The Basics:

The 12TB Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 is a rather slick looking black box that measures just over eight inches high, six inches wide, and 10 inches deep. Packed with the four 3TB drives, the whole thing weighs in at close to fourteen pounds.



In the photos above, and in the promotional image below, we can see that there is an LCD display with two buttons near the top of the front face for accessing different bits of information. Towards the bottom of the front face is a power button, three status LEDs, and one of four USB 2.0 connections.



The next two images were taken with the drive bay door ajar, which reveals the four hot-swappable hard drive trays. The below right image zooms in on a message found on the inside of the door which makes you aware that certain drive configurations will result in data loss if more than one drive is removed at a time.



The below left image shows one of the 3TB SATA drives installed in one of the hot-swap plastic trays. The trays are made of plastic, with ventilation slots up front, as well as an orange plastic tab used to release/secure the drives into the housing. The below right image takes a look down inside the housing with all drives removed, where we can see the four SATA data/power headers, as well as a portion of the cooling fan out back.



The next pair of images take a look at the back of the NAS enclosure. There is a 120mm fan for cooling, a pair of 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, three more USB 2.0 connections, a DC power plug, and a reset button.



The fan used in the NAS 440 follows the basic design of any 120mm you would use in your computer case, so it is replaceable. AS we'll see later in the review, it is something you may want to consider.