Note: This information was based on the “VMware Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide” and is being regularly updated. Please add comments here and I will add products and change and update listings as soon as they appear in the guide!

Where, Why, and What is VAAI?

I’ve previously discussed the fact that VMware’s excellent ESX hardware compatibility list (HCL) is so comprehensive than obscures basic facts about supported products. This is especially true for VAAI, since compatibility is only noted as a footnote in individual storage array listings. It does not help matters that not all VAAI plugins support all three capabilities.

Like my previous posts regarding FCoE CNA’s, SATA and PATA chipsets, and home/lab network cards, I’ll attempt to boil down the VMware ESX HCL into plain English. This data will also be part of my Storage for Virtual Servers seminar presentation, the first of which will be given on March 10 in Philadelphia.

I’m not going to spend too much time on “what is VAAI” in this post. Instead, I suggest you read the following blog posts and VMware’s excellent guide, “What’s New in VMware vSphereTM 4.1 — Storage“?

• What is VAAI, and how does it add spice to my life as a VMware admin?
• vStorage APIs for Array Integration aka VAAI
• If You Ever Needed Convincing About VAAI…
• VMware VAAI pros and cons and the hidden fourth primitive

The Three VAAI Primitives

You ought to read the updated Complete List of VMware VAAI Primitives since it’s much more thorough and informative!

In ESX 4.1, that vStorage API for Array Integration includes three basic capabilities or primitives:

1. Blocks zeroing is a communication method for thin provisioning capable storage arrays, allowing them to quickly zero out storage capacity for later reclamation.
2. Full copy commands the storage array to make a mirror or snapshot of data without any I/O on the server hardware.
3. Hardware assisted locking enables more granular control of shared storage resources in ESX clusters

In order to support VAAI, a storage array requires two things:

1. Hardware capable of supporting one or more of the three primitives listed above
2. A software plug in for ESX enabling communication and integration

VAAI Plug In Support

Creating a VAAI plug in is not a trivial task, and not all storage arrays are yet supported. I have heard grumbling from storage vendors that EMC (the storage vendor that owns VMware) has been given early access to VAAI information, allowing them to support this feature set before their competitors. However, this has not stopped a diverse set of other unrelated storage vendors from quickly producing and releasing effective and complete VAAI plugins.

As of this writing, there are 11 array-specific plugins and one general-purpose plug in available for ESX 4.1. EMC, NetApp, 3PAR (HP), HDS, FalconStor, Fujitsu, IBM, Dell (EqualLogic), and HP (LeftHand, P9000, P2000) have produced VAAI plugins supporting all three primitives. Additionally, a cloud in supporting the T10 blocks zeroing methods is available, enabling other arrays to support this one primitive. Note that the T10 primitive should support nearly any capable array, but not all have been tested and qualified for use with it.

VAAI Support Matrix

Note that similar OEM versions (for example, Fujitsu’s FibreCAT CLARiiONs, and the Gateway/Lenovo/Acer AMS line) are also supported the same as the manufacturer’s offerings. I’ve simplified and eliminated similar models (the Dell EqualLogic PS6000E, PS6000S, PS6000X, PS6000XV, and PS6000XVS are all listed simply as PS6000).

Updates:

• IBM recently added full VAAI for the XIV, SVC, and similar Storwize V7000. I’m sure they’re also working on complete VAAI plugins for the big DS8000 systems!
• EMC certified the new VNX line for VAAI (FC only for now) and the V-Max just gained iSCSI VAAI support.
• FalconStor added VAAI for NSS, enabling any storage array to be used.
• HP created VAAI plugins for the P9500 and MSA P2000 lines as well.

Stephen’s Stance

VAAI is an exciting new capability for VMware ESX, and demonstrates the enterprise readiness of vSphere 4.1. Although not all storage arrays are yet supported, the diverse assortment listed above should cover the majority of enterprise storage environments. I fully expect that the obvious holes will be filled in soon, and I look forward to updating this list when I hear news of those product releases. I also look forward to learning of additional capabilities added as VAAI primitives in the future!

The Exhaustive List

I am attempting to keep this list up to date. My authoritative source of information is the VMware Storage Compatibility Guide. This is the only source of information I will use, since only official and supported implementations belong in production. But I welcome pointers, suggestions, and referrals for updates!

This list is complete as of February 21, 2011

Full VAAI (All 3 primitives)

