iTunes 10 breaks third-party server compatibility. Again.

Do you use an “iTunes compatible” device like an Iomega ix4 or Drobo FS or Roku SoundBridge? Have you noticed that it no longer works since you updated to iTunes 10? That’s because Apple made a simple change to their Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) that causes third-party devices to fail to connect correctly. Although software patches are already appearing, there is no guarantee that older devices like that Roku will ever be updated.

DAAP, Firefly, and iTunes Clients

Apple introduced “music sharing” over a network in version 4.0 of iTunes way back in 2003, and third-party devices have been trying to play along ever since. Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) was based on http and xml and leverages zeroconf/Bonjour to discover and stream audio across a network. iTunes can act as both a server or client.

Although Apple only licensed the protocol to a select few client applications, DAAP was successfully reverse-engineered shortly after its debut and integrated into a number of third-party clients and servers. Apple has continually modified DAAP for almost a decade, adding MD5-based and proprietary authentication in versions 4.2 and 4.5, but this has not stopped third-party servers like the open-source Firefly/mt-daapd from serving as an iTunes server.

Apple was successful in preventing third-party clients from accessing music through iTunes, adding a client validation challenge to version 7.0 that has not yet been broken. This allowed them to limit client access to only those few third parties who paid for a license, including the Roku SoundBridge that I own.

No More Servers?

Did your "iTunes-compatible" home NAS suddenly stop serving music?

Since it was open source and capable of supporting iTunes, the Firefly Media Server (formerly called mt-daapd) has seen widespread use in “home media servers” like the Iomega ix4 and Drobo FS. Just about every home NAS that supports iTunes uses this software or a related fork, and just about every one stopped working with the release of iTunes 10.

As of version 10, when iTunes requests a list of songs, it requires the server to respond with a correct “mediakind” response. Previous versions apparently assumed type 1 (music) whenever this was missing, but iTunes 10 simply refuses to play, reporting odd error messages like “untitled playlist.” So Apple has broken iTunes compatibility. Again.

A patch is ready for some versions of mt-daapd, but a more important question is raised: Should commercial products rely on reverse-engineered protocols like DAAP? Much of the Apple ecosystem is reliant on reverse engineering, from iPod chargers to AFP to Time Machine. Many of the resulting “tricks” are commercialized in a wide variety of products from manufacturers small and large. Even IT titans like HP and EMC advertise Apple support based on reverse-engineered protocols!

Stephen’s Stance

Anyone want to buy a lightly-used Roku SoundBridge? It may work with iTunes for a while yet...

In my review of the Drobo FS, I questioned the wisdom of relying on “buggy and limited software” and discussed my use of “a real iTunes instance on my always-running iMac.” My experience with a Linksys NSLU2 running Firefly was never positive. Even my two Roku SoundBridge clients don’t work very well, and they’re licensed! I’m much happier with the performance of my AirPort Express, even though it would be nice if Apple would update the Remote app for the iPhone!

Many people complain about Apple’s “walled garden” approach, and I think they have a point when it comes to protocols like DAAP. By not allowing third parties to develop compatible hardware and software, they’ve forced everyone underground. Now that they’ve changed their implementation, all of these devices are “broken” in the eyes of users. Some, like the Roku, are out of date and might never be updated.

This is typical Apple. Out with the old and in with the new. They did the same with their own Apple TV hardware this month, stranding the few buyers it found without an update. Some may suggest that this minor change to iTunes is a conspiracy to push AirPlay, but I imagine it’s a simple case of upgrade-itis. Who cares about all that old junk when all this pretty new hardware and software is available?

We really can’t blame Apple for this. They never allowed the DAAP protocol to be used, and never promised that these reverse-engineered servers would work. In fact, I wonder why they even allowed “iTunes compatibility” to be promised without licensing. Perhaps some of the larger companies have Apple licenses, but I doubt it. At the end of the day, it is these vendors who are responsible for promising compatibility that they could not hope to deliver.

Note: The Roku SoundBridge still works fine as a client with iTunes 10. To clarify, I was saying that Apple could break this functionality in the future and Roku would be unlikely to fix it since they seem to have abandoned this product line.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | iTunes 10 Breaks Non-Apple Streaming (Again)
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, 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.

