Western Digital is first to market with "Advanced Format" 4K-sector drives, but when will vendors support them?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new generation of hard disk drives that use 4K sectors rather than the historic 512 byte size. As I noted in that piece, although PC and Mac users with recent OS versions had nothing to fear from these, embedded devices like the TiVo and Drobo I use and love might not be compatible. I tried reaching out to these vendors, but only one has actually responded.

Drobo Compatibility Is Coming

You can discover all sorts of things in firmware release notes if you look hard enough. The latest firmware for the Data Robotics DroboElite and Drobo S (versions 1.0.1 and 2.0.1, respectively) now include 4K drive support. The former was released at the end of December, though I didn’t get around to blogging about it then. So users of the third-generation Drobo products are set as far as 4K “Advanced Format” drives go.

I sat down with Drobo’s new CEO, Tom Buiocchi, at the Business Development Event in Palo Alto today and asked about this issue. The company assures me that the still-current second-generation devices, the Drobo and Drobo Pro, will also get 4K disk drive support in their next firmware update. They recommend updating the firmware of any Drobo device before installing a 4K drive, since the drive will have to be reformatted and rebuilt otherwise. I appreciate their responsiveness.

Update: Drobo Pro (firmware 1.1.5) and the base Drobo (firmware 1.3.6) got 4k drive support in early February!

If Not Now, When?

Since these new drives remain scarce, I agree that this support alone is not cause for a firmware rev. But the fact that online retailers are shipping them with little notice or warning about incompatibility does raise flags. Here’s hoping everyone supports them before they become common!

I remain concerned that no other maker of embedded hard disk-based devices has responded. This is not a priority for those that don’t support end users swapping out hard disk drives, but there are many devices that remain questionable. I’d love to hear from Netgear, Iomega, Linksys, Synology and others regarding their level of support.

Update: Synology released updated firmware to support the Western Digital EARS 4K Advanced Format family of drives at the exact moment I posted this!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Drobo Adding 4K Drive Support – What About Everyone Else?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Today, Google announced that their existing Docs platform will soon open up to storage of all file types. This was widely anticipated, as Google evolved the Docs service over the past year and added references to “Files” rather than specific document types. This could be the next step towards the long-rumored “GDrive” storage offering.

Although Google insists that this is not GDrive, it provides the capability of this leaked concept:

1. “… reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents …” – This new offering supports any and all file types, regardless of whether Google supports them. Further, users (and enterprise Apps customers) can purchase extra capacity with no upper limit. This sounds like “all of your files” to me!
2. “… access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device — be it from your desktop, Web browser, or cellular phone” – Google Docs, as a web application, is already accessible from anything with a web browser. But Google has gone further and opened an access API, which third-party apps have slowly begun to support, and has built mobile phone-specific versions of the interface.

In my opinion, Google Docs will soon be a reasonable stand-in for GDrive, but it’s not really anything special. There are lots of services that support online storage of unstructured data, and many include impressive syncing, searching, and sharing capabilities that go well beyond what Google is offering. Third-party clients for Docs add much of this functionality, but they also add extra cost and complexity.

For example, Memeo Connect looks to be a nice front-end for Google Docs and will launch alongside this Google release, but Memeo tells me that this software will cost $9 per user annually. A small amount, to be sure, but a necessary expense to really make use of Google’s limited upload and access capabilities.

Cloud Storage On The Cheap?

One element of this release that did catch my eye was the pricing:

• Google Docs users will get one GB of capacity for free but can add additional capacity at the rate of $.25 per GB per year. This is an eye-opening rate, well below the established pricing of cloud storage and backup vendors.
• But this isn’t the whole story. Google wisely expects enterprise customers to require actual customer support and offers enterprise capacity at a rate of $3.50 per GB per year. This works out to $.29 per GB per month, much more in line with existing offerings. In fact, it’s more expensive than Rackspace Cloud Files, Amazon S3, Nirvanix (where I work), Zetta, and AT&T Synaptic Storage, though Google is bundling bandwidth costs.

Although the enterprise pricing of this offering is not compelling, it does illustrate two truisms of the cloud market:

1. If you want support, you need to pay for it – Chicken Littles out there have been crowing that “the cloud is falling” after watching poorly-architected and -supported solutions fail, yet complain when service providers try to talk about TCO. Well, guess what: You won’t get enterprise-grade cloud storage for free.
2. Disk capacity is a small component of TCO – Why does Google Docs cost 14 times more for business users? Because disk drives make up a very small part of the real cost of delivering storage services. If this doesn’t dispel the dumb disk fallacy, I don’t know what will!

So Google’s new Docs capability isn’t revolutionary, either in technology or cost. But I’m looking forward to trying it out over the coming months. It will certainly be interesting to see how this all resolves!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Is GDrive Finally Being Launched?
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

It’s that time again, when everyone who thinks they’re a pundit (that would be everyone with a blog or Twitter account) has to make predictions for the coming year. But predictions are perilous: Get it right and you look like a mere trend-watcher; get it wrong and you look like a fool. It’s such a hassle! So I’m doing something different this year: I’m going to make predictions for 2009 now that it’s over, and reflect on just how smart I am (not) to have made them. Or something.

What I Would Have Gotten Right

I definitely could have predicted a lot of what happened in 2009. I mean, these were slam dunks!

