Drobo is like Wonka's Chocolate Factory for storage geeks

Data Robotics spent the last year transforming itself from a maker of expensive consumer storage devices to a player in the nascent small enterprise storage array market. That process took another step this week, as Data Robotics officially renamed itself Drobo. It is ironic that the company would shed a longer, corporate sounding name for the familiar consumer product designation, but there is no denying the power of the Drobo brand.

Drobo’s Transformation

Data Robotics was founded by storage industry pioneer Geoff Barrall, who wanted to transform the storage industry with flexibility and ease-of-use as central components. The Data Robotics team developed a simple four bay home storage device and gave it the name, Drobo. This was a basic and low performance device but found many takers in the prosumer market thanks to its innovative “BeyondRAID” technology.

BeyondRAID gave the little Drobo amazing powers: Thin provisioning meant that the device would flexibly accommodate nearly any combination of hard disk drives without requiring the user to delete and migrate data, and the unit could be expanded simply by swapping out smaller drives for larger ones. But the four slot unit was slow and expensive compared to feature packed but less friendly alternatives. By 2008, it seems that Data Robotics had expended all it could.

This changed in April of 2009 with the introduction of the eight bay DroboPro. Although still fairly limited, the DroboPro indicated that data robotics was serious about expanding into new markets, especially small business datacenters. The real innovation appeared later that year with the introduction of the high-performance Drobo S and iSCSI DroboElite, a sneak preview of which was a highlight of the Tech Field Day event I put together that November.

Big Changes

Unbeknownst to me, bigger things were afoot behind the scenes at Data Robotics in 2009. Entrepreneurial founder Barrall, whom I remain close to, was replaced as CEO less than a month later by storage industry veteran, Tom Buiocchi. The board decided to accelerate the development of business focused storage devices like the DroboElite, and development was underway on an entire new product line.

DroboFS, introduced in April at the second Tech Field Day event, brought an integrated file system interface to the same five-day form factor of the Drobo S. This was a much better solution than the existing DroboShare add-on device, though I was less enthusiastic about the prospect of running third-party software on the device.

Drobo continued moving in the direction of small business datacenters needs, and their introduction in early 2011 of a business focused line of storage devices came as no surprise to industry insiders. The new family of products, once again previewed at Tech Field Day, included eight bay and 12 bay devices with iSCSI or NAS capability, automated tiered storage, and VMware and Microsoft certification.

Although the B1200i, B800i, and B800fs still lack many of the enterprise features found in higher-end storage devices, they have proved themselves in the market. I have found these devices in many small business datacenters, all of whom praised them for their simplicity and flexibility.

Drobo. Just Drobo.

The Drobo marketing team hinted to me earlier this year that the Data Robotics name was on the way out. They felt that the positive connotations of “Drobo” outweighed its familiar association with consumer products, and I must agree. I know very few people, other than industry insiders, who ever even heard of the Data Robotics brand, yet many photographers, IT geeks, and consumer electronics enthusiasts have brought up Drobo in conversation.

Going with the Drobo name seems logical for the company, though they will have to overcome the stigma of starting out as a consumer electronics company. Small businesses seem to have no trouble at all having a Drobo in their data center, but what about larger organizations? Will an enterprise be willing to accept a Drobo branded product even for small office or remote office use? Or will they rejected out of hand, assuming it is the same old consumer electronics device they may have heard of?

I remain impressed by the Drobo technology, and the evolution of BeyondRAID is heading in the right direction. Drobo remains the only device that really nails thin provisioning on the storage array, and this gives it a real leg up when developing advanced features. Although Drobo storage devices are expensive, they are worth it if you value the kind of ease-of-use and flexibility they offer. I personally bought a four bay Drobo unit for my day-to-day storage needs, and am in the process of upgrading to a second-generation Drobo S. I look forward to seeing more progress from the company now known as Drobo in the days ahead.

Disclaimer: I was a Drobo buyer before I got anything from the company, but have developed close relationships since then. They have sponsored three of the Tech Field Day events I organize, have provided me and my friends with review units, and are always available to take my calls. That being said, Drobo did not encourage or sponsor this or any other article I have written about the company, and did not alert me to this name change announcement ahead of time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | The Transformation from Data Robotics to Drobo
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, 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.

Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" lacks many of the storage features we've long hoped for, including ZFS, iSCSI, and USB 3.0

Last week, at WWDC, Apple introduced many of the features found in their next operating system, OS X “Lion”. At that time, I posted an article about the storage features found in this new release, including integrated revision control, a major update to the FileVault encryption package, and additional enterprise storage protocol support. But, like Snow Leopard, Lion still lacks many storage related features, and it doesn’t look like Apple will get around to adding these anytime soon.

A Better Filesystem (ZFS, Please)

See also ZFS: Super File System! and Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)

During the development of Mac OS 10.5, “Leopard”, Apple spent a great deal of time working to replace their legacy HFS+ filesystem with ZFS, a much more advanced option. For starters, ZFS would have given Mac OS better reliability and flexibility, and it has been extended to include advanced features for security and capacity optimization.

But the battle between Sun and NetApp over patents related to the development of ZFS cast a shadow over the long needed replacement of HFS+. With Oracle buying Sun and focusing away from infrastructure products like ZFS, Apple seems to have lost interest in replacing their crufty old filesystem.

Instead of adding an advanced filesystem like ZFS, Mac OS X Lion extends HFS+ with versioning and enhanced security. The new Core Data incremental storage technology in Lion would probably have been easier to implement on ZFS, but Apple was able to add it to HFS+, and it will be a lifesaver in the guise of autosave, versions, and resume. The same goes for encryption, with FileVault 2 boasting background full disk encryption, remote wipe, and external drive support.

Those hoping for the integration of ZFS with Mac OS X appear to be out of luck. All components were removed from Snow Leopard, and Lion is moving forward without it. Sadly, this means that Mac OS X still lacks a flexible volume manager, something even Microsoft Windows boasts.

Perhaps the next version of Mac OS X will include friendly volume management features, but it is more likely that Apple will focus away from the filesystem and direct application developers toward the iCloud Storage API. And cloud truly is next-generation storage, making this a leapfrog approach and leaving ZFS in the dust.

Update: Lion does indeed include a full logical volume manager! See Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)

USB 3.0: Still AWOL

See also Will OS X 10.7 “Lion” Bring USB 3.0 To The Mac? and my Thunderbolt series

Although Apple may have simply overlooked or neglected to mention it, USB 3.0 apparently made no appearance at WWDC. Thunderbolt is an impressive technology to be sure, and I am bullish on its future application and performance. But “SuperSpeed” USB 3.0 seems poised to seize the baton and become the ubiquitous next-generation interconnect for every day peripherals.

Thunderbolt is a strategic protocol for Apple, and I expect it to rapidly spread across the entire Mac product range. Rather than simply a high-speed interconnect, Thunderbolt will soon enable advanced docking features, as envisioned in my recent post about the iMac as a Thunderbolt peripheral. It will also enable changes to the physical size and shape of laptop and desktop computers and servers, with many suggesting that the next-generation MacBook Air will become the standard Apple laptop.

In contrast, USB 3.0 is simply a performance bump for USB. It is likely that Apple will support USB 3.0 sooner or later, and third-party vendors are already rolling out Mac OS support. CalDigit recently shipped their third USB 3.0 controller for the Mac, and LaCie sells their own “walled garden” card and peripherals as well. I heard rumors that a few vendors are working on Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 bridges and breakout boxes as well.

USB 3.0 will come to the Mac sooner or later, but Thunderbolt is here to stay.

Enterprise iSCSI Support

See also Will Snow Leopard Finally Bring iSCSI To The Mac?

Another technology that Apple has flirted with in Leopard but never delivered is a software initiator for iSCSI, the block storage protocol that runs over Ethernet. We have not heard anything further about iSCSI since 2007, and there was no mention in the Lion introduction either.

Interestingly, Apple did rollout other new enterprise storage protocol options, including NFSv4, DFS, and even integration of Xsan, the Fibre Channel filesystem. Xsan also added ALUA compatible multipathing, a real surprise for storage geeks like me. But iSCSI was nowhere to be found.