• Dell
  • EqualLogic
    • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_eql)
      • Dell EqualLogic PS4000E (Dell EqualLogic PS4000X; Dell EqualLogic PS4000XV)
      • Dell EqualLogic PS5000E (Dell EqualLogic PS5000X; Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV)
      • Dell EqualLogic PS5500E
      • Dell EqualLogic PS6000E (Dell EqualLogic PS6000S; Dell EqualLogic PS6000V; Dell EqualLogic PS6000XV; Dell EqualLogic PS6000XVS)
      • Dell EqualLogic PS6010E (Dell EqualLogic PS6010S; Dell EqualLogic PS6010X; Dell EqualLogic PS6010XV; Dell EqualLogic PS6010XVS)
      • Dell EqualLogic PS6500E (Dell EqualLogic PS6500X)
      • Dell EqualLogic PS6510E (Dell EqualLogic PS6510X)
      • EqualLogic PS100E
      • EqualLogic PS200E
      • EqualLogic PS300E
      • EqualLogic PS3600X
      • EqualLogic PS3700X
      • EqualLogic PS3800XV
        • EqualLogic PS3900XV
      • EqualLogic PS400E
      • EqualLogic PS50E
      • EqualLogic PS70E
• EMC
  • FC (vmw_vaaip_cx)
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-120 (EMC CLARiiON CX4-120 C8/C8X; Dell/EMC CLARiiON CX4-120; Fujitsu FibreCAT CX4-120)
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-240 C8/C8X
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-480 (EMC CLARiiON CX4-480 C8/C8X; Dell/EMC CLARiiON CX4-480)
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-960 (EMC CLARiiON CX4-960 C8/C8X; Dell/EMC CLARiiON CX4-960)
    • EMC Celerra NS-120
    • EMC Celerra NS-480
    • EMC Celerra NS-960
    • EMC VNX5100
    • EMC VNX5300
    • EMC VNX5500
    • EMC VNX5700
    • EMC VNX7500
  • FC/iSCSI/FCoE (VMW_VAAI_SYMM)
    • EMC Symmetrix VMAX
  • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_cx)
    • EMC Celerra CNS
    • EMC Celerra NS-120
    • EMC Celerra NS-480
    • EMC Celerra NS-960
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-120 C8
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-240 C8
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-480 (EMC CLARiiON CX4-480 C8)
    • EMC CLARiiON CX4-960 (EMC CLARiiON CX4-960 C8)
• FalconStor
• FC (unknown)
• CDP Gateway
• CDP SA
• CDP VS
• CDPx Gateway
• IPStor Enterprise
• NSS Gateway
• NSS SA
• NSS VS
• Fujitsu
  • FC (fjt_vaaip_module)
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX410
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX440
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX8100
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX8400
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX8700
  • iSCSI (fjt_vaaip_module)
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX410
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX440
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX8100
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX8400
    • Fujitsu Eternus DX8700
• Hitachi
  • FC (vmw_vaaip_hds)
    • Hitachi AMS 2100 (Acer AMS2100; Gateway AMS2100; HDS AMS 2100; Lenovo-HDS AMS2100)
    • Hitachi AMS 2300 (Acer AMS2300; Gateway AMS2300; HDS AMS 2300; Lenovo-HDS AMS2300)
    • Hitachi AMS 2500 (HDS AMS 2500)
    • Acer AS2040; Gateway GS2040
    • Hitachi AMS 2010
    • Hitachi BR1600/BR1600E/BR1600S
    • Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (Hitachi VP9500; HP StorageWorks P9500)
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1910
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1930
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1970
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1990
  • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_hds)
    • Hitachi AMS 2010
    • Hitachi AMS 2100 (HDS AMS 2100; Lenovo-HDS AMS2100)
    • Hitachi AMS 2300 (HDS AMS 2300; Lenovo-HDS AMS2300)
    • Hitachi AMS 2500 (HDS AMS 2500)
    • Hitachi BR1600E
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1930
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1970
    • Nihon-Unisys Sanarena 1990
    • Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform
• HP
  • 3PAR
    • FC (3PAR_vaaip_InServ)
      • InServ E200
      • InServ F-Class
      • InServ S400
      • InServ S800
      • T-Class
    • iSCSI (3PAR_vaaip_InServ)
      • InServ E200
      • InServ F-Class
      • InServ S400
      • InServ S800
      • T-Class
  • P9500
  • FC (hp-vaaip-p9000)
  • HP P9500
  • P2000
  • FC/iSCSI (hp-vaaip-p2000)
  • HP MSA P2000
  • LeftHand
    • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_lhn)
      • HP LeftHand P4500
      • HP LeftHand P4000 VSA
      • HP LeftHand P4000sb
      • HP LeftHand P4300 (HP LeftHand P4300 G2)
      • HP LeftHand P4500 (HP LeftHand P4500 G2)
      • HP LeftHand P4800
      • HP ProLiant DL380
      • Dell 2950
      • IBM x3650
      • LeftHand NSM 160
      • LeftHand NSM 185
      • LeftHand NSM 2060 (LeftHand NSM 2060 G2)
      • LeftHand NSM 2120 (LeftHand NSM 2120 G2)
      • LeftHand NSM 260
      • LeftHand NSM 320
      • LeftHand NSM 326
      • LeftHand NSM 3650
      • LeftHand NSM 380
      • LeftHand NSM 4150
      • LeftHand VSA
• IBM
  • FC/iSCSI (IBM_VAAIP_MODULE)
    • IBM XIV
    • IBM SVC
    • IBM V7000
    • Fujitsu VS850
    • Actifio
• NetApp
  • FC (VMW_VAAIP_NETAPP)
    • NetApp N3000 Series
    • NetApp N5000 Series
    • NetApp N6000 Series
    • NetApp N7000 Series
    • NetApp FAS2000 Series
    • NetApp FAS3000 Series
    • NetApp FAS3100 Series
    • NetApp FAS3200 Series
    • NetApp FAS6000 Series
    • NetApp FAS6200 Series
  • FCoE (VMW_VAAIP_NETAPP)
    • NetApp FAS3000 Series
    • NetApp FAS3100 Series
    • NetApp FAS3200 Series
    • NetApp FAS6000 Series
    • NetApp FAS6200 Series
  • iSCSI (VMW_VAAIP_NETAPP)
    • NetApp N3000 Series
    • NetApp N5000 Series
    • NetApp N6000 Series
    • NetApp N7000 Series
    • NetApp FAS2000 Series (Fujitsu Eternus NR1000F Series Model F2040)
    • NetApp FAS3000 Series
    • NetApp FAS3100 Series (Fujitsu Eternus NR1000F Series Model F3160)
    • NetApp FAS3200 Series
    • NetApp FAS6000 Series
    • NetApp FAS6200 Series

T10 Block Zero Only

• Bull
  • FC (vmw_vaaip_t10)
    • Bull Optima2000
  • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_t10)
    • Bull Optima2000c
    • Bull Optima2000i
• NEC
  • FC (vmw_vaaip_t10)
    • NEC iStorage D3-30
    • NEC iStorage D4-30
  • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_t10)
    • NEC iStorage D3-30/D3-30i
    • NEC iStorage D4-30/D4-30i
• Fujitsu
  • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_t10)
    • Fujitsu Eternus VS850
• IBM
  • iSCSI (vmw_vaaip_t10)
    • IBM Storwize V7000
    • IBM SVC

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | VMware VAAI Storage Array Support in Plain English
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Who will power the enterprise? The smart money is betting on a few superpowers taking over.

After years spent focusing on personal technology, businesses are increasingly turning back to the enterprise. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest one is the poor economy. Individuals simply have less free cash to spend on gadgets and software, and the meagre profits are increasingly going into the pockets of a single company: Apple.

The corporate IT market is much more dynamic and competitive, with a few very large “superpower” companies discovering their power to drive purchasing decisions. If a supplier can create an integrated “stack” of hardware and software, they can push product purchases that might otherwise be overlooked or postponed. This is the main reason that enterprise IT acquisitions work so well: Where a small company must fight to sell their product, a large one can hitch it to a much more strategic sale and have it pulled along.

The old IBM model is the prototype, with that company once selling everything from office equipment to datacenter gear as well as the consulting and integration services to make it all work.

HP has spent almost two decades bulking up to become the new IBM, buying their way into open systems laptops, desktops, and servers (Compaq), networking (3Com), services (EDS), and storage (Compaq, LeftHand, Ibrix, and perhaps 3Par). HP has been remarkably proficient at executing on this enterprise plan: In talking to enterprise IT folks, I often hear IBM-esque sentiments regarding the new HP. They tell me they’re willing to give HP the benefit of the doubt when it comes to new technologies and products, buying on basis of the company’s reputation and ability to make everything work. This bodes well for the company’s post-Hurd future, and HP has the most-complete “enterprise stack” in the business.

But HP has a target on its back, pinned there by Dell. The folks from Round Rock believe they can be more efficient (and thus profitable) than HP in the same markets, and have been making moves to fortify their enterprise offerings. Dell was always more of a manufacturing than R&D business, but they have shown a desire to broaden their focus. Intrigued by the high-margin mid-enterprise storage business built from their EqualLogic acquisition and their success selling EMC storage, Dell is moving into the enterprise. They matched HP/EDS by purchasing Perot and have made smaller buys in storage (Ocarina, Exanet) as well as the big move for 3Par.

The next big emerging stack player is Oracle. The acquisition of Sun gave Oracle a strong hardware base to complement their command of enterprise software, and many expect further acquisitions. But Oracle is playing a different game than HP and Dell, focusing on the high-margin enterprise space and ignoring more competitive outlying areas. Many suspect the company might make a play in the network space (Brocade, Juniper, and F5 have been mentioned) but storage is possible as well. CEO Larry Ellison is a major investor in Pillar Data Systems, so many expect a spin-in here. But Oracle has the appetite for something much bigger, even EMC or NetApp.