1. Twitter rocks the world – I wasn’t early to Twitter, but I spent the early part of 2009 evangelizing its benefits to companies and co-workers alike. Considering how common Twitter is today, it’s hard to believe how roundly criticized and misunderstood it was this time last year. Yet here we are, on the verge of 2010, and Twitter has seeped onto our business cards, presentation templates, and web sites. I might not have predicted how stable (!) Twitter got by the end of the year, though.
2. Apple’s Macs and iPhones rule – I switched to the iPhone and the Mac in 2007 and 2008, respectively, but it looks like I wasn’t much of an iconoclast after all: By November, half of the Tech Field Day delegates were using MacBooks, and the Windows and Blackberry holdouts have started vocally defending their operating system choice. Pretty much like Mac folks used to do way back in 2008.
3. The recession is a serious pain – Companies put the brakes on spending and hiring, many even shifting both into reverse in 2009. This came as no surprise to humans capable of thought. The impact on enterprise IT companies was similarly predictable: Although most were able to survive, the impact of 2009 will continue to be felt for years. I might have predicted it would be worse, though I’m glad to say I would have been wrong.
4. EMC, NetApp, HDS, HP, and IBM continue to quibble – Surprise: Big company bloggers spend way too much time criticizing the products and actions of each other and way to little time talking about the true value of their own products.

Non-IT slam-dunk predictions: Obama was reviled by the right; the war in Afghanistan continues; people do stupid stuff in the name of reality shows.

What I Probably Could Have Predicted

Although some details would likely have been missed, I think I would have seen these coming.

1. Cloud compute and storage hits the enterprise – I was a believer in the cloud this time last year, and I bet my future on it by taking a position at enterprise cloud storage provider, Nirvanix, in March. I would have predicted that enterprise buyers would be putting serious thought to buying cloud products, but the scope has surprised me. We’re talking enough petabytes that the non-cloud players felt compelled to strike back with the private cloud pitch. Awesome!
2. Sun and Data Domain were acquired – My money would have been on Dell, IBM, or HP as buyers for this pair, but EMC wouldn’t have been outside my guesses. Still, Oracle buying Sun and vocally committing to keep it going, SPARC and all, would never have come to mind. But I wouldn’t have guessed against it either, so I’ll give myself a point here!
3. Cisco and EMC buddy up – I’ve long thought an outright merger of these two was in the cards, but even the recession couldn’t make the financials work. A partnership would have been on the list, and Acadia came as no surprise to anyone.
4. Cloud outages and data loss – I definitely could have predicted that high-profile cloud services would fall over throughout the year, and that some would lose data. Not all are enterprise-grade, after all. But the outages at Google, Rackspace, and Amazon, and Microsoft’s Danger data loss, surprised me. Don’t those guys have their acts together?
5. IT conferences falter – I spoke at Interop in 2009, but it lacked the 20,000-strong crowd it once had. Storage Decisions and Storage Networking World managed to fill their halls, but the old-school IT conference has lost its luster. Although VMworld remains strong, attendance was definitely off.
6. FCoE and SSD are still starting – I’ve been lukewarm on Fibre Channel over Ethernet and Solid State Drives, but I’m a bit surprised that storage vendors didn’t push them harder in 2009. I might have guessed there would have been more customer uptake to match the buzz.
7. SMB storage is hot – There’s a hole in the storage market between $1,000 and $20,000, and companies like Drobo and Iomega are rushing in to fill it. Now that ESX has solid iSCSI support, I expect a world of innovation here. (Oops, that sounds kind of like a 2010 prediction!)

Also in the predictable category: Goldman Sachs and Bank of America thrived while others fell; Ford is the strongest of the remaining US automakers; Boeing finally got the 787 off the ground.

What I Never Would Have Guessed

I’m not perfect, even in retrospect. Some of the Tech news from 2009 was just completely off the wall.

1. Microsoft Bing: This time for sure! – Seriously, Microsoft should stick to in-house thinking instead of trying to copy its rivals. Yet somehow, miraculously, Bing appeared and did not suck. In fact, I’m hearing regular (non-techie) folks around town talking about using the search engine. I’ve even used it! Could they actually have a winner?
2. Windows 7 rocks – Really? Seriously? Could Microsoft have come up with a solid replacement for Windows XP?
3. Ship it! – It’s not even 2010, and enterprise storage buyers can go out and purchase NetApp’s OnTap 8, EMC’s FAST, EMC Atmos Compute, and unicorn tears. Well, maybe not unicorn tears.
4. Still no GDrive – Seemingly every company has a cloud storage platform, from Amazon to Rackspace, Nirvanix to EMC, so why not Google? Could GDrive join Duke Nukem Forever as the most famous vaporware of the decade?
5. The executive shuffle – Dave Donatelli was supposed to lead EMC, not HP. Alan Atkinson was supposed to launch another startup, not take over Xiotech. At least NetApp was gentle.
6. Mac OS X (still) lacks iSCSI and ZFS – Come on, Cupertino, what’s wrong with you guys? I’ve been hyping ZFS for years, and iSCSI is commonplace. Yet Snow Leopard is stingy with both. Makes me want to hiss like one of those blue folks in Avatar.
7. Gestalt IT is a success – On a personal note, Gestalt IT didn’t even exist this time last year, and now we have a successful IT infrastructure blog and social media event. Amazing!