This is a real shame, since iSCSI is becoming increasingly common in enterprise storage circles. Convergence on Ethernet is a hot topic right now, and iSCSI for Mac would give exceptional flexibility and interoperability and fit right into the “prosumer” Mac market niche.

Instead, end-users are stuck working with third-party iSCSI initiators, Fibre Channel and Xsan, or NFS. Although I am a fan of their free globalSAN product, Studio Network Solutions does not offer enterprise support for third-party arrays. The other major option for Mac iSCSI is ATTO’s Xtend, which is supported but somewhat expensive. Drobo also offers an iSCSI client for use with their storage arrays, but it is severely limited. An integrated Apple solution would be a welcome addition, both for consumers and enterprise systems administrators.

Stephen’s Stance

Apple is not in enterprise storage company to be sure, and news from WWDC dashed any hopes we had for ZFS and iSCSI support. USB 3.0 seems a foregone conclusion, but Apple seems intent on ignoring it as long as possible. Although I welcome the new storage features included in Lion, it is disappointing that these were left out.

Note that TRIM support was also not mentioned at WWDC, but it is likely included.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Three Key Storage Features Missing in Mac OS X “Lion”
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Why should my data be left unprotected for more than two days? Devices should allow us to "prime the pump" for upgrades and migrations.

Upgrades are an inevitability in our modern technological world. A new phone comes out every year or two, and the migration process begins. So why don’t devices have a special mode, priming them for upgrade and migration? This really hit home recently, as I upgraded the hard disks in my Drobo, but it applies equally to laptops, phones, and services like e-mail.

So It Goes

Most well-designed devices are remarkably adept at recovering from errors, and some use this capability as an upgrade mechanism. Pop one drive out of the Drobo and replace it with another and the system will happily rebuild. But this process takes hours or even days, and data is left unprotected all this time.

Computer operating systems are also fairly capable of adapting to change. When I swapped the mechanical hard drive out of my MacBook Pro in favor of an SSD, I copied the data over, switched the drives, and powered on with little obvious impact on my work environment. But Microsoft noticed the change, and I had to reenter my Office 2011 serial number. Things were a lot more challenging when I moved from my old MacBook Pro to the new 2011 model. Storing data in the cloud made things much easier, but migrating between laptops remains problematic.

Thankfully, my last three phone upgrades have all been in the iPhone family. This has allowed me to leverage iTunes to move my applications and data without interruption. Switching from iPhone to Android is much more difficult, even with e-mail and contacts stored in Google’s Gmail cloud.

In-Between Days

It seems to me that the key to a successful migration is minimizing the time in between the old state and the new. Consider the Drobo: thanks to the devices beyond raid data protection technology, I don’t really worry about the integrity and protection of my data. But swapping out hard disk drives leaves my data in an unprotected state for 48 hours or more. This critical time is nerve-racking.

The same often happens when one migrates from one computer or phone to another. It is critical to immediately give up the old and adopt the new, but moving data and applications can take hours or days. I recently used Microsoft’s Easy Transfer utility to upgrade a friend’s computer from Windows Vista to Windows 7. But they never really got used to Windows 7, leaving the new computer unused on the shelf.

What is one supposed to do during the time in between devices? We may not be able to actively use the new device, but we cannot continue making changes to the old. Should we simply set things aside and take a vacation? And what if the migration goes awry or the user decides they can’t make the transition?

Prime the Pump

Why don’t devices have the ability preemptively to “prime the pump” for migration? Why can’t they prepare data and applications, and perhaps even the user environment, for a smooth transition? The obvious answer is that an old system does not “know” when a new system requires. But there are certain cases where this could be done.

Two years ago, I suggested to Drobo (then called data robotics) that they should have a pre-eject button in their management application, allowing the user to notify the array that drive was about to be ejected. The Drobo could then move data around and prepare for this major event without leaving everything unprotected for days. This feature still has not been implemented, however. And you can only upgrade one drive at a time, meaning my data will be unprotected for over a week while switching to four larger drives.