Then there is Cisco, who have attempted to parlay their data center networking strength into a broader position. But Cisco’s halting moves into storage (Fibre Channel switching and SAN extension) did not displace the market leaders, and their server products (UCS) have not made much of a dent on HP, IBM, and Dell either. A solid partnership with EMC has delayed further forays into the enterprise storage market, and Cisco seems puzzlingly interested in low-margin access businesses (Linksys, Flip) and their Cius tablet.

There are other players in the enterprise space as well. EMC has diversified under CEO Joe Tucci, taking a dominant position in server virtualization (VMware) and making a strong enterprise security acquisition (RSA). But the many faces of enterprise storage remains EMC’s strength, and they seem content to partner with Cisco for a stack sale. Hitachi, NEC, and Fujitsu also offer varying enterprise hardware and software stacks, but their comparatively small sales presence in the US market limits their ability to execute. In the final analysis, only IBM, HP, Dell, and perhaps Oracle can claim to be enterprise IT superpowers at this point.

Image credit: Steam Engine by Stuck in Customs

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Meet the Enterprise IT Superpowers
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

After a very, very long wait, Apple has finally updated the Mac Mini, their entry-level “bridge” Mac. It’s amazing that, after 19 months without an update, Apple’s new Mini looks exactly the same as the old Mini. But what’s under the hood matters, and Apple delivered a mixed bag there. The new Mini is an excellent home server, which is how mine will be used, but some poor choices limit its abilities out of the box.

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

Out With the Old

Apple completely redesigned the innards of the Mini for 2009. It has always been a laptop in a box, so we were not surprised to see the updated MacBook’s specs duplicated here. The Mini includes that machine’s efficient and current Intel Core 2 Duo mobile CPUs, Nvidia chipset and graphics, 1066 MHz RAM, 802.11n and gigabit Ethernet networking, DVD SuperDrive, and 2.5″ hard drive.

A few welcome additions were made relative to the MacBook’s specs. The new Mini features five USB ports. It also brings joy to the hearts of the Apple faithful in the form of a FireWire port, albeit sporting the square 9-pin S800 socket rather than the old familiar 6-pin 400 spec. But the most interesting addition on the little Apple desktop is its two independent video ports: A Mini-DVI and a Mini DisplayPort. Each of these additions squarely focuses the Mac Mini at the desktop market, and each is welcome.

USB Madness

When the array of five USB ports was spotted in pre-release spy photos, Mac fans went nuts. Why would the new Mini add yet another port? And who needs five USB ports anyway? I, for one, was very glad to see this change. I’ve lamented the reduction in the number of USB ports found in laptops lately, and I think most end users would agree that more USB ports are needed. Witness two consumer phenomena to support this proliferation of USB ports:

1. One of the hottest-selling peripherals for the old Mac Mini was the Mini-shaped USB hub, and many of the other accessories targeted at the Mini included built-in hubs
2. Despite Seagate’s sagging numbers, USB hard drives continue selling like hotcakes, with an insider recently telling me that they’ve reached a 2:1 attach rate (meaning most computers have two of them!)

A disturbing trend in parallel with the disappearance of USB ports is the hobbling of those that remain. My MacBook Pro has just two ports and both are limited: One is low on electrical power and the other is shared with internal peripherals.

I assumed that the Mini merely included an internal hub, limiting the value of those five ports. I am pleased to report that this is not the case! The Mini actually has four separate internal USB busses and the five ports are spread among three of these:

So if you’re adding high(er)-performance devices to your New Mini, let me suggest this strategy:

1. Connect your most-important device to port 2 and it will have a bus all to itself (except when you use an IR remote, which isn’t often)
2. If you have only one other high-performance USB device, connect it to port 1 or 5 and connect your keyboard and mouse to ports 3 and 4, or vice-versa
3. If you have two more high-performance USB devices, don’t connect them to ports 1 and 5 or ports 3 and 4 – spread them out on 1 and 3 or 4 and 5!

The new Mac Mini's five USB ports share three USB busses

Or just use the handy FireWire port and grin smugly as only a Mac user can!

Square Pegs

We’ve heard a hundred times that the Mac Mini was designed to a philosophy of “bring your own keyboard, mouse, and display”. In other words, it’s optimized for what people already have rather than being bundled with a keyboard, mouse, and display like the iMac or forcing people to buy all new peripherals. But Apple’s relentless push to move their hardware platform forward has gotten in the way of this goal when it comes to the new Mini.

Although the inclusion of a FireWire port alongside the multitude of standard USB ports is welcome, Apple chose to use the 9-pin S800 port style rather than the more-familiar 6-pin port. FireWire peripherals aren’t common as it is, and S800 devices and cables are far less familiar. Although it is backward-compatible, thus the “bilingual” name often used by Apple, the much-faster S800 port requires the purchase of adapter cables to use older 400 Mb FireWire devices. Although I’m a storage geek and do own a few FireWire peripherals, none are compatible with the port on my new Mini. I have a “bilingual cable” in the mail to me as we speak, and there is a port adapter dongle, but this port stands in the way of the “bring your own” ethos.

The same can be said of Apple’s choice of video ports. It’s nice that Apple’s Mini DisplayPort is offered royalty-free, but this hasn’t made adapters any more common. Their VGA and DVI adapters are priced at $29 each, and third-party cables haven’t appeared yet, though Monoprice promises them this month. So one of the two video ports is of limited use, unless you dropped over $800 on the gorgeous Apple 24-inch LED Cinema Display. Let’s not even mention the troublesome $99 dual DVI adapter!

Then there’s the Mini-DVI port. Apple bundles a Mini-DVI to DVI-I adapter with the Mac Mini, so those of you who own a DVI monitor (and cable!) are all set. But this adapter lacks the VGA pins, so you can’t use a DVI to VGA adapter to hook up to your older VGA monitor or KVM. For that, you need to order a special Mini-DVI to VGA adapter (also in the mail).

So let’s get this straight: If you want to actually hook your pre-existing peripherals to the new Mac Mini, you had better hope they’re USB or DVI-I. Otherwise, you’re looking at spending $20 to $30 each for FireWire, Mini-DVI, and Mini DisplayPort adapters. The lack of a VGA solution is especially annoying, since it would have been simple for Apple just to include the VGA pins in their Mini-DVI adapter, allowing folks to use the DVI-to-VGA adapter they probably already own.

Inner Weakness

Although the new Mini is solidly engineered and built, Apple made two major sacrifices in internal specs in the interests of profit margins: The base Mini ships with too little RAM and a too-slow and too-small internal hard drive. I knew this going in, and was happy to buy the base model anyway, since I intended to upgrade it rather than spend $200 extra for a little more RAM and drive space or wait for a build-to-order custom Mini.

There is simply no excuse for Apple to ship the base mini with 1 GB of RAM. OS X Leopard is a full-featured 64-bit operating system, and 1 GB is too little to do much of anything with these days. RAM prices keep falling fast, so even the fancy DDR3-8500 SO-DIMMs used by the Mini cost just a few dollars. At least the company used a single 1 GB stick instead of two useless 512 MB units like the old Mini! I was lucky enough to find a fellow buyer who upgraded his RAM and is sending me his leftovers, but I may spend $50 in the next few months for a matched pair of 2 GB sticks.