Other total shockers: Everyone loves Michael Jackson again; digital Beatles tunes are available everywhere but iTunes; Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize arrives 10 years early.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | My 2009 IT Industry Predictions
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Western Digital is first to bring "Advanced Format" 4k-sector drives to market, but buyers should beware of installing them in old systems!

Personal computer hard disk drive access methods have repeatedly been forced to adapt to ever-expanding capacity. Physical (CHS) addressing and 28-bit LBA have been abandoned, but the disk drives themselves retain the tiny 512-byte sectors they have had since IBM introduced fixed-block addressing in the 1970’s. But time marches on, and Western Digital is leading the change to larger 4 kilobyte hard disk blocks. Although this new “Advanced Format” includes mechanisms for backwards compatibility, buyers should be wary of these new drives for the time being.

A Little History

A long, long time ago, before there were personal computers, IBM set the standard for data storage with their CKD (“count key device”) format. Variable-sized records were stored on a raw disk with gaps between them. Each included a sequence number (“count”), an optional key, and the data itself.

This flexible format proved impractical as multi-process systems evolved in the 1970’s, so IBM introduced a new format: Fixed-block architecture (FBA). FBA disk drives were divided up into equal-sized blocks and addressed by their physical location on a specific cylinder accessed by a specific head. Each cylinder/head pairing had its own series of sectors, starting at the outer edge of the physical disk platter and moving inward.

This system of addressing hard disk capacity with a triple number identifying the cylinder, head, and sector (“CHS”) continued in the PC space in the 1980’s. Since early hard disk drives were tiny by modern standards, the PC industry chose the smallest sector size specified by IBM, 512 bytes. The earliest MS-DOS/BIOS PCs were limited to just 504 MB, thanks to incompatible defaults for the CHS address space. This forced a transition, initially raising the addressable capacity to 7.8 GB.

But the writing was on the wall: CHS just didn’t make sense. Storage protocols, including ATA, were being pressed into service for devices that didn’t have cylinders or heads, and the 128 GB limit of ATA-1 wouldn’t cut it forever. So the industry transitioned again, abandoning physical references in favor of a simple logical block addressing (LBA) scheme. By the time ATA-6 was introduced in 2002, all systems used LBA, and the new 48-bit address system allowed a maximum of 128 PB of capacity per device.

Though hard disk capacity had ballooned from the megabyte to the terabyte range (a million-times increase in 30 years), the 512-byte disk sector remained, each with its own error-correcting code (ECC) and gap.

Up To Date

Processors and file systems have long since moved on from 512-byte blocks of data, with 4 kilobytes being the most common size used by the x86 CPU and NTFS, ext3/4, and HFS+ filesystems in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. With just about every storage access triggering the reading or writing of eight disk sectors, an increase in hard disk sector size to 4 KB seems obvious. Stepping up to 4K enables better ECC checksums, making disks more reliable (in theory) and freeing up capacity.

Modern operating systems, including Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.4-10.6, VMware ESX 3.x-4.x, and most recent versions of Linux, will have no problem with 4 KB sectors in most cases. Installing a 4K drive, like Western Digital’s new “R” line, and partitioning and formatting it fresh should present no issues for most users. In fact, these operating systems will not even “know” they are talking to any special kind of drive, since Western Digital presents its new 4 KB sectors as plain old 512 byte sectors for compatibility reasons.

What’s Your Alignment?

Other systems present a challenge, however. MS-DOS traditionally started filesystems at sector number 63, and most other PC operating systems (including old versions of Linux and VMware) followed this convention. This presented no issue at all as long as disks used 512-byte sectors: Requesting 8 sectors starting at number 63 was the same as requesting eight starting at sector 64. But things get mucked up when the disk drive uses 4 KB sectors.

See the misalignment here? A starting offset of 63 moves the filesystem cluster across the 4K sector boundary. This misalignment means that every filesystem cluster access results in two disk sector accesses. This is a Very Bad Thing, especially for to write performance. Layers upon layers of convention, standards, and compatibility have left us with a problem.

Western Digital solves this problem in one of two ways:

1. Jumper pins 7 and 8 on the drive and it will internally offset all of its logical 512-byte sectors by one
2. Correctly align all partitions written to these new drives

The jumper method, though simple, is not a great idea. If the drive was ever moved or reformatted to a system that aligns its volumes differently (as do all modern operating systems), it would be puzzlingly slow. Instead, it’s best to simply realign any filesystems written to the drives, and Western Digital is providing a utility do just that.

USB, Drobo, and TiVo, Oh My!

Most external drive enclosures will simply pass read and write requests to these new drives as they get them. This means that an external USB enclosure with an Advanced Format drive will have exactly the same issues as an internal drive if it is partitioned under Windows XP or another old operating system. Not only that, but portable drives often get moved from system to system, so an XP-formatted USB disk will have this misalignment issue even when attached to a Windows 7 machine! As these 4K drives begin hitting the market, users should be careful to note if they are correctly aligned.

But what about other disk-using devices like Drobos and TiVos? The jury is still out here. TiVo appears to use misaligned partitions, so I don’t recommend installing 4K drives in a TiVo at this point. I contacted a number of other manufacturers, most of whom are “looking into” the matter.