Iomega has been a staple of the desktop computing environment for decades, but the company’s products have never been quite at home in even small corporate data centers. That changes today with the introduction of the iSCSI StorCenter Pro ix4-200r. As of now, EMC’s SOHO storage subsidiary is a serious challenger in the small business and entry-level VMware ESX storage market.

It might look like the existing NAS 200rL, but the ix4-200r sports upgraded hardware and a new rev of EMC’s LifeLine storage software. This unit packs a serious punch, boasting full iSCSI target support for servers running Windows or Linux (or anything else with an iSCSI initiator) in addition to NFS, SMB, media streaming, print services, and just about every other protocol.

Although both Iomega and VMware are under the EMC corporate umbrella, it was a surprise to find that the ix4-200r is certified compatible with ESX using both iSCSI and NFS right out of the gate. This is the only inexpensive storage system to wear a VMware badge, and this alone will likely make it a fixture in small offices and VMware labs. The desktop StorCenter ix4-100 and StorCenter ix2 are already widely used in these environments even without iSCSI, after all. The ix4-200r provides a complete SAN-in-a-box, supporting multiple NAS and iSCSI shares with dynamic allocation of the internal RAID-5 protected storage.

Although aimed at the office, the ix4-200r retains the vast set of LifeLine capability we’ve seen in Iomega’s other offerings. This includes media streaming for UPnP (Twonky) and iTunes (Firefly), remote access, Active Directory support, and print services. The new unit even packs the more unusual Axis video surveillance capture capability. It sports two USB ports on the back and one on the front for expansion, data import, backup, or printers as well. Probably the best software feature is EMC’s Retrospect backup client, which was recently updated on the Mac platform.

The ix4-200r starts at just $1,799 (list) for 2 TB, and I expect resellers to dip well below that number. For comparison, Amazon currently sells the smaller non-iSCSI desktop 2 TB ix4-100 for $675 and the 1 TB ix2 for $268 and I’ve seen each for much less. I expect a street price of $1600 for the 2 TB rackmount unit – competing products from Buffalo and Netgear are priced and marked down similarly. The 4 TB model is priced $1,000 higher, perhaps unrealistically high given that the only difference is the use of 1 TB hard drive units instead of the 2 TB’s 500 GB drives. For comparison, Drobo just introduced their limited single-server 8-bay iSCSI DroboPro at $1,750 configured with four 500 GB drives. But none of these alternatives boast a spot on the ESX compatibility list, and I suspect this may be a deciding factor for many. Note that you can’t buy less than four hard drives in an ix4-200r, though the drives are easy to replace.

Iomega was kind enough to give me a preview of the ix4-200r at their offices, and I came away impressed by the new array and the company in general. They have a solid vision of the needs of the small office and are hard at work on products to meet them. Although the iSCSI support is not coming to the company’s other LifeLine-powered systems (the ix2, ix4-100, and Home Media) at this point, I would not be at all surprised to see it become a staple in future networked storage systems. A large gap remains below the EMC CLARiiON range, so I suspect that larger Iomega systems are on the way as well. As a potential buyer, I’d like to see Windows logo qualification, and Hyper-V support would be super as well. And as a Mac user, I’d love to see Time Machine support and for Iomega follow Drobo by offering a free iSCSI initiator – a guy can dream, right?

Updates and clarifications:

• Iomega has added the StorCenter Pro ix4-200r to their web site alongside the non-LifeLine StorCenterPro 200rL
• The ix4-200r will not be released until April 22, 2009
• The new rackmount ix4-200r is listed at $1799.99 for 2 TB and $2799.99 for 4 TB. I don’t expect to see either sell for less than a few hundred off those list prices
• The ix4-200r has been listed in the VMware ESX compatibility guide for a few days now for both iSCSI and NFS connectivity – I’m surprised no one noticed!
• Although it’s not mentioned in the press release, Iomega tells me that the StorCenter Pro ix4-200r does still support the BlueTooth file exchange found on its little brothers

More coverage:

• EMC’s StorageZilla posted his impressions as well: Iomega adds iSCSI, threatens war on us all
• Carlo Costanzo is excited to use this in VMware environments: EMC’s Low Cost SAN Starter for VMware (Iomega)
• Chris Mellor gives it a UK spin in The Register: Iomega opens sub-£2k box of storage tricks
• Duncan Epping is also excited about Home Lab Storage

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Iomega Grows Up and Moves Out of the House
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.