What if Windows Easy Transfer began packing up user data while the old system was still in use, perhaps synchronizing it to the new computer while changes were being made. It could even keep both devices in sync for a while, allowing the user to adjust to the new interface. Certainly, this would improve the user experience, and Microsoft may be able to entice more users to upgrade.

And wouldn’t it be nice if our favorite phone application developers offer the ability to trade in iPhone apps for Android equivalents, or vice versa? Apple hasn’t even allowed this in the Mac App Store, and the incentives are questionable regardless. But this is what the average user wants, so why can’t it happen?

Stephen’s Stance

Although it’s not really practical for all devices, manufacturers should consider that migration is a critical time of user frustration and the loss of future revenues. If they spent some time reducing the impact of migration, they might build a repeat customer base. And the ability to prime the pump for migration preemptively is one concept that might help make this happen.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Why Can’t We Prime Our Devices For Upgrades?
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.

• My writing:
  • My thoughts concerning HDS following their “blogger day” in London
  • My good friend W. Curtis Preston announced more Backup Central Live! dates; you really ought to go see him!
• Other great stuff:
  • Intel Announces New Xeon 4 Socket CPU (E7); Dell, HP and IBM Slated to Refresh Blades
  • Awesome! Free Microsoft iSCSI Target!
  • Anatomy of an Attack is a forthright and honest statement from an RSA blogger
  • The Impossible Project -new- PX 680 Film is amazing. Just amazing!
  • The Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 Network Storage, Cloud Edition is out
  • Jeff Fry shares his impression of Drobo

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, April 8, 2011
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

SME storage arrays like the AberSAN Z-Series pack solid enterprise-class features

It’s never been a better time to be in the market for enterprise storage products, with many excellent options available at affordable prices. But the market can be confusing for the uninitiated, with a variety of network options and capabilities. Even those of us “in the know” about enterprise storage are sometimes surprised by the offerings and companies in this space! So when Jerome Wendt from DCIG approached me to collect data for a market overview and buyer’s guide, I was excited. It was my big chance to really get to know these products!

Dividing the Storage Market

An enterprise storage array is a strategic investment, with prices often reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But there are smaller arrays as well, and these aren’t just stripped-down cheapies: Midrange storage arrays are emerging as serious challengers for the high-end enterprise arrays, and even the small array segment is improving. Long the home of simple RAID systems, small enterprise storage arrays are now full-featured systems with advanced integration and features.

This is the segment of the storage market I was eager to take a look at: The small-enterprise arrays, ranging in price from $5,000 to $30,000 and capacity from a few terabytes to over one hundred (with expansion shelves). To keep it sensible, I eliminated systems with less than 8 hard disk drives (since they really couldn’t deliver the IOPS needed for a production application) and those that can’t be shared using storage networking protocols like iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or NAS. This left a great cross-section, including small systems from big players like EMC, NetApp, Dell, and HP as well as smaller companies like Drobo, Aberdeen, StoneFly, and Promise.

Little Systems With Big Capabilities

Gathering data for this buyer’s guide entailed creating a master list of all the features any of the systems might have and then filling in the blanks with vendor input and public information. Although I felt that my list of questions was comprehensive, I was amazed to find that the available systems exceeded even my expectations. For example, I was surprised to see 10 GbE support in more than 1/3 of the arrays I looked at, yet only 1/4 of them included NAS protocols. Amazingly, every NAS system also supported iSCSI, meaning unified storage dominates the SME array market!

DCIG likes to rank the systems listed in their buyer’s guides, so it was left to me to come up with weights and scores. I decided to score each feature on a 1 to 5 scale based on my own expectations: A feature I was surprised by (more than 4 GB of cache, for example) got a 5 while one that was conspicuously absent (scalability beyond internal drives) got a 1. An average system would get all 3′s, but there really were no average systems!

I then weighted the features based on how relevant they are to small enterprise IT. Features like scalability (drives), data protection (RAID 6), and reliability (redundant power supplies and dual controllers) received more weight than less-critical things like ROHS compliance and even multi-pathing.