Data Robotics did respond, and even posted a tech note about 4K drives on their support site. Their short answer is no, that 4K drives should not be used in Drobo storage devices. However, it is unclear if they are affected or just erring on the side of caution until they can test these new hard disks. They also promise an update allowing the use of 4K drives in the future.

I would be cautious about using 4K drives in anything other than a newish PC or Mac at this point. I will continue following the situation and will post updates on my blog as news comes out.

More Info

The following articles also offer great insight into these new 4K drives:

• Western Digital: Advanced Format Technology White Paper
• StorageMojo: Why we need 4k drives
• AnandTech: Western Digital’s Advanced Format: The 4K Sector Transition Begins

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Drobo, XP Users: Beware of 4K “Advanced Format” Drives!
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer history, Enterprise storage, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Data Robotics is throwing a special Gestalt IT Tech Field Day Drobo Sale!

Regular readers of the Pack Rat blog know I love my Drobo. I’m not the only one – the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day delegates spilled a ton of virtual ink over the Drobo, and their Drobo videos are definitely worth watching! But the Drobo is a bit pricey, especially the newly-released Drobo S and Drobo Elite models. Happily, I offer a solution: Data Robotics was kind enough to arrange a special Tech Field Day Drobo sale, allowing each delegate who chooses to participate offer their own discount code!

The Discount – USA/Canada

The US and Canada stores currently have a sale running on all Drobo models and are also offering $30 and $60 rebates on the Drobo and DroboPro models. There’s no telling how long that will last.

The Tech Field Day codes offer the same discount on three of the four models, but yield an extra $100 off the Drobo Elite. The Tech Field Day codes are good at least through the end of 2009.

Note: Drobo informs me that the current $30 and $60 rebates can not be stacked with any of these discounts. You can always try submitting the form anyway, but you might get turned down.

The Discount – Europe

The European Drobo store has no current discounts, so the Tech Field Day codes are much more interesting!

Get Your Code!

Since each Tech Field Day delegate got his own code, it would be unfair to list just one here. Therefore, when a delegate decides to participate and posts his code, I will be adding a link here. You can pick your favorite and use that code at the US and Canada online Drobo Stores! If you would like to order from the European store, you need a special EU code.

• Bas Raayman: An early christmas present from Drobo
• Rich Brambley: Drobo Bo! Bo! Merry Christmas! Discount Code For VM /ETC readers
• Rick Vanover: Get Your Drobo On With These Discount Codes!
• Carlo Costanzo: Drobo iSCSI SAN Discount courtesy of Tech Field Day

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | The Great Tech Field Day Drobo Sale!
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

One of the cool automatic things that the Drobo “storage robot” can do is send you an email when it wants your attention. Well, to be more accurate, The Drobo Dashboard software on a connected PC or Mac sends the email, but you get the point. But if you’re like me and use Google’s Gmail as your email system, you might be wondering just how to configure Drobo Dashboard. Here’s a quick guide to get it all working!

Drobo Email Basics

In keeping with the Drobo “simplicity” mandate, there are just a few decisions to make regarding Drobo Dashboard email:

1. How much email do you want? Drobo Dashboard can send messages for general information, when an important event arises, or only in critical situations. I selected the middle (default) setting.
2. Where should the email go? You can put in any address you like (perhaps you have a special account for high priority mail) but I decided to send to my regular email address.
3. Who should the “sender” be? You can enter any address you like, but I decided to use a special (but non-existent)  ”drobo@fosketts.net” address so I can filter the messages with Gmail.

Get started by selecting “Email Settings” from the Drobo Dashboard menu, then follow the steps below!

Note that the email messages will be sent from Google, but can be sent to any account. Use these steps regardless of which account you are mailing to.

Configuring Gmail

Configuring Drobo to send mail using regular Gmail is a snap!

If you’re using basic Gmail service (ie, your address is “whatever@gmail.com”) you should fill in the fields as follows:

1. Enter your own address as the “To E-mail Address”
2. Enter anything you like as the “From E-mail Address”
3. Enter “smtp.gmail.com” as the “Mail Server”
4. Enter “587″ as the “Port”
5. Check the “Authentication” box
6. Enter your valid Gmail address as the “Username”
7. Enter your valid Gmail password as the “Password”
8. Check the “Use SSL” box

Now just click “Send Test E-mail” to make sure it works. If you get the message, click OK and you’re done!

Configuring Google Apps

Google Apps configuration is very similar

Google Apps users might be confused what to enter where. But it’s really no different than basic Gmail! Just fill in the fields as follows:

1. Enter your own address as the “To E-mail Address”
2. Enter anything you like as the “From E-mail Address”
3. Enter “smtp.gmail.com” as the “Mail Server”
4. Enter “587″ as the “Port”
5. Check the “Authentication” box
6. Enter your valid Google Apps email address as the “Username”
7. Enter your valid Google Apps email password as the “Password”
8. Check the “Use SSL” box

Now just click “Send Test E-mail” to make sure it works. If you get the message, click OK and you’re done!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | How To Configure Drobo Dashboard Email for Gmail and Google Apps
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The 27" iMac is simply gorgeous, and it has the technical chops to match!

Last week I bought my third (modern) Mac, a new Core i5-powered 27″ iMac desktop. My new iMac has become a video editing workstation, running Apple’s Final Cut Studio software to process the video footage from Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day. The massive display and speedy quad-core CPU and graphics continue to impress: This new iMac is a keeper!