Then there is the hard drive. The Mac Mini uses Hitachi’s base-model TravelStar 5K320 (HTS543212L9SA02) drive unit, easily the slowest hard drive I’ve used recently. It’s limited to 1.5 Gb SATA, and its single platter may help in the power and heat department but it gives a poor performance show. Xbench (not the best measure to be sure) shows this little drive  trailing the 120 GB Fujitsu MH2120BH drive that came in my (late 2007) MacBook Pro by about 30%, and almost 50% slower than the 320 GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVT that I now use! Note that Apple apparently uses larger-capacity versions of this same drive in the bigger Minis and MacBooks. I wonder if the performance is any better?

The Mac Mini's internal 120 GB Hitachi hard disk drive lags its contemporaries and drags overall system performance way down, especially with just 1 GB of RAM

Although I was surprised by just how slow the hard drive was, especially when the limited RAM leads to swapping, I always planned to upgrade both. As I mentioned, there’s a second 1 GB stick on the way, and I ordered a blazing 320 GB 7200 rpm Hitachi TravelStar 7K320 at ZipZoomFly for $59 (after rebate). These should turn the Mini’s performance around!

Despite the shortcomings of the base Mac Mini, I would not recommend buying the upscale or build-to-order models if you’re open to upgrading it on your own. You can upgrade a Mini to 2 GB and 320 GB/7200 rpm for under $100 instead of spending $200 from Apple for the same RAM and a slower drive. However, if you’re hesitant to open the case, do not buy the base Mac Mini! Get at least the 2 GB model from Apple – 1 GB just isn’t enough!

I’ll be documenting my evolving home server environment, based around this little Mac, here on the site. Subscribe to my Apple feed (or stick with Everything) to keep up to date!

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. | New Mac Mini Is A Diamond In The Rough
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Fabrik, maker of SOHO storage devices like this G-Safe, has been acquired by Hitachi GST

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (hereafter referred to as HGST) just bought Fabrik, the company that produces and distributes consumer storage devices as SimpleTech and pro/AV storage using the G-Technology name.

We in the enterprise storage sector are all too familiar with the epic battles between Hitachi Data Systems (let’s call them HDS) and EMC, both providers of storage systems to the enterprise IT market. And last year EMC purchased consumer drive maker Iomega, pushing out some impressive storage systems that combine the best of both companies.

So is Hitachi’s combination with SimpleTech a response or challenge to EMC’s acquisition of Iomega? In a word, no.

First there is the small issue that HGST is an entirely different company from HDS. Both are subsidiaries of the massive Hitachi, Ltd. of Japan, but to conflate them into one company would be a disservice:

• HGST is much more like Seagate Technologies or Western Digital – a maker of hard disk drive mechanisms, the core components of modern data storage devices from the consumer to enterprise space.
• HDS is much more like EMC or NetApp – a maker of storage systems and software aimed at the enterprise IT market.
• Parent company Hitachi, Ltd. makes all sorts of stuff, from appliances to monorails (no kidding!) and so is much like Mitsubishi or Fujitsu.

Where EMC is actively expanding Iomega’s marketing into a supplier of tiny storage systems for entry-level IT and lab use, we shouldn’t expect the same synergistic offerings from HDS and SimpleTech or G-Technology. Instead, we should look at this as a response to Seagate’s purchase of Maxtor and Toshiba’s consolidation with Fujitsu’s disk unit: HGST will have a much better consumer channel for its disk drive mechanisms and will be better able to compete with those companies and Western Digital in places like Staples and Best Buy.

This is not to say that SimpleTech and G-Technology doesn’t compete with Iomega, mind you. In fact, Fabrik’s two brands were head-to-head with EMC’s little sister in just about every corner of their markets, and they make some cool devices for the SOHO market. Check out the [re]drive, G-Drive Mini SSD, and G-Speed XL if you don’t believe me!

Sounds like a win for them, but not a game-changer for enterprise storage.

This article can also be found on Gestalt IT: Does Hitachi+SimpleTech = EMC+Iomega?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Does Hitachi+SimpleTech = EMC+Iomega?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Let’s take a look at the two company’s product lines and market positions as we determine the impact of this deal.

Update: Fujitsu is denying the deal, even though the market loves it, but it still makes sense for WDC to pick up either Fujitsu or Hitachi’s disk drive business to better compete with Seagate.

Update 2: Rumors in December are that the deal is back on.

Final (?) Update: The deal is off as of January 2009.

Introducing Fujitsu

Although they’ve never enjoyed the high profile of (post-Maxtor) Seagate,  Western Digital, and (post-IBM) Hitachi, sixth-ranked disk manufacturer, Fujitsu, has enjoyed success in two key OEM markets: Laptops and servers. The company’s disks are found in many portable computers (including my Apple MacBook Pro), sharing this market with number-three maker, Hitachi. Although Fujitsu reportedly does not manufacture their own drive wafers, they apparently handle all other aspects of design, construction, and assembly.

The company offers a variety of portable 2.5″ drives:

• The BH series is a thin 9.5 mm unit in capacities up to 320 GB
• The BJ is a high-performance 7200 rpm, 9.5 mm mechanism for high-end machines
• The new BT is fatter, at 12.5 mm, but reaches 500 GB
• Finally, the CJ is an upgrade to the BJ, with built-in encryption in addition to 7200 rpm and 9.5 mm thinness

In the enterprise space, Fujitsu offers both 2.5″ and 3.5″ models:

• The 3.5″ MBA3 is available in both Fibre Channel and SCSI variants at 10k and 15k rpm speeds and sizes to 300 GB
• The MBB2 is a 2.5″ drive for blade servers, with low power consumption, 10k rpm speed, and a SCSI interface
• The MBC2 bumps the 2.5″ drive up to 15k rpm

The company also offers a variety of 2.5″ drives for embedded use, with enhanced vibration and shock tolerance and 24×7 operation.

So let’s sum it up:  Fujitsu is the number-six maker (in terms of sales), is strong in the OEM laptop and server markets, and has a respectably diverse set of drive offerings, but mostly focuses on 2.5″ mechanisms.

Western Digital

Now let’s turn to the reported buyer, Western Digital (NYSE: WDC). WDC is well known in the hot (and hotly competitive) retail space, selling buckets of external and portable USB hard disk drives to consumers. The company has been a fixture of the PC market for decades, originally as a manufacturer of a variety of components but focusing on hard disk drives in the early 1990s. The company has grown organically, only acquiring IP and R&D through acquisition rather than buying up its competitors like rivals Maxtor and Seagate. Reports say that Western Digital also buys their platters, but handles the rest of the engineering and construction activities in-house.

Western Digital’s Caviar line was the performance toast of the PC community in the 1990s, and they have recently had a resurgence with their Raptor and VelociRaptor drive units. The latter, a 10k rpm 2.5″ mechanism designed for desktops, was especially lauded in the press and blogs. Although their RE2 and RE3 enterprise SATA drive lines sport respectable specifications, Western Digital has never been a common sight in the data center.