After all this work, we boiled down the scores to categories (controller, capacity, support, etc) and finally a single overall score. I was surprised at the results, really. I hadn’t spent much time with Aberdeen or StoneFly prior to this experience, but came away impressed by their products. The strong showing of EMC’s new VNXe and NetApp’s FAS2020 was as I had expected, but the D-Link DSN-5110, Dell’s PowerVault MD3200i, HP’s P2000, and the Promise and Winchester arrays caught me off-guard. These really-capable systems at low prices and should be on buyers’ short-lists!

Stephen’s Stance

I tried to put myself in the place of the buyer evaluating these systems, but of course every buyer will have his own priorities. Perhaps in the future we will make the raw data available so they can make their own ranking and determine which array works best for them. I will work with DCIG to make this happen, since the feature-focused rankings used this time aren’t right for everyone.

I have been working on this guide for almost a year now, and think the finished product really shines. I hope it will help buyers come up with a list of products to consider, and also that it helps the smaller vendors get some attention in this crowded space. Due to their strong showing, Aberdeen has licensed the guide and made it available for free (after registration) on their web site.

Download the guide and see for yourself!

Note that Aberdeen did not “sponsor” the creation of the guide: DCIG paid Foskett Services to create it with no sponsor in mind, I alone gathered the data, and our ranking and editing was finished before Aberdeen or any other vendor got involved financially. No one was more surprised than me by the strong showing of their AberSAN storage system, though the fact that it features Nexenta’s excellent software piqued my interest. Some have criticized DCIG’s guides and methodology in the past, but I personally stand behind this effort. I will happily answer any questions – just leave a comment here!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Which Small Enterprise Storage Arrays Are Worth Considering?
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This regular series features highlights from the week.

• Tech Field Day related
  • One of the biggest announcements at Tech Field Day was Druva, launched at our event. Their presentation drew quite a bit of attention! Can Druva succeed at mobile backup?
  • The delegates wanted to share their advice for presenters: How To Give an A+ Presentation at Tech Field Day and Presenting at Tech Field Day
  • Another hit presentation was Drobo’s new business products: Tech Field Day #5 wrap-up – Day 1 – Drobo and Drobo – My visit from Tech Field Day
  • Then there was Xangati, which had a shortened presentation. TFD5: Xangati – Stepping stone to Skynet or datacenter “DRS”
  • The big kick-off was Symantec: Impressions of Symantec from Tech Field Day
  • Gestalt IT Tech Field Day #5 Experience
  • HP StoreOnce – the basics of HP deduplication
  • The HP coffee machine was a hit, too: Introducing Chai Field Day and Joking around with the HP EBC coffee machine
• Other great posts
  • I’ve been a proponent of the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive. But not everyone is happy: Users frustrated with Seagate’s next-gen hybrid drive
  • I talked to Sonia Lelli about SAN management in virtual environments. Wanted: SAN management tools for a virtualized environment
  • A great Steve Duplessie piece: Why is Everyone so Fired Up About Big Data?
  • Greg Ferro is right on (as usual): Your Cloud Future Is In China
  • Great news for Greg Knieriemen, Marc Farley, and company: Infosmack Podcast to be distributed by The Register
  • I was glad to have Matthew Norwood’s help with this: Wrapping My Head Around The Nexus1000v – Part 1

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, February 18, 2011
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• Tech Field Day 5 links
  • Official stuff:
    • Tech Field Day 5: The Links
    • Tech Field Day 5: The Videos
  • Rob Novak shared his Thoughts from Tech Field Day 5
  • A great post by Greg Stuart: Symantec NetBackup 7 for VMware vSphere 4
  • I loved Tom’s Things I Learned From Tech Field Day, Part 1
• My writing
  • I’ve wanted to write this for quite a while: ATA over Ethernet protocol overview for data storage managers
  • I talked to Intel this week and wrote it up: Where Is Intel’s FCoE Solution?
  • Another big area for my virtual storage seminar preparation: VMware VAAI Storage Array Support in Plain English
  • And finally: Aerobie AeroPress Review: The Hacker Coffee Maker
• Other great stuff I’ve been reading
  • Barry Burke responded to my VAAI post with some competitive digs: reality check vsp vaai support
  • From Robin Harris is a DEC obituary: Ken Olsen, 1926-2011
  • A clever piece by Tom Petrocelli: Public Clouds : An Unregulated Utility
  • vKernel has a good point to make: Dear CIO’s, Please Send Paul Otellini a Thank You Note
  • Chris Evans covers the arrays we saw at TFD: Data Robotics Releases Business-class Arrays
  • Ivan Pepelnjak (inspired by Greg Ferro): Open FCoE – Software implementation of the camel jetpack
  • I loved this infographic: The Most Common and Dangerous Passwords
  • And this one: A Decade of Storage
  • Another great piece by Chris Evans: Managing iSCSI on Windows 2008 Core with Hyper-V