Purchasing Genius

The 5th Ave NYC Apple Store is truly amazing (it's downstairs!)

The Tech Field Day video was recorded in DVCPRO 720p60 format with four tracks of 48KHz audio. The project was so large I had to make a Fry’s run and buy a new 1.5 TB hard disk drive just to move it around! After casting around for an inexpensive way to process the video, I realized I would have to bite the bullet and buy Apple’s professional Final Cut Studio suite.

I’ve long wanted to learn Final Cut, but the US$999 list price is certainly quite steep. I thought to use Bing Cashback to find a discount and rebate, but time pressures meant Amazon.com would have to do. Amazingly, Amazon was able to arrange same-day delivery in New York City, and the total price tag was more than US$100 cheaper than the local Apple Store.

Final Cut was way too much for my MacBook Pro or Mac Mini to handle, however, and my old 20″ 1680×1050 screen wasn’t much help either. I decided that the 27″ iMac would be the perfect editing station, especially with a the impressive new quad-core Intel Nehalem CPU. Luckily, I chose the perfect store (the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York) and day (Tuesday, November 17) to go shopping: This store received one of the first shipments of Core i5 iMacs just that morning! In fact, the helpful Apple dude mentioned that I was the first i5 buyer – could my new Mac be the very first Core i5 iMac in consumer hands?

I cabbed the (huge) iMac back to my (tiny) hotel and headed over to the Interop conference where I was presenting – I would have no time to play with my new toy for much of the week.

Initial Impressions

Later that evening I did get a chance to unbox it and was amazed by a few things:

How to attract attention: Lug this box around!

• The shipping box is huge – much larger than the iMac itself. At 30″x25″x10″, it’s small enough to be checked as baggage (more on that later) but does not fit in a Mazda MX-5 Miata (ditto!)
• Although it only weighs 30 lbs, the 27″ iMac is not easy to handle. It balances nicely on its pedestal, tilting with a soft touch, but this thing is a beast made of aluminum and glass!
• It’s not as tall installed as you might think (20.5″ is enough headroom), but it’s almost 26″ wide and more space is needed on the right for the Superdrive and SD card slot.
• Apple hates cables. The only “wire” in the box was the power cord! The keypad-less BlueTooth Keyboard and Magic Mouse look positively tiny next to this giant computer.
• Also in the box were glossy white Apple stickers, a slim book, iLife and Snow Leopard DVDs, and an inexplicable package containing some kind of black cloth.

Initial setup revealed more about The Beast:

• The power button is hard to find by touch: It’s so nicely integrated into the left rear panel that your finger can brush right over it.
• It has even fewer ports than my Mac Mini: Audio in and out, 4x USB, FireWire 800, Mini DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, and power.
• The ports appear impossibly tiny since they are flush with the back. I have trouble finding the right port and orientation since they all look too small to fit my cables!
• BONG!!! The startup chime is very loud!
• It takes much longer to boot than my other Macs – the Apple logo, “circular file”, and desktop all wait long enough for me to wonder if something is wrong.
• The (removable) screen glass is a fingerprint magnet. Every touch leaves a smudge.
• The system is quiet and cool, even with 5 fans, a 7200 rpm hard disk drive, and server-grade CPU and graphics.
• The iSight camera is concealed at the top of the display, but the microphone is invisible. I have no idea where it is – I just talk to the computer!
• Two of the four RAM slots are empty with 4 GB installed, and Apple actually gives instructions on expanding the system RAM! But everything else (hard drive, CPU, Superdrive, etc) are totally inaccessible behind the LCD.
• The IPS LCD panel is so bright and beautiful, especially with the new darker Snow Leopard gamma, that it attracts attention from anyone nearby.

Up and Running

Now that I’ve been using the iMac for almost a week, I can safely say it is the best Mac I have ever used. The gorgeous screen alone was worth the price, and it came with a speedy computer built in! Sadly, the giant iMac was in New York and my home office is in Ohio. Holding my breath (and applying lots of extra bubble wrap), I checked it as baggage for my flight home. AirTran must employ non-gorillas, because the iMac made it in perfect shape. It was actually much more difficult to get the box into my car, but opening the top gave plenty of room.

Final Cut is simply brilliant with this much screen real estate: I can view 720p video at 100% scale with plenty of room left over for the Timeline and Browser windows. Even 1080p would fit with a slimmer timeline, and the Core i5 CPU and ATI 4850 graphics have no trouble keeping up. Rendering and compressing is quick, though it could always get quicker, and Snow Leopard seems to do a good job allocating work to the four CPU cores.

One interesting anomaly is the CPU load graphs: The “Lynnfield” Core i5 CPU has an effective “turbo mode“, allowing cores to ramp from 2.66 GHz to 3.2 GHz if others are unused. It appears that iStat and Activity Monitor leave “room” for this additional speed, so intensive CPU activity always leaves about 10% idle time. Or perhaps some system bottleneck keeps the CPU from being totally saturated. Regardless, the Core i5 iMac is easily three times as fast at media encoding as my 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini. MacWorld’s benchmarks agree, with this Core i5 iMac being “the fastest standard configuration Mac (they’ve) ever tested.”

