How can it be like this (official website of Polar Space) Polar Space z4 firmware, Polar Space Z4S experience: video information search+AI album management+global intranet penetration,

1、 How does the new brand break the Red Sea market? Light NAS or children’s shoes that have used NAS in the next generation should all know that more and more brands are starting to set foot in it. In addition to the previous generation of Qunhui, Verizon, Tieweima, Huayun, and other new brands, such as Polar Space, Hikvision, Lvlian, ORECO, and Huawei.

From my observation, although NAS is small, there are also many potential users. So what the new brand actually needs to do is not to share the cake with the old brands in the stock market. More important is to find new users and make them willing to pay for NAS services.

The reason is that in recent years, with @ 60Hz but the traditional and old brand of NAS needs a certain threshold to get started, which is also an important product to persuade novices to come out gradually. The white people can also feel the joy of NAS. Today I will bring you an experience, and I hope to show you this product, With: polar space Z4S flagship version: Intel Pentium N6005 processor (4 cores/4 threads, 2.0-3.3GHz): 8GB DDR4 2933MHz (expandable to 16GB): 16GB eMMC V5.1 HS400: Intel UHD Graphics (32 execution units/450-900MHz).

How the new brands represented by “light NAS”, “polar space Z4S” and “polar space” can achieve a breakthrough in the Red Sea market “model”, “processor”, “memory”, “flash memory”, “GPU”, “maximum video resolution”: 4096 × 2160：4 × 2.5 inch/3.5 inch hard disk bit (SATA 3 6Gbps): dual M.2 2280 slots (NVMe 1.2/1.3): 14cm fan × 1:35dB (A): 70cfm: 1500rpm: front USB-A (5Gbps) × 1. Front USB-C (10Gbps) × 1、USB-A（480Mbps） × 1、HDMI 2.0A、RJ45（2.5GbE） × 2. ESATA hard disk expansion port × 1:260mm (length) × 178.3mm high × 179mm (width)/2.8kg.

“Hard disk drive”, “NVMe hard disk drive”, “cooling fan”, “fan maximum noise”, “fan maximum air volume”, “fan maximum speed”, “port”, “three dimensions/weight”. 2. Compared with traditional NAS, what are the highlights of the scene experience of polar space Z4S? ― Talk about its scene experience. Traditional NAS often needs a computer+download software driver to complete the work. When you get to the extreme space, you can take out your mobile phone.

Say goodbye to NAS, it is difficult to get started. Only mobile phones can complete initialization. Because the advantage of polar space Z4S lies in the software level, let’s talk about it first. Initialization

After you register and insert a new hard disk, you will be reminded to set the hard disk mode. After the network cable is inserted into the NAS in the Linux-based polar space, and the mobile phone is located in the same LAN, the polar space APP can retrieve the new device and provide the main hard disk bin with four modes to choose from: ZDR, RAID 1, dual RAID 1, and RAID 5.

ZOS system

I use two 4TB hard disks. The best solution is the exclusive ZDR mode in polar space, which is somewhat similar to RAID 0 (capacity doubled, speed increased). But this mode can back up selected folders, so it also avoids risks to some extent. Another bright point is that in traditional NAS, only M.2 hard disks can be used as read-write acceleration, and in polar space Z4S.

It can be read and written directly as storage space. However, at present, only Basic can be selected. I think we can increase the choice of disk array in the future.

After a simple initialization, you can enter the system interface. This polar space APP is the best one I have used in NAS. The interactive interface is the best. Many common settings do not need a computer at all. This is the highlight of new brands.

And without any settings, this APP is supported by default. You can also use the “intranet penetration” transfer of the polar space server to log in to your account and remotely control the NAS in your home. This is much better than traditional brands. When you want to use Docker, Thunderbolt and other advanced operations, you can also access the web end background through IP address.

Many NAS users have the ability to mount the storage space to the computer to facilitate the transfer of files. Polar space also provides the function of accessing the storage space of polar space Z4S through Samba, WebDAV, DLNA, SFTP, NFS and other protocols. It should be noted that the shared folder is read-only and not writable, so it needs to be independently established for management.