On the mobile side, WDC has two lines: The 7200 rpm Scorpio Black and 5400 rpm Scorpio Blue. The latter is especially common wrapped in the company’s well-regarded My Passport portable USB enclosure, and is also used by OEMs like Verbatim. I transplanted one of these 320 GB Scorpio Blue drives into my MacBook Pro, in fact.

WDC’s bread and butter has long been its desktop drives, however. The company currently manufactures three lines of Caviar drives (Black, Blue, and Green) for different market segments, and their My Book external desktop drives are hot sellers in the consumer sector. The company boasts “green” drives with lower power requirements, as well as embedded units for DVRs like TiVo.

A Nice Match

So what would Fujitsu bring to Western Digital? Greater OEM leverage and increased manufacturing capability, chiefly, along with more R&D depth. Both companies have similar manufacturing capabilities, and Fujitsu’s strong OEM laptop and server lines would mesh nicely with WD’s existing desktop and consumer strength. Although the combined company would still trail Seagate in market share (30% vs. 35%), it would be a force to reckon with in the market, and could force further consolidation among the smaller players. Hitachi’s OEM drive manufacturing business would certainly face pressure, and they would have been a nice alternate target for Western Digital. All in all, I give this rumor two thumbs up!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Western Digital + Fujitsu = More Competition for Seagate and Hitachi
This post was categorized as 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.

PVSCSI gives virtual machines direct access to SCSI and FC HBAs, and plays nicely with NPIV (Xensummit diagram by Fujitsu)

Functionally similar to VMware’s Physical Compatibility Mode for Raw Device Mode (RDM) volumes, PVSCSI enables certain applications that require direct SCSI communication to function in a virtual environment. Examples include Oracle RMAN, backup applications, and potentially SAN management software.

PVSCSI plays nicely with N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV), too, so you don’t need to assign a physical HBA port to each guest – they can all share a port or two, and each would have his own N_Port on the Fibre Channel fabric.

In their Xensummit presentation about PVSCSI, Fujitsu showed impressive performance numbers, demonstrating that the technology doesn’t cause much of a performance hit even though it is substantially more complicated than the alternative approaches. I do wonder how PVSCSI managed to outperform Dom0 with 128k writes, but let’s chalk that up to insignificant variations in timing…

Now if only Xen would update the (3.2-era) readme files on their download page!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Xen 3.3 Update Brings Paravirtualized SCSI
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

While swapping out disk drives (first to upgrade the internal drive in my MacBook Pro and later to give Time Machine more room), I took some quick performance snapshots with xbench and showed that, depending on I/O type, FireWire can be almost twice as fast as USB, but neither really holds a candle to SATA.

I also took the opportunity to compare the highly-integrated USB 2.0 controller in my Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini with the much more complicated FireWire/USB combo found in the Verbatim SmartDisk, as well as the performance of three popular notebook hard disk models.

This post is part of my series focused on PC/Mac Integration.

• Vista, OS X Boot Time Compared
• Quick and Easy Bluetooth Sharing Between PC and Mac
• Yes, FireWire is Faster Than USB
• How to Keep an IOGear KVM from Dimming Your Mac's Screen
• Command and Control: The Clash of Keyboards

Test Setup

I’ll be the first to admit that this wasn’t the most scientific test ever.  I just happened to have three hard drives, two external drive chassis, and one notebook computer, and whipped off a quick xbench test with each of the (many) permutations of these I happened upon.

First, the drives:

1. My MacBook Pro (late 2007) came with a 120 GB Fujitsu MH2120BH drive built in.  This MHY2 series drive is from Fujitsu’s previous generation and was their first with perpendicular recording.
2. I replaced this with a 320 GB Western Digital WD3200BEVT drive sourced from a Verbatim SmartDisk FireWire/USB portable enclosure.  This is the latest Scorpio Blue model from Western Digital and incorporates all their bells and whistles, including native command queueing (NCQ), though it’s not the fastest portable disk they make.
3. After running out of space for Time Machine, I swapped the Fujitsu out for a 160 GB Seagate ST9160821AS drive sourced from a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini USB enclosure.  This is also a previous-generation (5400.3) drive and lacks NCQ.

Now, the enclosures:

1. In this corner, we have Verbatim’s SmartDisk portable FireWire/USB enclosure, which originally housed the impressive WD drive.  It’s powered by a mighty collection of electronics, including an Oxford Semiconductor OXUF934SSA controller and some impressive capacitors.
2. In the other corner, we have Maxtor’s OneTouch 4 Mini USB enclosure, which has the most compact integrated interface I’ve ever seen – a single Initio INIC-1605L.

As you can see, the test was seriously flawed.  The drives aren’t comparable, and neither are the controllers. I only ran the test once, I changed the content of the drives between tests, and I didn’t even try every possible combination.  Will this stop me from reporting the results?  No!

USB vs. FireWire

First up, let’s compare the performance of USB 2.0 and FireWire S400.  Rated at 480 megabits per second, USB is supposed to win, but experts agree that it won’t. For example, in Tom’s Hardware tests, every FireWire drive outperforms every USB drive, and that’s a fact.  Despite the limitations of my test, my results bear this out.

Let’s set the stage by comparing the performance of the two interfaces on the Verbatim enclosure to the internal SATA connection in the MacBook Pro.  We’ll use sequential performance numbers only, since random I/O is limited by the seek time of the disk drives.

As we can see, FireWire outperformed USB in every test, and was able to match SATA when it came to sequential reads of 4K.  FireWire S400 was anywhere from 8% to 45% faster than USB 2.0 in my tests, and a difference of this magnitude should be somewhat noticeable to the user.  Note that Apple’s (or Oxford’s) implementation of the USB and FireWire hardware might account for some of this difference.

USB vs. USB

Let’s turn now to a comparison of the USB 2.0 performance of the Verbatim/Oxford enclosure and the Maxtor/Initio alternative. I’ve always suspected that some chipsets were better than others, and I was right! Maxtor is 3% to 8% slower than Verbatim using the same drives.  This should only magnify the differences between FireWire and USB illustrated above!

Drive Against Drive

Finally, let’s see how the disk drives themselves perform.  There are two core considerations: Maximum throughput and seek time.  Larger drives tend to excel at throughput, but seek time (the core component of I/O latency) is more of a black art, with both spindle speed and disk density playing a part.

To compare seek time, we use the random I/O performance of the three drives.  We will normalize against the maximum result in each test to magnify the differences and hide the fact that random 4K I/O is really really slow compared to 256K or sequential access.

We can see here that the drives are fairly well-matched at random reads, meaning that their head movement and tracking performance is about equal, as is their rated spindle speed.  But writes show more pronounced differences, with the Seagate unit quite a bit slower than the others.

One item really stands out:  The WD’s ace performance with tiny random writes.  I’d suggest this is due to the benefits of native command queueing (NCQ), which is present in this drive and not in the others.  It looks like NCQ really does provide noticeable benefits in random I/O!