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, February 11, 2011
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I began by introducing the core problem: Storage isn’t getting any cheaper due to storage utilization and provisioning problems. Thin provisioning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, since the telephone game makes de-allocation a challenge. So now let’s talk about how to make thin provisioning actually work.

There are 100 different ways of solving the de-allocation problem, some of which have gained some prominence. They all boil down to two options:

1. Make the server super-smart and have it communicate better
2. Make the storage super-smart and have it make educated guesses

There’s only a few ways that the server-side option can be implemented, and we’ll get to that. But first, let’s take a look at a sort of hybrid approach that relies on known server usage patterns: Metadata monitoring.

It’s really hard for the storage to really understand what the server is doing. The best example that I know of is the Drobo sitting under my desk.

I love this little black box. When I got it, I configured it as eight terabytes and I put a 160-gig disk in it. That’s thin provisioning. And over time, I’m swapping out the disks and I’m doing all my stuff, and it still looks like eight terabytes. Add data, delete it, swap disks, and it always just works.

Not a lot of people know how the Drobo works, though. One of the things that people have complained about is that it only supports certain file systems and partition schemes. The reason for this is a “magical” thing it’s doing that relates very, very closely to the topic of this discussion. The Drobo is the first thin provisioning box that I know of that directly monitors the file system.

What the Drobo does is this: It knows where the supported filesystems (HFS+, NTFS, EXT3, and FAT) keep the record of what’s been deleted. So the Drobo it watches that spot and when you delete something, it reclaims that space. No enterprise storage system can do this, and yet this little box under my desk does it all day long.

This is basically the super, ultimate smarts of storage. But, of course, it’s very limited. It faces a real challenge in an enterprise setting because there is much more variety. We have all these layers of virtualization and weird file systems and things like that to worry about. We just can’t expect a product like this to accommodate everybody, so we just can’t expect this kind of smarts to be put everywhere.

Instead, we have a variety of semaphores sent from the server to the storage array that attempt to solve the telephone game. That’s what we’re talking about next.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Monitoring Filesystem Metadata For Thin Provisioning
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Many small storage arrays, like this Iomega ix4, use carriers to hold hard disk drives securely

One reason I decided to work with the folks at DCIG to collect data for their Small Business Storage Array Buyers’ Guide was to learn more about the various products in the space. One difference I noted in these small arrays, which usually hold 4 to 8 drives, is their use of hard disk drive carriers or sleds. There are pros and cons to both approaches, but I was pleased to see that all arrays so far include everything needed to install a drive.

Learn more about the Small Business Storage Array Buyer’s Guide in my previous piece

Common Carriers

Although I have seen many storage systems that use carriers and some that don’t, I was not sure how common they were. It turns out they’re common but not ubiquitous. Out of 63 arrays examined so far, 46 use drive carriers and 17 do not. Interestingly, no drive requires these carriers to be purchased separately – they come fully populated with “sleds” whether the drive bays are full or not.

Bring-Your-Own-Drive

I was also curious as to whether there would be a correlation between drive carriers and “bring-your-own-drive” (BYOD) support. I assumed that BYOD arrays like the Drobo, Synology, and QNAP would be carrier-less since they encourage end-users to install drives themselves. Indeed, ioSafe is the only carrier-less array maker that does not allow BYOD!