The Core i5 iMac is much faster than my other two Macs, and this is even evident with the outdated Xbench suite

Although it’s not much of a benchmark, Xbench shows the relative performance of my systems clearly: The iMac is 1.3x to 3.5x faster than my 2009 Mac Mini and 2008 MacBook Pro at just about every CPU and graphical task! This is to be expected of course, since there are twice as many cores and each is faster, but it validates the seat-of-the-pants feel of using this machine.

What’s Next

I plan to keep posting about the iMac over the coming weeks and months (as I have with the Drobo, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iPhone) so watch this space for more:

• The 27″ iMacs (and not the 21.5″ models) have a bi-directional Mini DisplayPort connection, allowing other computers with DisplayPort output to use the screen. I’ve got my Mac Mini hooked up this way and will be talking more about that.
• As I dive into Final Cut Studio, I’ll probably be posting more about that on this site.
• I’d like to do more comprehensive benchmarks on the machine.
• I’m also considering the (limited) upgrade possibilities.

Let me know what you’d like to hear by leaving a comment below!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Quad-Core 27″ iMac: First Impressions
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Drobo CEO Geoff Barrall gives Gestalt IT Tech Field Day delegates a sneak peak at the new Drobo S and DroboElite

“Greetings to you,” said the invitation. “I shake you warmly by the hand!” So began the famous journey of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The same note might as well have been used when the delegates selected to attend Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day got to visit the Data Robotics chocolate factory. This littlest storage company has become the darling of techies, and they opened their doors to 15 lucky bloggers, giving a sneak peek at what everyone can see for themselves today, the Drobo S and DroboElite.

What’s the news? Data Robotics has doubled the size of their product line, adding two new Drobo storage devices alongside the existing Drobo (version 2) and DroboPro, which I’ve previously written about. There was much speculation about what Data Robotics would do next: Would they push the envelope with a big 20-drive unit or a tiny 2.5″ array?

Stephen Foskett unveils the DroboElite and Drobo S from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

Instead, Data Robotics followed the lead of Willy Wonka’s great glass elevator, taking their existing small- and mid-sized Drobo and DroboPro in alternative directions:

• The Drobo S focuses on desktop performance, with an additional drive slot, eSATA, and faster internals
• The DroboElite is intended for small SANs and virtualization, with a (nearly) full iSCSI implementation

The existing second-generation Drobo and DroboPro continue, focusing on single-computer connectivity and ease of use.

Drobo S: High-Performance Desktop Storage

The "S" in Drobo S stands for "speed" with eSATA, an extra drive, and more-powerful internals

In photos, the new Drobo S looks a lot like the existing (and continuing) 4-drive Drobo unit. But it has a distinctly different look in person, with its curving metal bezel and taller stance. Indeed, the Drobo S looks almost un-Drobo-like: A little tougher and meaner than the cuddly rounded devices Data Robotics is known for.

Under the skin, however, the Drobo S is entirely new. Although Data Robotics isn’t giving specifics, they do claim at least a 50% bump in performance compared to the existing Drobo. I suspect that a new CPU and additional cache RAM is the source of this improvement. The extra drive slot is bound to help, too, since Drobo will stripe data across all available drives. As we all know, the first place storage companies look for performance is disk drive spindles!

That extra disk slot gives the Drobo S another important benefit: With dual parity operation, the Drobo S can protect against the simultaneous failure of two drives! Drobo added this capability to the 8-drive DroboPro earlier this year, but the 4-drive desktop unit still relies on single parity. Perhaps it lacks the CPU power required to support dual parity, or maybe it is artificially limited due to the fact that a 4-drive dual-parity Drobo would suffer a 50% capacity hit. Regardless, those wishing for enhanced data protection as well as improved performance can now step up to a Drobo S.

I am personally very pleased to see dual-drive redundancy come to a desktop Drobo. One of the things I love about my Drobo is the fact that my data is protected so well: If a disk drive fails (and they do fail often) I can slap in a new one and not lose anything. My one complaint is that there is no safe way to eject a drive from a Drobo: If you want to move from a 500 GB to a 1.5 TB drive, you just pop the drive out live and let Drobo handle the heavy lifting required to re-protect the data. Since this process leaves the drives working hard for hours, the risk of data loss increases to a level I find unacceptable. Dual-drive protection is an absolute requirement for irreplaceable data, and I am thankful that this is supported on the Drobo S, DroboPro, and DroboElite. I wish Data Robotics would implement a “data flush” feature on the Drobo, allowing me to tell the unit ahead of time to safely clear the content of a drive to be removed.

The Drobo S now included eSATA, but connectivity is still limited to a single computer

Although the desktop Drobo does not exactly push the performance limits of FireWire 800 (you would be lucky to get 50 MB/s throughput from a 4-drive Drobo), the Drobo S adds eSATA connectivity. I suspect that switching from USB or FireWire to eSATA will have little real-world performance impact, but it does open the intriguing possibility of an 8 TB TiVo! Mac users won’t notice this feature, however, since Uncle Steve refuses to equip Macs with eSATA ports.