Finally, let’s think in absolute terms – just how fast are these drives? I only tested the Fujitsu and Western Digital with a SATA connection, but these drives peaked at just under 50 megabytes per second and nearly 57 megabytes per second, respectively.  This performance was maintained on large sequential accesses for both read and write operations.  These are respectable numbers, to say the least:  Half-duplex FireWire S400 should top out at 49 MB/s!  So this chipset and controller must implement the asynchronous streaming feature of 1394a to bump up performance to near-SATA levels.  Awesome!

Although I did not test the Seagate over SATA, all three drives turned in similar large sequential I/O scores on the FireWire interface, which suggests that it would be right up there in streaming performance, at least the equal of the Fujitsu.

In Conclusion

Let me sum up my findings:

• FireWire S400 is faster than USB 2.0 in nearly every respect, and sometimes much faster
• FireWire S400 can even approach SATA when streaming data, but the latter is much faster when it comes to lots of I/O requests
• Different USB controllers can affect all areas of performance
• Native command queueing (NCQ) seems to speed up small random writes by a respectable 2x at least
• Modern-ish notebook drives are wicked fast – every test beats anything I ever saw on my old desktops and laptops

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Yes, FireWire is Faster Than USB
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.

Uh oh, after this backup I'll only have a few GB left on my Time Machine backup drive!

Well, that happened pretty quickly!  After upgrading the internal hard drive on my MacBook Pro to 320 GB, I moved the 120 GB disk Apple shipped with the machine to my Verbatim SmartDisk FireWire+USB enclosure to use as a Time Machine backup target.  Despite applying some tricks to reduce the amount of data backed up by Time Machine, I filled up the 120 GB drive pretty quickly indeed!  So I decided to swap the 160 GB drive from my Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini USB drive into the (faster) Verbatim FireWire enclosure to give Time Machine some (temporary) breathing room.

It turns out that you can move Time Machine backups easily, with included OS X tools, and without breaking anything.  My old backups are still visible, and I have another 40 GB to work with.  Read on for the details!

This post is part of my series focused on Apple OS X tips and tricks.

• Access NTFS Volumes On Your Mac
• Clean Up Your Mac! Essential OS X Tidiness Tools and Techniques
• How To Move OS X Time Machine Backups To A New Disk
• Hallelujah! OS X Can Reduce PDF File Size!
• Custom Drive Icons in Mac OS X
• OS X Custom Drive Icons 2: Boot Camp and NTFS

The Windup

In order to effectively use Time Machine, you really need a backup target disk larger than the one you’re backing up.  But I didn’t have that.  I was able to prune out 28 GB of data in my home directory that didn’t need to be backed up, along with 22 GB of operating system data, by tuning Time Machine.  Although my lappie has over 300 GB of storage space, Time Machine only has to back up 66 GB of it – Windows Vista has 55 GB, 50 GB doesn’t need to be backed up, and the rest is empty.

The little 111 GB (usable) backup drive that I created when I stuffed the Fujitsu MH2120BH disk that came with my MacBook Pro into the vacated Verbatim enclosure that donated its Western Digital WD3200BEVT to my laptop was enough for a while.  But this wouldn’t be enough for long:  Time Machine currently takes up 103 GB to store a month and a half worth of my system backups.

Since I already had a 160 GB Maxtor OneTouch Mini 4 USB drive sitting around half full for Windows backups, I decided to swap the disk drive units between enclosures to get an extra 40 GB for Time Machine.  It turns out the Maxtor used a Seagate ST9160821AS drive, by the way.

Why not leave the drives in place and just use the Maxtor for Time Machine?  Three reasons:

1. FireWire is substantially faster than USB 2.0 (as I’ll show in a future post)
2. My MacBook has just one USB port that would work with the Maxtor, and I like to leave the Time Machine drive plugged in when I’m home, which would leave me with a hub (which I don’t have) or only a single USB port for everything else
3. I’m a nut and love to rip things apart and tinker with them

Most people will probably want to just go out and buy a bigger disk.

Moving Your Time Machine Data

Let’s say you have an old (full) Time Machine disk and a new (empty) one and you’d like to preserve your old backups.  Here’s how to move the Time Machine data without losing anything:

1. Turn off Time Machine with the big switch in the Time Machine System Preferences panel.
2. Eject the old Time Machine disk, unplug it, and re-insert it to force it to re-mount as a regular drive.
3. Use Disk Utility to wipe the new drive completely.  Give it a single partition (I chose MBR since it’s a removable drive, but it shouldn’t matter Apple recommends using GUID partition maps to avoid Time Machine trouble!) and a new empty filesystem.  Time Machine requires the filesystem to be of the type, “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”.


OS X's Disk Utility has the ability to do a block copy of data between different-sized disks

4. Give the new drive a unique name so you can keep them straight when you’re copying.  I recommend calling it “New Time Machine Drive” or something equally unambiguous.  I called mine “Verbatim 160″ (even though it was still in the Maxtor case), while my old drive was called “Verbatim”.
5. Plug both drives into your Mac.  You should see both in the Disk Utility sidebar. See my example at right, showing both “Verbatim” and “Verbatim 160″.
6. Select the “Restore” tab in Disk Utility. This built-in OS X application can create a perfect block copy of your Time Machine drive, no third-party tools required.
7. Drag your old drive from the sidebar to the “Source” box.
8. Drag your new drive from the sidebar to the “Destination” box.
9. Click “Restore” and observe the warning – this will copy all data from your old Time Machine volume to the new drive, destroying its contents!
10. Wait a long while (mine took 4 hours) as the copy and verification progresses.


Aah, that's better - 50 GB of breathing room!

11. Once it’s done, unplug the old drive and turn Time Machine back on.  Make sure that it located the data on the new drive by clicking the Enter Time Machine item in the dock and looking at your old data.
12. Consider telling Spotlight not to index this new drive or at least the “Backups.backupdb” folder.
13. Once you’re satisfied that the new drive is working, you may want to use the old drive for something else.  If so, turn Time Machine off again, plug in only the old drive, and erase it with Disk Utility.  Don’t switch back and forth between the two Time Machine drives or you will become hopelessly confused!

So there you have it!  Move your Time Machine backup data with ease, using only OS X’s Disk Utility! This tool is amazingly good, making me wonder why anyone would need a third-party product.

Update: See Rolfje’s blog for streamlined Time Machine migration steps.

Problems

If the Restore process reports “Could not restore – operation not permitted“, you have to eject the Time Machine drive and re-mount it after you turn off Time Machine (see step 2).

If it still doesn’t work, try a reboot.

If it still still doesn’t work, try checking the “Erase destination” box in Disk Utility. This forces a block-level copy rather than just copying files.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | How To Move OS X Time Machine Backups To A New Disk
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Update: My MacBook Pro is now rocking a Toshiba 640 GB hard disk drive!

Read on for details on swapping a disk in a MacBook Pro, finding a great deal on the drive, and how to get Boot Camp and VMware Fusion to work again after you do it!  Surprisingly, this was the hardest part…

This post is part of my series focused on the MacBook Pro.