But this is not to say that BYOD arrays and carriers go hand-in-hand. Indeed, StoneFly, iStoragePro, D-Link, Promise, Maxtronic, and Other World Computing all allow BYOD and include the drive carriers required to make that happen.

Large Array = Carriers?

Another question in my mind when putting together the survey was if there was a correlation between drive carriers and larger arrays. I assumed that the vibration and rack-mountability of larger arrays would dictate the use of hard drive carriers for reliability reasons.

Indeed, the D-Link DSN-3200 is the only carrier-less array model with over 10 hard disk drive slots. And most of the carrier-less designs were desktop or tower form factor designs as well. Only D-Link, Synology, Data Robotics, and Aberdeen sell carrier-less rackmount arrays.

Stephen’s Stance

Although by no means exhaustive, I believe this survey of smaller storage arrays demonstrates that drive carriers are considered necessary by most manufacturers of data center equipment. I am glad that all required hardware is shipped with these units, and look forward to examining them more closely in the future.

Although data analysis is now under way for this Buyers’ Guide, it is not too late to be included. If you are a manufacturer of SMB-focused storage systems and have not filled out our survey, please email me and I will send you the link!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | SMB Arrays: Drive Carriers Or Not?
This post was categorized as 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.

Data Robotics is back with the DroboPro FS 8-drive NAS for small business

Data Robotics today launched their sixth product, the business-oriented DroboPro FS file server. Combining the 8-drive chassis from the direct-attached DroboPro with the Linux-based file server engine fro the Drobo FS, the DroboPro FS (or “Pro FS” for short) gives small businesses and remote offices a simple networked location for their shared files. Although it is a bit more expensive than some of the competition, the Pro FS promises to be as easy to set up, use, and grow as previous devices from Data Robotics.

The Drobo I Know

The Drobo line of storage devices from Data Robotics is well-known to readers of my blog. I selected the second-generation Drobo (a 4-drive USB- or FireWire-attached device) as my own home storage solution, and have been very satisfied with it. I continue to recommend the Drobo for its simplicity, reliability, and ease of use. It was simple to set up and has grown with my storage requirements.

One of the coolest features of the entire Drobo line is the “bring your own drive” ethos: It appears as a single large drive (8 TB in my case) and drives can be added and swapped as needed without data loss, migration, or downtime. My own Drobo has grown from two to three to four drives without a hiccup, and has kept my data secure through two hard disk drive failures. I certainly would have lost some of my data by now if I hadn’t invested a few hundred dollars in a Drobo.

The New Drobo Family

No one was surprised when Data Robotics introduced an 8-drive model, the DroboPro, alongside the 4-drive desktop unit they became famous for. But their use of iSCSI was forward-thinking. Although it is only usable by a single connected computer, iSCSI gives the DroboPro more flexibility for rack- or even data-center placement as well as greater performance than the old USB or FireWire ports.

Data Robotics really enhanced their product line in late 2009 with the introduction of two more-capable models, the DroboElite and Drobo S. The Drobo S added a fifth drive slot, dual-drive reliability, and two to three times the performance of the old Drobo when connected with eSATA. I’m seriously considering an upgrade! The DroboElite took the Pro upscale with a second gigabit Ethernet port and multi-server iSCSI support. In fact, the Elite is certified VMware Ready for small-scale datacenter use!

The release earlier this year of the Drobo FS answered pundits (including me) who kept asking for NAS file server capability beyond the underwhelming DroboShare device. Boasting built-in support for Windows (SMB) and Apple (AFP) networks, the Drobo FS shares the 5-drive form factor of the Drobo S, making it a reasonable choice for small offices and home networks. It must have been a hit, too, since the Drobo FS has been in short supply, frequently backordered throughout 2010.

Drobo FS + DroboPro = DroboPro FS!

The DroboPro FS joins the Drobo FS in Data Robotics' NAS lineup

It wasn’t rocket science for Data Robotics to mix together the DroboPro’s 8-drive form factor with the Drobo FS’ NAS software, and that’s just what they did to produce the DroboPro FS. It brings a bit more computing horsepower to handle filesystem and network protocol access along with a second gigabit Ethernet port for reliability, but the Pro FS sticks to the “keep it simple” ethos.