Mac Mini (Early 2009) unboxed at last

I’ve been waiting on a Mac Mini to replace my sluggish and crash-prone Firefly/NSLU2 home music and file server, and Apple finally delivered the goods today, after leaving us in the lurch at Macworld 2009! I’ve placed my order for a base-model Mac Mini, and look forward to using Apple’s iPhone Remote with the Airport Express AirTunes as my primary home music playing system.

What’s new with the Mac Mini? And was it worth waiting for? I think so!

• Faster CPUs – The old 1.83 and 2.0 GHz Core 2 has been replaced by a choice of 2.0 or 2.26 GHz chips, both with a much-faster 1066 MHz front-side bus. And these are the new Penryn (probably 3M 45 nm mobile) chips, replacing the old Merom units of the previous Mini, so they run faster clock-for-clock and cooler.
• Upgraded graphics – Where the old Mini relied on Intel’s tortoise-like GMA 950 integrated graphics, the new Mini has the new NVIDIA 9400M platform, also found on the new MacBook. This means the Mini is not only a capable game machine, but can make use of Apple’s Grand Central/OpenCL technology in Snow Leopard, when it’s delivered.
• Dual-monitor support – The Mini has both a Mini DisplayPort and Micro-DVI port, so you can use two monitors at once. It comes with a DVI cable, but if you want to use VGA you have to buy an adapter (unless your monitor is Apple’s massive-dollar LED Cinema Display!)
• FireWire remains – Despite all the rumors, the Mini retains a FireWire port, and adds an extra USB port to boot! But like the display port, the FireWire is an S800 port, so you need an adapter to hook up the older, and much more common, S400 devices.

You might also be interested in my more detailed Mac Mini review, or my post on upgrading the RAM and hard disk drive in my Mac Mini!

But the best reason to use a Mac Mini as a home server is Apple’s software. OS X remains a solid platform, with excellent network file service support, and Snow Leopard should make it even better. The combination of ZFS and two hard drives in a Mac Mini will be killer! Plus, Apple’s AirTunes/iTunes/Remote ecosystem makes a very snazzy home music service. Maybe I’ll add an Apple TV, too?

All considered, this is a solid if uninspiring upgrade. It’s a MacBook in a little box with a FireWire port and half the price tag. Nothing amazing, but a solid choice for a home server, which is what I plan to use it for. As for the configurations, I wonder who Apple is kidding. The $200-extra high-end model adds an extra GB of RAM and a 320 GB hard disk over the 1 GB/120 GB base model. If you want the faster 2.26 GHz CPU, you have to build to order and shell out an extra $150. So the base model is the most compelling choice, since upgrading RAM and disk is straightforward. I’ll use the extra 1 GB  module left over from my MacBook Pro upgrade.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | The New Mac Mini is Finally Here!
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.

Homes now need data storage as well as closets...

This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I will be posting every Sunday as part of an experiment in offering more in-depth content.

Along with my professional focus on enterprise storage systems, I’m enamored of home networking, and recently passed the three terabyte mark at home! This got me thinking about where home storage is heading.

As you can see in the photo, my office closet is overflowing with computer equipment (and one sweet guitar), but my data storage is much better organized. I have a hacked Linksys NSLU2 with 500 GB as a file server, a 500 GB PC backup disk, a 160 GB Time Machine disk, 1 TB of TiVo storage, and the rest. But wouldn’t it be nice if this could all be combined into some kind of super home server?

Past Failures: Home Servers

Home storage appliances and servers have come and gone over the year, with none seeming to make much of a mark. The market remains littered with UPNP media servers and home NAS boxes dashed on the shoals of an unappreciative public. Nearly every home network device company has produced one or two home storage servers, none of which have succeeded. Although I use a Linksys NSLU2 at home, I had to hack its Linux software and completely replace Linksys’ features to create a useful device! The un-hacked NAS devices of Buffalo, Western Digital, Netgear, and the rest have generally failed to find buyers as well. So far, consumers seem content with simple USB and FireWire external drives.

The most adventurous home storage servers came from Zetera and Ximeta, both of whom relied on proprietary IP SAN protocols. Note that these were SAN products, sharing block storage over Ethernet, rather than conventional NAS solutions. Both required drivers, limiting client support. The one Zetera buyer I know was pleased by the performance but never used the device as anything but a large hard drive for one PC.