• Don’t Be Jealous Of The New MacBook Pros!
• Upgraded! 320 GB in a MacBook Pro!
• SanDisk ExpressCard Flash Media Adapter: Nifty MacBook Pro Accessory!
• How I Get 7 Hours of MacBook Pro Battery Life
• Panic! Green Light and MacBook Pro Keyboard is Half Dead!
• Low-Power USB Ports Haunt My MacBook Pro

Now for some particulars and lessons learned:

• The MacBook Pro is not an easy machine to install hardware in!  Although the RAM is readily accessible, all other components are sealed inside that sleek silver case, and it was not meant to be opened.  It is certainly doable for most people, provided they have the right tools, but closing it back up again is tricky!  There are 19 screws, both Phillips #0 and Torx T6, and the correct screwdriver is a must-have.  Apple must use some serious gorilla snot on the LED/IR cable to attach it to the drive inside, as it took much fussing to cleanly remove it.  And getting the front tabs “clicked” took some fussing and more pressure than I wanted to exert!
• I chose a Verbatim SmartDisk 320 GB FireWire/USB Portable hard drive as a donor.  It contains a very nice Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVT drive that should be compatible with most mainstream notebooks since it’s just 9.5 mm tall.  This is a modern unit with two 160 GB platters, 3.0 Gb/s “SATA II” interface with native command queueing, and is fast and quiet.
• Why buy an portable drive instead of a bare hard disk?  Because Best Buy had the Verbatim on sale at $129, while the bare drive itself (sitting just down the aisle) was marked $179, that’s why!  Plus, the case can be re-used (see below).
• My MacBook had a 120 GB Fujitsu MH2120BH drive, which is a 2-platter 1.5 Gb/s SATA unit with modern perpendicular recording technology.  It fit nicely in the leftover Verbatim external drive case!  Sadly the case is flimsy compared to the very nice metal Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini I use on the PC side.  But at least the FireWire interface is fast.
• I used SuperDuper to clone the Mac’s internal drive and then booted with the FireWire drive just to make sure it worked.  Very nice!  Then I cracked the MacBook and swapped the drives.

You might also be interested in my post on upgrading the hard disk drive in a new Mac Mini!

Some notes in particular for folks like me who Boot Camp and VMware Fusion and upgrade their drives:

• I chose Winclone (an OS X app) to back up the Boot Camp partition prior to the drive swap.  Worked like a charm, creating a 22 GB image of my 55 GB partition.
• To keep everything “native”, you must use Boot Camp Assistant to repartition the new drive after the upgrade.  But Assistant requires you to use GPT to partition the drive, and Verbatim shipped it with APM, so I had to repartition it in Disk Utility before using it.
• I wanted to have two partitions – one for OS X and another for my Home directory.  This is standard storage industry best practice and what I do on my Windows machines.  But Boot Camp Assistant can’t handle this, and OS X doesn’t make it easy either.  So it’s all one partition now.  Boo!
• The new Boot Camp partition has to be as large or larger than the old one for Winclone to restore to it.  I wasn’t using all my space and wanted to reduce it but couldn’t.  So even though I “only” have 22 GB of data in my Boot Camp partition, I had to devote 56 GB to it.  I’ll resize it later if I can.  Either way, I’ve still got over 200 GB free in my OS X partition!  Update: A utility called Camp Tune claims to allow you to resize your Boot Camp partition.  I’ll test it and report back!
• VMware Fusion works great with Boot Camp partitions normally, but falls on its face when you replace the drive like I did.  Fusion kept trying to use an invalid configuration for the new Boot Camp partition, and there is no easy way to make it work again after you’ve changed it.  But I found the answer – you have to delete /Users//Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp, reboot into Boot Camp, and restart OS X before Fusion will correctly detect and configure the partition!  This is crazy stuff, but it works now!

All in all, I’m really enjoying the Mac.  Many OS X features are great (though some are lousy) and the hardware is superb.  But it is the ability to run Windows, both natively and using Fusion, that really seals the deal for me.  This really is the ultimate laptop, with a nice desktop UNIX, serious Windows performance, and now as much RAM and disk as anyone is likely to need.  At least until the 500 GB drives arrive next month…

Greg Ferro just did exactly the same thing, and I got a kick out of the name of his post!

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, 2008. | Upgraded! 320 GB in a MacBook Pro!
This post was categorized as Apple, 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.

Lots of innovation is currently on the horizon in the enterprise drive space, notably the application of desktop and mobile technologies to the space. Right now, you can buy a 15,000 RPM 2.5″ dual-SAS enterprise mechanism from two different companies! Or maybe you want a 1 TB bulk drive with SATA? These are a far cry from the bread and butter 10- and 15k 3.5″ SCSI and FC drives we’ve long been accustomed to. Click through for the full story…

Segment Differentiators

The market for enterprise drives is quite different from the desktop world. Buyers are less price- and power-sensitive and much more concerned about raw performance.

Vendor claims of enhanced reliability have been questioned by many, but it cannot be doubted that these drives are often engineered differently. Seagate representatives told me that they focus on stronger casings to reduce flexing under stress of faster rotational speeds and increased heat. They also often use different bearing, airflow, and filter designs. And enterprise drives use lower-capacity platters. But objective studies have not revealed great reliability improvements.

Drive interfaces are quite different than other market segments. Although SATA and Serial -Attached SCSI (SAS) is becoming more common, the bulk of enterprise drive shipments use Ultra SCSI or Fibre Channel. State of the art is 3 Gb dual-SAS and 4 Gb FC, with parallel SCSI and especially 2 Gb FC becoming less common. We will soon begin seeing 6 Gb/s SAS, and multi-channel drives promise to multiply interface performance.

Spindle speed has long been the defining characteristic of enterprise drives. Back when 5400 (and even slower) ATA drives were common in desktops, enterprise arrays relied on 7200 and 10,000 RPM SCSI and Fibre Channel drives. These days, desktops have ratcheted up to 7200, and enterprise units have climbed to 15,000 RPM, with 10,000 RPM becoming the new standard. These speeds (7200, 10k, and 15k) are available across the board on all enterprise drives.

Emerging Trends

Two trends are particularly notable in the enterprise space: “Enterprise” brothers of high-performance desktop SATA drives, and 2.5″ form factor units.

All four current enterprise drive vendors offer high-capacity SATA drives in the enterprise market. Ranging in size to 1 TB, these drives are increasingly being deployed for tiered storage, disk-based backup, archiving, and other less performance-sensitive tasks. Paired with RAID-6, it is likely that the reliability of enterprise storage arrays using SATA drives will be satisfactory. Certainly their massive capacity will bring the per-GB price point down!

SATA in the enterprise has been controversial, but much of this has to do with the meager specifications of the SATA drives examined, rather than any limitation of the protocol itself. It must be pointed out that SATA and SAS share the same physical connectors and interface chips, and the introduction of command queueing (albeit a different implementation) across the board in the latest SATA drives means the interface could be appropriate for just about any use if paired to a fast-enough drive mechanism. I wonder if their opinions would change if they tested Western Digital’s 10,000 RPM Raptor instead of a 7200 RPM Hitachi or Seagate drive.