Simplicity is the heart of the Drobo message. Although built on open-source software (Linux, Samba, and Netatalk), the DroboPro FS software is simple to configure, just like the rest of the product line. This contrasts with the “mess-of-menus” interface used to administer so many competing products! While these other devices try to speak more languages than the United Nations, Data Robotics keeps it simple with SMB and AFP.

The DroboPro FS retains all of the core Drobo features: Dual-drive reliability is an option I recommend for any device using more than four drives. The company’s BeyondRAID software allows drives to be added and swapped with no data migration time, and also lets the Pro FS use whatever make, model, or size of SATA drive is available when you need it. Under the hood, the Drobo software optimizes the layout and checks the consistency of data without operator intervention. In short, like all Drobos, the Pro FS just works.

DroboSync: Synchronize DroboPro FS Units

A major new feature in the DroboPro FS product is DroboSync, software which will synchronize all content on one DroboPro FS to a second Pro FS over LAN or WAN. Similar capability has been available using the rsync DroboApp for quite some time, but Data Robotics promises that DroboSync will be integrated, supported, and simple enough to become a core feature. This is a great addition, and worth a place on the defiantly-short list of DroboPro FS features.

Dubious About DroboApps

The Drobo FS and DroboPro FS, being Linux-based, can run other workloads than the SMB and AFP servers bundled from the factory. The DroboApps page at Drobo.com includes 11 others, from NFS to Apache, rsync to Perl. And the FS models can run other packages developed and supported entirely unofficially.

Although I remain positively enthusiastic about the Drobo products, and recommend them for small offices and professional users, I am less excited about these apps. Even those “blessed” by Data Robotics lack the level of simplicity and reliability implied by the Drobo name. Trying them out brought back nightmares from my old Linksys NSLU2 NAS, and creating a stable environment would probably require the same level of hacking and time.

In the past year, Apple has broken two of the open source packages that run on the Drobo FS, and the result is illuminating. Apple’s changes to Snow Leopard caused issues when using the Drobo FS as a Time Machine target. Since the AFP protocol is a core part of the Drobo FS, the company actively investigated the issue and worked to develop a fix to the underlying open source Netatalk package. Contrast this with the Firefly iTunes server offered in the DroboApps store. When iTunes 10 broke Firefly, it also stopped supporting the Drobo FS. Although Data Robotics is reportedly looking into the matter (login required), a fix has not yet been posted.

Since only the core AFP and SMB functionality is really supported by Data Robotics, it begs the question of the suitability of the other DroboApps packages. Indeed, I would have a hard time recommending reliance on any of these packages for production use. And I suggest that Data Robotics should reconsider whether to officially offer DroboApps at all! They should leave the option for individuals to run these apps on their own, but I do not feel they are of a high enough standard to get a “DroboName” and be listed as product features.

Stephen’s Stance

DroboPro FS is a solid addition to the Drobo family, and ought to be on the short list of any small business looking for an integrated NAS solution. The ease of use and simple livability inherent in the Drobo line remains a strong differentiator from the competition. I would like to see NFS promoted to a core DroboPro FS feature, however.

At just under US$2,000 for an empty chassis, the Pro FS is not cheap. Like all of Data Robotics’ products, stepping up to this premium product requires opening up the wallet. Although the Drobo ownership experience is a happy one, it must be difficult for many to justify this premium pricing relative to competing products from Iomega, Thecus, Synology, and others.

A look at the product matrix begs another question: Where will Data Robotics go from here? I imagine a higher-end 8-drive DroboElite FS might be in the works, but I would much rather see a 12-drive rackmount Drobo for larger businesses. Add in some serious CPU power (and maybe some flash cache) and we could have a real challenger in the “M” segment of the SMB market!

Disclosure: Data Robotics sponsored two Tech Field Day events which I organize for Gestalt IT. Their financial support went to that event, and I purchased my Drobo at retail with my own money. I write about them because I am impressed by their products, not because of any business relationship.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Review: DroboPro FS is Data Robotics SMB NAS
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