Map Network Disk

The mobile phone photos can be backed up at any time, and can also be identified and classified by AI. Because my parents love to travel, even if it is a weekend, they have to go to the farm to enjoy themselves. So over the years, a large number of photos have been taken. Every time they are exported from the camera, they will be stored on the computer in their room, and the middle-aged and old people like to take a scene many times. A large number of photos not only take up space, but also the camera default album management is chaotic, It is not convenient for them to adjust.

The emergence of NAS has well solved this pain point. For example, Polar Space Z4S has excellent photo album function. You can automatically back up your mobile phone photos. At the same time, it also supports AI recognition, so that your family can view photos according to people, scenes, footprints, festivals and other scenes

My family are all iPhone users. My parents have 128GB capacity. Most of them have given WeChat and a small part have left photos. They often remind them to open iCloud members. Now that there is Z4S, we can finally free up the space for old photos. Isn’t it convenient to download NAS? Is it difficult to share resources? Polar space Z4S can disagree.

Students who have used traditional NAS must have experienced the problem of download function, or the download tool is not convenient, so they often choose to download and copy to NAS by computer; Or it is difficult to share local resources. You have to copy the resources from NAS and then transfer them to Baidu Cloud for sharing. If you don’t have members, you will have a big head. These operations violate the original intention of NAS.

Light NAS such as polar space has keenly detected the pain point of this scenario. If Thunderbolt resources are available, you can download them directly from Thunderbolt built in the ZOS system. If it is a network disk resource, you can use the network disk synchronization function in polar space. Baidu Cloud supports synchronization to NAS local.

For friends who use polar space like you, you can also share local resources through flash transmission. As long as the other party copies your password and opens the mobile app or web page, it can automatically identify the start of downloading and sharing. You can set the password extraction, password time limit, number of times, etc., which can effectively protect privacy and security.

❹ It is difficult to synchronize the data of MacOS users? You can try NAS+TimeMachine. As a MacOS user, every time you change a new machine, you can’t miss the data synchronization between the new and old devices. But sometimes you will encounter various reasons that cause the data synchronization to be too slow or even fail. If the machine is accidentally flooded and the motherboard is replaced, like me, the new machine will not have backup available.

E Time machine backup function. After setting a specific folder and space limit, the backup drive letter on the local network can be viewed on the Mac as long as it is connected to the network. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that MacOS users learn to use TimeMachine. Before NAS is available, I used external storage to achieve this. Each backup has to plug and unplug the hard disk, which is very inconvenient.

NAS systems such as ZOS provide TimeMachine, which can achieve seamless backup in the real sense “NAS+TimeMachine”

My personal suggestion is to set the capacity limit to 2-4 times the space of the Mac computer, which can basically guarantee the backup of multiple time nodes. If the next time you encounter a new computer, you don’t need to match the two computers, and you can restore directly from the Z4S.

❺ There is a bottleneck in gigabit NAS read and write. Is dual 2.5Gbps link aggregation enough for you? Many students who use NAS for the first time are basically exposed to gigabit network ports, which can be converted to 1000Mbps=125MB/s. If you have RAID 0 of your hard disk group, the read and write rates are more than 200-300MB/s, obviously there is a performance bottleneck.

Moreover, if multiple devices are concurrent, the uplink and downlink bandwidth will be further reduced, so light NAS generally consider 2.5Gbps or even 5Gbps, while polar space Z4S is equipped with dual 2.5Gbps ports and supports link aggregation

If you want to expand its bandwidth, the first step is to choose from the network settings. Here are three aggregation modes. “Link aggregation” personally suggests that you consider adaptive load balancing. If your switch is strong enough, you can also consider dynamic link aggregation. Leave the work to the switch. I choose the second mode.

After setting the NAS end, the second step is to set the two network ports accessed as link aggregation in the background of the switch. At this time, Z4S and the switch can complete the aggregation. It should be noted that the link aggregation function of the NAS end cannot be automatically turned off. If you want to turn off this mode, turn off the NAS option first, and then operate the switch. Otherwise, you may not be able to connect to the network, and you can only reset it.

Finally, I suggest fixing the IP address to avoid other settings due to network interface changes

How effective is link aggregation? We can download and configure the iPerf3 test tool from the Docker container of the ZOS system through iPerf3 monitoring. We can see that the data bandwidth of the polar space Z4S (2.5Gbps) and the computer (10Gbps) has reached 2.2Gbps, which translates into the actual read and write performance. The peak value is estimated at 275MB/s, which is equal to the sum of the uplink and downlink, a total of 4.4Gbps.