Undoubtedly, multi-channel and 6 Gb SAS will outperform SATA in the long run. And the implementation of command queueing, drive naming, and bus expansion in SAS remains superior. But SATA is plenty fast for many of today’s needs, especially when tiered storage is considered.

The other big trend is the introduction of 2.5″ enterprise drives. With ultra-fast 15,000 RPM 2.5″ enterprise drives now available from multiple vendors, this segment simply cannot be ignored. In fact, the fastest enterprise drive available today (by a slight margin) is a 2.5″ Seagate Savvio! Combine these amazing performance claims with the fact that more physical spindles can be packed into the same space and we have a winning combination for enterprise arrays! However, these ultra-dense 2.5″ arrays will also be ultra heavy, and paradoxically ultra hungry for power and cooling, since many more drives will be used, even though each drive is more efficient. This will lead to the same weird situation we now see with blade servers – where so much density is achieved that empty rack space must be preserved to keep weight, power, and cooling demands in check!

Specific Drive Offerings

There are a multitude of enterprise drives on the market, but many users have little say in what they get. Each vendor selects their own drives when it comes to enterprise storage arrays! But by examining the array of offerings, we can learn something about the market. More information is available in this Tom’s Hardware comparison table, which is updated regularly, as well as this Tom’s Hardware article.

Fujitsu

Fujitsu’s drive names can be perplexing, with dozens of different drives currently offered. Generally, though, you can figure them out with a bit of detective work. They use the second two letters in their naming scheme for drive families or generations – MAW is older than MAX, then comes MAY, MBA, and MBC. The number is the drive’s size – 3 for 3.5″ and 2 for 2.5″. The final two letters is the drive’s interface – NC or NP for parallel SCSI, RC for SAS, and FD for Fibre Channel.

Fujitsu focuses solely on the mobile and enterprise markets, and is joining most other vendors in the 2.5″ enterprise race. Let’s start with their 3.5″ units, though. Replacing the old 10,000 RPM MAW line is the MAX3, available in SCSI (NC/NP) or dual SAS (RC) and offering 36, 73, or 147 GB of capacity and 15,000 RPM. The MBA3 line is offered in 2 or 4 Gb FC (FD), SCSI (NC/NP), or dial SAS (RC) and boasts 73, 147, or 300 GB and 15,000 RPM.

The company has jumped into the 2.5″ form factor as well, which is no surprise given its line of mobile drives. The MAY2 RC was first, with dual SAS interfaces, 10,000 RPM speed, and 36 or 73 GB of capacity. This was upgraded to 73 or 147 GB with the similar MBB2 RC. Both boast 16 MB of cache. The new MBC2 RC, announced in May and available in 36 or 73 GB, is the stunner, though, with 15,000 RPM.

Hitachi

Hitachi’s naming focuses on drive speed – the 7K, 10K, and 15K names are easy enough to decode. Next is an indication of platter size and generation, which is much less specific. Larger numbers are generally newer and seem to refer to the flagship of that line. So the “300″ line tops out at 300 GB, the “147″ is older and smaller, and the “1000″ is the big up-to-1 TB SATA unit.

Hitachi’s enterprise credentials rest on traditional 3.5″ drives with Ultra SCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces. The 10K300 is the company’s entry level, with 10,000 RPM and capacities of 73, 147, and 300 GB. Although that drive boasts only SCSI and 2 Gb FC, the faster 15K147 adds 3 Gb SAS and 4 Gb FC, along with 15,000 RPM speeds.

Just introduced is Hitachi’s top-dog drive, the 15K300. Combining 15,000 RPM speed and 300 GB capacity in a 3.5″ enterprise drive is impressive, and 2 Gb FC is no longer offered.

Hitachi’s new entry-level enterprise model is the A7K1000. Based on the 7K1000 desktop SATA drives, this unit has 3 to 5 platters for 500 GB, 750 GB, or 1 TB capacity. The similarities might lead some to question this 7200 RPM SATA drive’s enterprise credentials, however.

Hitachi also just introduced a 2.5″ enterprise drive, the C10K147. With sizes of 73 and 147 GB, speeds of 10k RPM, and a SAS interface, there is little to differentiate this drive apart from its small size.

Seagate

Seagate’s entry-level line is the Barracuda ES. Now in its second generation (the ES.2), this line is an uprated Barracuda SATA drive with optional dual-port SAS for enterprise applications. Running at 7200 RPM like its desktop brother, the ES line reaches 1 TB.

Seagate’s mainstream enterprise offering is the Cheetah line. The seventh-generation 10K.7 is the 10,000 RPM traditionalist, in 73, 146, and 300 GB capacities and Ultra SCSI and 2 Gb FC interfaces. The 15K.4 offers 36, 73, and 146 GB capacities, 15,000 RPM performance, and adds 3 Gb SAS as an option.

Seagate’s performance leader is the perpendicular-recording 15K.5. The company boasts 100 MB/s sustained throughput from this modern 73, 146, or 300 GB 15,000 RPM drive. 4 Gb FC, 3 Gb SAS, and Ultra SCSI are all offered. A variant of the 15K.5 is the Cheetah NS. Available in 300 GB and 400 GB sizes and 4 Gb FC or 3 Gb SAS, Seagate claims power optimization benefits in addition to best-in-class capacity.

Seagate entered the 2.5″ enterprise drive market back in 2004 with the Savvio line. The 36 or 73 GB 10K.1 was upgraded in 2006 to 73 or 146 GB in the 10K.1 line. But the real winner is the 15,000 RPM Savvio 15K announced in January. This 36 or 73 GB drive is easily the highest-performance 2.5″ on the market, boasting impressive 104 MB/s throughput numbers.

Western Digital

Western Digital trails the pack, offering no 15,000 RPM, FC, or SCSI drives at all. They do boast the world’s only 10,000 RPM SATA drive, the Raptor, as well as a decent-sized 750 GB SATA unit in their RE2 line. I’m looking forward to their future offerings, especially if Green Power is included (as expected).

Conclusion

The arena of enterprise hard drives is perhaps the most interesting in the entire market. Combine the twin impacts of large, slow 3.5″ drives and tiny, fast 2.5″ drives and we will soon see the market split along tiered storage lines. Although simply re-driving a storage array might not make it greener, tiered storage will reduce the average cost and increase the specific performance of enterprise arrays.

Some specific things that excite me in this space:

• The amazing 15k RPM 2.5″ drives from Seagate and Fujitsu give just the right amount of capacity and performance in a tiny form factor. These are perfect for servers and storage arrays alike. I expect Hitachi to come along with a similar drive soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if laptop-king Toshiba joins in, too.
• Western Digital’s entry into the enterprise space won’t work without OEM wins, but their 10k RPM Raptor drives should prove enticing. I’d expect to start seeing these in tier-2 servers soon, but don’t look for them in enterprise storage arrays, at least not in this generation of hardware.
• The exit of Ultra SCSI is all but assured. Farewell, 68-pin connectors!
• SAS promises to finally offer the front-end connectivity demanded by today’s large, fast drives.

Tomorrow we’ll be looking at laptop and mobile drives. See you then!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Specialized Server/Enterprise Hard Drives
This post was categorized as 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.