Although you don’t have to get into the NAS’ case to install the disks, we couldn’t help dismantling it just to take a look at the PCB. It wasn’t quite easy. There are no locks or screws visible on the case. You have to start the process by detaching the gray plate at the bottom of the case – it takes an effort. The plate conceals four screw holes. Unfasten the screws to detach the first disk compartment – you should also disconnect the power and SATA cables. Repeating the same for the second disk compartment, you finally reach the PCB. It can be taken out of the case after undoing four more screws.

Now we can take a closer look at the piece of blue textolite that accommodates the electronic components of the NAS200. The reverse part of the PCB has only small surface-mounted elements, SATA and power connectors, and a Backup button. The other elements, including indicators and remaining connectors, are on the face side. The component layout is overall neat and clever.

There are no so many electronic components here. The NAS is based on a R3210 SoC from RDC.

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Besides a 32-bit RISC processor based on the x86 architecture, it incorporates a number of important devices such as a 2-port USB 2.0 host-controller, a SDRAM controller, a PCI controller, etc. The integrated processor has a clock rate of 133MHz and 16 kilobytes of L1 cache. This high level of integration helped the developer save on the amount of chips used in the NAS200. For example, the integrated USB controller is employed instead of an onboard USB controller.

The system memory of the NAS200 is a P2V56S40BTP chip from MIRA (32MB SDRAM).

The device’s firmware is stored in an 8MB JS28F640 chip from Intel.

Besides these three basic chips, there are a SiI3512 chip from Silicon Image and an IP101A from IC Plus. The former is a dual-port SATA controller with RAID0/RAID1 capability. The other chip is a single-port Fast Ethernet switch.

A UART console for the processor can be installed on the PCB. There is a seat for it.