Then there is Microsoft. Recall that the latest Windows Home Server is only their latest attempt to enter this market, and yet I know of no one who has adopted the device. The same can be said of the various media center servers from Microsoft and others. At this point, it seems likely that the future of home storage servers will not come from Microsoft, though their two XBox generations have great potential as clients.

Even EMC has entered the market with their nifty (but largely unnoticed) LifeLine product and Iomega acquisition. Supporting file services and backup for computers as well as audio and video for media players, EMC positions LifeLine much like their Retrospect backup product, but goes further in offering a complete software solution for hardware OEMs wanting to offer a non-Windows home server. Although an impressive offering, it is too early to tell if EMC will have much success with this product.

The Sleek, Shiny Elephant in the Living Room

Of course, there is one company that sells media players and servers by the bushel, complete with sleek, shiny interfaces. Apple’s tremendous success with the iPod has led to their iTunes software becoming the dominant media organization platform, complete with its own proprietary discovery and sharing protocol. Now, with the Apple TV and video iPods, the company is broadening into more media categories. Surely their dominance here puts them in a special position when it comes to setting the stage for a home server or storage revolution.

They also have a strong position in the world of dedicated home storage. Their Airport products are among the only routers to be widely implemented with shared storage. Although many other companies offer similar products, low customer understanding means that these functions are not widely used. And the new Time Capsule device is surely already the most widely-used home NAS product.

But Apple has not yet shown any home server strategy. Administering multiple iTunes servers can be frustrating for users, with no inter-iTunes synchronization or centralization capability. Although the Mac Mini, Apple TV, or Time Capsule could certainly be seen as a home server, the company does not position them as such in the market. Indeed, some iTunes users like myself rely on compatible third party media servers like Firefly and TwonkyVision rather than using iTunes itself. Still, rumors of an Apple home server persist.

One issue for Apple is their reliance on proprietary protocols. Although the Bonjour discovery protocol is certainly simpler than UPnP in practice, Apple stands alone in relying on it. They also steadfastly stick to AFP for NAS and DAAP for remote media streaming. This limits the number of third-party clients and servers that can be used with their hardware and software.

The Future is Friendly

Although Apple has not yet tipped a home storage strategy beyond Time Capsule and Airport Extreme, they are best positioned to deliver a real home storage solution. A simple step would be to create an iTunes media server integrated with Time Capsule and add client/server media synchronization. The company already has OS X backup and file services integrated, and this move would further centralize the digital home around Apple products. But the company’s reliance on closed protocols like DAAP is worrisome, since it locks consumers into nearly all-Apple solutions.

Microsoft’s Media Center and Home Server combination, based around UPnP, shows great promise, with many compatible third-party clients and servers already available. But my own experience with the solution has not been at all positive (I still can’t get my Roku SoundBridge, Vista Ultimate laptop, and Media Center PC to see each other!), leading me to question the viability of this option.

Although Apple or Microsoft could come to dominate, I suspect the future of home storage is out of both companies hands. A number of others are working on improved home server experiences, including EMC’s LifeLine and the expanding use of Debian Linux and open source tools. But all could be sidelined by improved Internet-based services. Google, Microsoft, and Apple continue to expand their online consumer suites with greater storage, synchronization, multimedia integration, and all have the potential to reduce or eliminate the need for in-home storage.

Although I cannot yet tell which service will win, one thing is certain: Consumers demand friendly, flexible solutions. They don’t want to fuss with their media, and they don’t want simple shared storage. They want integration with multiple devices and flexibility to access their content on any device. The first company to offer a simple, flexible storage server for the home will surely be on the right track!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | The Future of Home Storage
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I wonder why they decided to clear it out. It was brand new, and had never appeared on their shelves that I noticed. It couldn’t have been displayed for more than a month or two since it was the new 1001 model. Oh well, their loss, my gain!

I’ve also monkeyed with my media server. I was running Unslung as my OS on the NSLU2, but I got sick of its weirdness, and it kept running out of memory. So I wiped it and went for SlugOS/BE (aka OpenSlug), a very trimmed down OS for the Slug. The Firefly Media Server people don’t officially support it, but I was able to get it running in short order. It seems much more stable and responsive. And I replaced the old Linksys build of Samba with version 3, which is much speedier and uses far less CPU time. I’m happy!

As an aside, did you know that Best Buy will haggle on their clearance items? Ask the manager, and they can easily knock off 15% to 25% from the yellow-sticker price!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Another Roku Soundbridge
This post was categorized as Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.