However, the speed of up and down will also depend on the performance of the hard disk. For example, the actual read and write test of large files shows that the peak read rate from is 250MB/s, and 46GB files can be copied in only 4 minutes. “NAS → Local”

The peak write rate of slave is 276MB/s, which is also the upper limit of hard disk capacity. “Local → NAS”

Of course, if you want to squeeze out all the bandwidth of the NAS uplink and downlink, you can perform bidirectional replication at the same time. The total bandwidth you can see is 336.92MB/s, which is actually close to the bandwidth performance of 3Gbps. After the dual2.5Gbps link aggregation is enabled, the uplink and downlink bandwidth is sufficient even for concurrent access of multiple devices.

It is estimated that this is the ultimate performance of mechanical hard disk+ZDR mode. If you use PCIe 3.0 solid state hard disk for testing, the data will be higher ↔ Local

❻ The extreme film and television with its own information search+waterfall flow posters really need to roll over the traditional NAS and finally talk to you about the movie and television broadcast of NAS. The traditional NAS generally does not have this built-in function, and often needs to use a third-party TV box or APP to mount NAS to achieve, such as Jellyfin, EMBY, PLEX, KODI, and fuse. Free deployment is more difficult, and the price is not cheap, I don’t need a hundred yuan a year.

The video and audio function, which is very easy for users to pay for, is not only built in, but also free of charge. It can be used when opened. It is really an audio and video artifact. It can not only automatically search for posters, actors and other information according to the video source in the NAS to form waterfall posters, but also classify them according to movies and TV dramas. It can be quickly searched, and even if there is a mismatch problem, it can be manually corrected.

And thanks to the decoding ability of Intel UHD Graphics, I can’t believe that the smooth operation experience of Extreme Video makes me a little surprised that whether it is video loading or dragging, it is smooth and smooth. In addition, this video function also supports streaming in different places (intranet penetration). The engineers of Extreme Space do have something.

In addition, an HDMI 2.0A port is reserved at the end of Polar Space Z4S. When it is connected to a TV or projector, it will enter the above playing state. Through the mobile phone APP, it can be directly played on demand in Polar Film and Television. At this time, the mobile phone will also become a remote control. Of course, you can also set the subtitles, audio tracks, playback rate, playback mode, etc., which is so high and really awesome.

I also tested some films in NAS. The 4K HDR, ISO format high bit-rate film source can also be mapped normally and played smoothly. However, Dolby Vision and other ultra-high specification film formats are still not supported. To be honest, Dolby Vision is really meaningless for all the current civilian TV and projection.

At least it is difficult to realize the mapping by comparing the source of HDR 10 with Dolby Vision. It is suggested to feel the difference in the cinema

⏷ [Film]: Life Events

⏷ [Film]: Thor: Love and Thunder

⏷ [Film]: “High Altitude: The lone ranger”

⏷ [Film]: Dayshift Hunter

⏷ [TV series]: The Big Bang of Life

⏷ [TV series]: The Family of Dragons

As a senior movie watching enthusiast, Polar Space Z4S can really meet my daily movie watching needs, and Polar Film and Television is extremely friendly to NAS Xiaobai. I think Polar Space can consider making this app an independent product, compatible with other NAS, and I believe it can become a good replacement product for PLEX and even Infuse. I am still.

I am willing to pay for it.

3、 What about the exterior design and internal structure of the Z4S?

Finally, when we look at the appearance design and internal structure of the Polar Space Z4S and take it out of the package, we have to say that it is a bit amazing. On the one hand, NAS with white shell is rare. Compared with the cold traditional black series, white is really versatile. On the other hand, the shell of the Z4S is made of all-aluminum alloy body, and the surface is supplemented with frosted texture, which is more prominent.

The front of the pole space Z4S is the cover plate of the magnetic attraction. Compared with the traditional NAS with the majority of meshes, it has the function of both beauty and dust prevention. After being removed, there are four internal hard disk slots. There is also a USB-C (10Gbps) and USB-A (5Gbps) below, which can be connected with some external mobile storage devices.

