A Look Inside

It's time now to strip down the NAS and discover what components it hides inside its casing. Cracking open the KD20 isn't an easy task, but everything looks easy if you are able to fully dismantle PSUs only to reassemble them back into working order later.


The housing of the KD20 consists of two parts: a plastic and aluminum one. Its chassis is also made out of aluminum.


A close view of the PCIe expansion card that holds the two SATA connectors for the HDDs.


The front panel of the KD20 is made of plastic and includes the power on/off switch.


The main PCB is very small, but includes all the necessary components to provide the KD20 with all the basic functions of a decent NAS server.


Some close shots of the main PCB. We will mention the most crucial components in the following paragraphs.


The brain of the KD20 is a dual-core PLX NAS 7821 CPU with each core clocked at 750 MHz. It is accompanied by 256 MB of DDR2 RAM (Hynix H5PS1G63JFR).


This is the 1 Gbit NAND flash module of the NAS. It is a Hynix H27U1G8F2BTR IC.


The IC in the middle of the above photo is a PCF8563, a CMOS Real-Time Clock (RTC) IC. Next to it we find some mosfet drivers.


The Gigabit Ethernet controller, an IP1001 IC, has been installed next to the PCIE port.


The buzzer of the KD20. It is small but effective.


A Genesys Logic GL827L IC handles both USB 2.0 ports and the SD-card reader.


The USB 3.0 controller, an EtronTech EJ168A IC.


In this photo, we see several ANPEC APW7323 buck converters along with the corresponding coils. These are used to provide power to the CPU.


A ball-bearings ADDA fan of good quality (AD0712DB-D76; 70 mm; 12 V ; 0.11 A; 2500 RPM; 26.3 dBA; 20 CFM) equips the unit.