It is important to reiterate that, although the Drobo S now features four data ports on the rear of the unit, only one port may be used at a time. Only the DroboElite (see below) is suitable for direct use by more than one computer. Capacity from the others can be shared as SMB, NFS, or AFP drives, but only if an appropriate intermediary (such as a DroboShare, Mac, or PC) is used. Let me be very clear here: You can choose either USB, FireWire, or (for the Drobo S) eSATA, but you cannot use all three at once. And that second FireWire port is only used to daisy-chain devices with which the Drobo can not and will not interact. Drobo is intended to be a simple direct-attached storage device, not an a networked storage server like the Iomega ix4.

Then there is pricing. The base Drobo price was reduced to US$399 earlier this year, and rebates and specials can drop that price much lower. I purchased my Drobo for just US$282, leveraging a discount, a rebate, and Bing Cashback. For all you get, Drobo is a killer value and I heartily recommend it to everyone with precious data to preserve. It’s also an investment, since Drobo remains the only storage device that can seamlessly add and upgrade the storage capacity on a drive-by-drive basis as needed.

The Drobo S starts at US$799, a price many may see as too high. Feature-wise, Drobo S is very similar to the base Drobo, with eSATA and dual-parity being the only main differentiators. But real-world use might justify this higher price: The added performance makes Drobo S a viable primary storage device for demanding applications like video editing, an activity that the base Drobo is not quite as capable at. I expect sales of the Drobo S to be somewhat slower than the base unit, but they will likely be strong in the “creative professional” market, where the added speed is a requirement. I also expect much whining and moaning over the price from the cheapskate fanboys in the audience!

In summary, the Drobo S is an excellent addition to the family, but not a slam dunk. Drobo S is a slantways upgrade, and I wonder if the additional performance and data protection will seem to be worth twice the price to prospective buyers. If anything, the Drobo S might promote sales of the cheaper base model Drobo!

DroboElite: A Real iSCSI SAN At Last!

DroboElite is a real iSCSI SAN at last

Drobos are like Apple Macs: As cool as they are, they never really seem all that business oriented. Simple, friendly, and functional are great attributes, but business use demands compatibility, flexibility, and support. DroboPro, with its rack-mount kit and iSCSI support, was definitely a gesture at the business world, but it was frustratingly limited to single-server duty.

All that changes today. DroboElite delivers nearly everything a small business could want from a computer closet storage device. It is a real honest-to-goodness iSCSI SAN array, supporting multiple servers and sporting dual gigabit Ethernet ports and dual-drive data protection. Data Robotics also claims VMware ESX certification, though the DroboElite does not yet appear on the VMware SAN support list.

So what separates the DroboElite from the similar-looking 8-drive DroboPro?

1. The DroboElite is the first Drobo to support multiple connected servers (via iSCSI)
2. One can now provision up to 255 Smart Volumes and these are protected with LUN masking
3. The DroboElite sports internal improvements to make it “at least 50% faster”
4. DroboElite gets an additional gigabit Ethernet port for iSCSI

Both the DroboPro and DroboElite share a similar 8-drive chassis and rack-mount kit, and both support dual-drive data protection. And of course, every Drobo sports Data Robotics’ unique BeyondRAID technology, allowing seamless live expansion and upgrades as well as thin provisioning.

All of these improvements make DroboElite the first Drobo to be truly business-ready. A single DroboElite can share storage volumes over gigabit Ethernet to one or a dozen servers. These can be PCs running Windows or Linux, Macs running OS X, or VMware ESX servers, each of which would enjoy the benefits of thin provisioned storage capacity. These volumes appear as large direct-attached hard disk drives using iSCSI initiator software available for all four operating systems, and the DroboElite will protect them to keep misbehaving servers from stomping on the storage of others.

Users of VMware ESX will especially enjoy the flexibility of thin provisioning and multiple iSCSI volumes. DroboElite supports both VMFS and RDM over iSCSI, both of which are supported by Drobo’s thin provisioning and un-provisioning. That last is key: All Drobo devices “spy” on supported partition schemes and filesystems, reclaiming space as files are deleted!

There are some limitations, however. Non-thin VMDK images “nested” in VMFS are not thin provisioned by Drobo either: It sees the entire allocated size as being used. Although the additional gigabit Ethernet port is a welcome addition, it does not support HA (active/passive or active/active) configuration. Finally, the DroboElite (like nearly all other low-end iSCSI arrays) does not yet support SCSI3 persistent reservation so it is not suitable for Windows clustering.

Most smaller businesses fall well within these limits, however. Unlike the DroboPro, which is really only suitable for single-computer use, the DroboElite promises to be everything most small and even medium-sized businesses need in a storage system: Inexpensive, reliable, flexible, simple to install and manage, and performant enough for operational use. The DroboElite joins the Drobo on my short list of recommended products: Every home and business user should have flexible and reliable data storage, and the Drobo and DroboElite fit the bill perfectly.

Up and Out!

So did Drobo blow the roof off of the storage market? Not really. Like Willy Wonka or the House of Jobs, Drobo can be hard to comprehend for outsiders. Drobo storage systems are more expensive than seemingly-similar devices from other vendors and lack many of the features listed on their boxes. And this new product rollout does not stray far from that formula. Indeed, many will likely find it difficult to differentiate the four-Drobo product lineup.

