBs that want a storage appliance that'll slip easily into their Windows network might find WD's Sentinel DX4200 fits the bill nicely. The brain behind this 4-bay desktop box comes courtesy of Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 (WSS) so anyone familiar with Microsoft's standard server OSes will feel right at home.
It's a significant upgrade over the Sentinel DX4000 which still chugs along with Windows Storage Server 2008 Essentials R2 at the helm. The DX4200 has a more useable 4GB of server-grade DDR3 and although its dual-core 1.7GHz Atom C2338 CPU doesn't offer much of a speed boost, it does support up to 16GB of memory.
You can't buy a diskless appliance as WD only offers it in 8TB or 16TB capacities. We have the latter on review which came with four 4TB WD Se SATA hard disks included.
Another smart feature is the OS is installed on a 500GB SFF SATA drive tucked away in the side of the chassis. You can also fit an identical SFF drive in the carrier on the other side for a fault tolerant mirror.
The StorCentral app shows appliance utilisation but hands you over to the Windows Server Manager for all configuration tasks