Remove the hard disk bin, and you can see the four internal hard disk ports for power supply and data transmission, followed by a huge 14cm fan, and the air duct is designed to be a rear in front out fan with a maximum speed of 1500rpm and a maximum air volume of 70cfm. The hydraulic bearing is also used, and the maximum fan noise is only 35dB (A), which is very good.

It is worth mentioning that the hard disk bin of Polar Space Z4S and the tongue fixed on the side are also integrated. Compared with the traditional design that needs to be buckled down, the disassembly and assembly is more convenient, and there is no need to worry about loss. However, the clips in and out of the hard disk drive cage are still tight. I hope to optimize them in the future.

On the left side of the polar space Z4S are the work indicators of four hard disks, as well as the power button with LED lights. Here also uses wood grain paint, white+wood grain, which is suitable for a log wind.

At the end of the polar space Z4S, you can see that the fan occupies a large area. From left to right, there are 1 eSATA hard disk expansion port, 1 USB-A (480Mbps), 2 RJ45 (2.5GbE), power interface and HDMI 2.0A.

Finally, at the bottom of the polar space Z4S, there are four foot pads to support anti-skid and shock absorption. There is also a rubber pad in the official accessories, which can achieve further shock absorption effect.

The passive cooling of the CPU is carried out by the cooling fin. After removing the four screws at the bottom, you can see the internal PCB in the polar space. You can see that the CPU and other areas are used. The default memory is 8GB DDR4 板载海力士内存颗粒，也隐匿在散热鳍片之下。

「Intel 奔腾 N6005 处理器」【注】：极空间 Z4S 目前分为标准版和旗舰版，旗舰版搭载 N6005 处理器，均为 8GB 板载内存，标准版搭载 N5105 处理器，内存有 4GB和 8GB 两个版本，均支持内存扩展。

本文测试的便是旗舰版的珍珠白款（珍珠白版本为内部定制版，不公开发售），零售版为碳晶灰配色

因为极空间 Z4S 还预留了一个 SO-DIMM 笔记本内存插槽，你可以考虑搭配个同规格的 8GB DDR4 笔记本内存，组成 16GB 双通道。如果你有虚拟机等场景需求时，性能发挥会更强。

此外就空间还预留了 2 个 M.2 SSD 硬盘位，支持 PCIe 2.0 / 3.0 通道和 NVMe 标准，更关键的是这个 M.2 硬盘可以直接当存储池使用，而非 HDD 的读写加速它的可玩性就相当的高了，所以我就把手头上的两根金士顿 NV1 A2000 1TB 固态硬盘放进去了。

以上就是极空间 Z4S 的外观设计与内部构造了，总体来说做工扎实，功能完备，如果能够把前置的 USB-C 和 USB-A 挪到外面就更完美了。

总体来说，极空间 Z4S 算是我用过体验非常不错的 NAS 产品了一方面是它的上手难度很低，非常适合作为年轻人的第一款 NAS 入门另一方面，Z4S 在已有的场景体验里，完成度相当高，比如影视片源信息搜刮、AI 相册管理、全局内网穿透，只用手机就能完成日常的 NAS 运维和体验，这点在传统 NAS 身上难以得见。

不得不说，极空间 Z4S 打破了我对轻 NAS 的偏见，感受到了后起之秀的巨大潜力期待未来能够看到更多优秀的同类产品问世，让更多的消费者感受到的 NAS 的魅力最后还是例行提一些【值得改进】的地方，如果能够加以完善，相信能够收获更多的潜在用户：

① 首先，极空间 Z4S 的人机交互针对小白用户非常的贴心，但是设备的专业性和可玩性还有待加强虽然目前可以通过 Docker 在一定程度上弥补，但终归需要工程师们多多努力② 其次，极空间的极影视功能完成度很高，但在播放大码率的 4K HDR 片源时还是会偶尔出现间发性的卡顿，估计是软硬件协同问题，建议极空间团队进一步优化，像 Infuse 这样的专业软件看齐。

③ 再次，正面的 USB-C 和 USB-A 隐匿于面板之下，为了观感整体性而牺牲了功能性，可以考虑改到侧面或者直接露出④ 最后，极空间的硬盘仓位卡扣比较紧，特别是第一个盘位，如果嵌入过紧，需要卸下剩下三个盘位，伸手进去使劲方可取出。

分享到此结束，感谢您的耐心观看，我是Geek 研究僧，一枚爱好测评的研究生。