But believers in simplicity (oh heck, let’s just call them “Mac users”) will love what Data Robotics is doing. Compulsively-complete feature lists terrify them as much on a storage system as on a Microsoft package, and are just about as useful. Rather than doing everything, Drobo focuses on doing what’s needed simply, cleanly, and unobtrusively. It’s ironic that some of the most elegantly-designed hardware I own (the Mac Mini and Drobo) simply disappear on my desk. But they do their work and let me do mine. What else could I want?

To those in the know, Data Robotics is becoming as much an admired company as Apple, and for similar reasons. This explains the “golden ticket” atmosphere of the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day, as well as resulting videos like this one, from Rod Haywood. Sounds like success to me!

Drobo configuration by a 12 year old from Rodney Haywood on Vimeo.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Drobo Goes Sideways and Slantways With the Drobo S and Drobo Elite
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Are you the kind of person who always wants the best? Does an upgrade that costs as much as the original item sound like a good investment? Are you the owner of a 2009 Mac Mini? Then you’re in luck! Apple’s latest firmware update allows nVidia-based Mac Minis to be upgraded to 8 GB of RAM! With 4 GB SO-DIMMs now available for about $250, this means you can be the envy of the office for nearly the same amount that a brand-new Mac Mini would cost!

Here’s the scoop: Apple’s Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2, released back at the end of August, claimed to improve “compatibility with the latest Apple memory kits on Mac mini computers”, but in typical Apple fashion, no one quite knew what that meant. Some brave soul must have tried installing two 4 GB PC3-8500 SO-DIMM modules in the Mini’s two RAM slots, and must have been awfully happy when they did, because it works! All 2009 Mac Minis are supported, including the recently-released Mac Mini Server and the earlier March-era machine.

This is now confirmed by Mac Mini Colo, a more reliable source than Macrumors forum posters, so I’m finally confident in posting this. Being a cheapskate, I’m not going to run out and spend $510.98 at Amazon on two Crucial SO-DIMMs for my $599 computer. But I’m eager to hear from you if you have the inclination, and will be watching as prices fall in the box at right. An 8 GB Mac Mini ought to perform amazingly when running VMware Fusion or VirtualBox!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Got Excess Money? Upgrade Your 2009 Mac Mini RAM To 8 GB!
This post was categorized as Apple, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Apple's newest server is a dual-hard disk Mac Mini!

Apple today revised their desktop computer lineup, including a quick refresh of the already updated Mac Mini. The new Mini lineup sports faster CPUs, larger hard drives, and an interesting twist on the hacks we’ve all already been performing: A dual-hard disk drive Mac Mini Server with no optical drive! Maybe we won’t need to upgrade the Mini right out of the box anymore…

Mini Bump

Update: The 2009 Mac Minis can now accept 8 GB of RAM!

Killer Storage

First, note that the Mac Mini generally remains the same. The case is unchanged and the logic board still sports the nVidia GeForce 9400M with integrated graphics. The unit still sports five USB ports, FireWire 800, dual graphics ports (Mini DisplayPort and Mini-DVI), Gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11n AirPort wireless. What’s new then?

The base model $599 Mac Mini (like my MB463LL/A) has been replaced by a new model (MC238LL/A) with welcome spec updates. The old 2.0 GHz P7350 CPU has been replaced by the previously-optional 2.26 GHz P8500 Core 2 Duo. The 120 GB hard disk drive has been upped to 160 GB, hopefully with better performance. Thankfully, the Mini now comes with 2 GB of RAM, but it’s two 1 GB sticks so upgrading requires a complete swap-out. Build-to-order customers can specify the 320 GB or 500 GB hard disk drive and up to 4 GB of RAM.

The upper-class $799 Mac Mini (MB464LL/A) has been replaced by the MC239LL/A, which finally includes worthy upgrades to justify its higher price. The CPU is no longer the same, now boasting a 2.53 GHz P8700, and it comes with 4 GB of RAM right out of the box. The 320 GB hard disk drive remains the same, though built-to-order Macs can have a 500 GB drive instead. A 2.66 GHz P8800 CPU is also optional for custom Minis.

Behold, the Terabyte Mac Mini Server!

A new upscale dual-drive $999 Mac Mini Server (MC408LL/A) is the real news here. Sporting the top-of-the-line 2.53 GHz P8700 CPU and 4 GB of RAM, this bad boy also deletes the SuperDrive (and its slot) in favor to two 500 GB hard disk drives! This beast is only available with Snow Leopard Server pre-installed, however. Since so many folks are using these systems as home or small office servers already, this is nice,

What about price? $999 would easily be enough to build a dual-500 GB drive Mini from one of the lesser “desktop” models, but the server OS costs $499 from Apple, making an unofficial Mac Mini Server impractical. The cheapest Apple Xserve starts at $2,999, which is out of reach for the smallest offices. So a $999 Apple server with all the same software functionality sounds awfully nice! 1 TB of hard disk drive space is amazing in such a small package, and the fast CPU and full 4 GB of RAM means there is no need to self-upgrade. Add in a Drobo, DroboPro, or the Promise RAID offered by Apple and you’ve got a very nice server indeed!

Hopefully the dual-drive server will use OS X’s RAID capability to mirror the two drives for reliability. Otherwise, make sure you use Time Machine to back up your data! You’ve got about a 6% chance of losing a drive in the first year. Although AppleCare will replace the hardware, your data is irreplaceable!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Mac Mini: Apple’s Inexpensive Server
This post was categorized as Apple, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.