Reader Dave Emery asked a question that I’m sure many others have wondered:

Are “enterprise” drives worth the extra cost in a RAID enclosure? The reason I ask is I’ve had 2 of 4 Seagate ‘consumer’ (7200.12) drives fail in my (Other World Qx2) enclosure.  The two drives that failed were maybe a year old, well short of any ‘MBTF’ expectation. Enterprise drives cost nearly twice that of consumer drives.

Do you have any recommendations (for or against) consumer or enterprise drive brands?  I’ve generally had bad luck with Seagate over the years, but generally good luck with WD.  I don’t have enough service history with other brands to have an opinion.  Hitachi enterprise drives are the least expensive, and OWC said they’ve had good luck with that brand.

The first drive failed, I replaced it with a (Hitachi) drive, and the RAID 5 set rebuilt OK.  The second drive failed, and when I put a drive from another machine in it, the rebuild failed.  (Not sure why, maybe because this wasn’t a “bare” drive, it had been formatted and partitioned on the machine I pulled it from.)  I’m still talking with OWC about what happened with failure #2.  (They did not sell me the drives, just the bare enclosure.  The two drives that failed were ‘rescued’ from another enclosure, and I bought two more to match.)

p.s.  I think I have everything backed up & current, but I’ll find out when I go to rebuild the partitions in the RAID enclosure  My goal is 3 copies of stuff, my problem has been getting the automated backup scripts to work correctly.

Stephen’s Stance

I don’t use enterprise drives in consumer RAID systems. My Drobo has two 1.5 TB Samsung EcoGreen F2 drives and two 1.5 TB Western Digital GreenPower drives, all consumer models purchased under $100.

I do believe that enterprise drives are more reliable, but not enough to justify the cost to me as a SOHO user. They are just so much more expensive! I can afford to replace a drive a year rather than spend much more on a drive that might fail half as often. Plus, consumer green drives use much less energy and produce much less heat and vibration (since they spin slower). I’m concerned that a desktop unit like a Drobo or OWC RAID might no be designed to handle high-RPM hot drives. Even if it can, it’s unlikely it will make any practical use of this extra performance.

On the other hand, enterprise drives have longer warranties and this offsets the replacement cost advantage if you take advantage of it. And most consumers don’t use RAID and routinely lose data due to drive failures…

Looking through my Hall of Shame (failed drives), I count 1 DOA Samsung F2, 1 flaky Seagate 7200.10, 1 dead-then-replaced-then-dead-again WD Caviar SE, and 1 dead Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9. That covers just about every major brand but Toshiba (I have one working drive) and Hitachi (I don’t own any). So I can’t say which is best, really. I generally buy WD or Seagate but tried the Samsungs and am not happy with a failure one day after powering on. I do like the WD green drives, though, and recently bought two. The Seagate 5900 drives are nice, too, and I’ve got four in my Iomega ix4.

Just be glad you have RAID and didn’t lose data. I was thrilled that the Drobo protected my data when the Samsung drive died! Good on you for the backups, too. I generally keep two or three sets of backups on different drives, including a copy in the cloud. But then I’m crazy for data protection!

David later clarified his drive failure:

I went with the OWC 4 bay enclosure over a Drobo for a couple of reasons:

1. Bias against proprietary solutions
2. The OWC box is a bit cheaper and supposedly has better FW800 performance (I sure wish Apple would adopt eSATA!)
3. I’ve had great customer service from OWC on their products

This morning’s failure was a UPS, the one that I use for ‘infrastructure’ (cable modem, router, a couple of USB hubs, etc.)  It made a nasty non-localized noise and I had to stick my head under a bunch of desks to find which unit was complaining.

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© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Should Home Users Buy Enterprise Hard Disk Drives?
This post was categorized as Apple, Ask a Pack Rat, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The Iomega ix4-200d is a sleek 4-drive SOHO RAID system that does just about everything, from NAS to Time Machine to iSCSI for a list price right around $700

Iomega is well into its second coming as EMC’s entry-level storage division. First, they applied EMC’s compact and full-featured LifeLine home storage software to existing gear, giving birth to the Home Media Network Hard Drive, StorCenter ix2, and StorCenter Pro ix4-100. Then they wooed the small-business community with the rack-mount StorCenter ix4-200r, adding iSCSI target support and VMware compatibility.

Today, they are back with the new ix4-200d, probably Iomega’s best product yet. It includes every feature of the rack-mount ix4-200r, including NAS and iSCSI target mode plus great new stuff like one-touch synchronization. All of this is packaged in a Drobo-like desktop system with a starting list price of just $700, or less than half the cost of a comparable ix4-200r!

Desktop Storage

External desktop storage products, exemplified by Western Digital’s wildly successful My Book series, have been a huge retail hit. Priced just over $100, these drives pack a terabyte or more and offer plug and play simplicity. I recently visited a small business with a WD or Seagate USB enclosure on every single desk. I’ve purchased five USB- or FireWire-connected hard drives myself over the last two years!

But these single-drive desktop wonders are a disaster waiting to happen:

• They fail frequently (like my Maxtor 3200), instantly wiping out the data they contained
• They are targets for thieves, so data loss prevention (DLP) experts warn against their use
• They aren’t shareable natively, so most people resort to sneakernet swapping rather than fight with Windows to present them as a network share
• When they’re full, they’re full, forcing the purchase of a whole new drive

Many vendors sell grown-up versions that address some or all of these concerns with multiple drives, network connections, and encryption, but these have been slow to catch on. Since they contain redundant drives and extra hardware and software, they are much more expensive than their little cousins. Iomega has done battle in this arena with their original StorCenter ix2 and the ix4-100, but these have yet to catch on. Even Drobo, with their fanatical user-friendly focus, has failed to convince many buyers.

Then there is the world of business storage. Way down at the bottom of the enterprise storage pyramid lies the realm of small 4- and 8-drive storage arrays. These SMB storage arrays offer a lot of capacity and reliability for the money but very little in the way of features. Iomega’s StorCenter Pro ix4-200r, in contrast, wowed the techies with a full iSCSI target stack that was certified for VMware ESX. But the price, over $1500, definitely limited sales to the home hobbyist.

“Just Right” Storage

Although the name is similar to the StorCenter Pro ix4-200r launched this Spring, Iomega went back to the drawing board for the ix4-200d. They built an entirely new device that could offer the impressive features of their StorCenter Pro line at a price closer to consumer storage offerings. The result boasts everything the Pro has and more at less than half the price:

• You want connectivity? The ix4 sports dual gigabit Ethernet ports that can be teamed up for performance or split off for redundancy.
• You want NAS? The ix4 supports NFS, SMB, and even Apple’s AFP, plus it’s Active Directory compatible.
• How about iSCSI? It’s a full-featured iSCSI target, certified for Microsoft Server 2003 and 2008.
• Want to host virtual machines? The ix4 is certified with VMware ESX 4 vSphere using both NFS and iSCSI, on the Xen HCL, and that Microsoft logo means it will work with Hyper-V as well.
• Need backup? The ix4 comes with EMC’s Retrospect and supports OS X Time Machine over AFP just like an Apple Time Capsule.
• Looking for weird features? How about support for up to 5 Axis network cameras, BlueTooth Picture Transfer Protocol, and UPnP/DLNA media service!
• Iomega also added a new feature, QuickTransfer, to synchronize files between devices.

This is one seriously feature-rich storage system. In fact, this glut of features is the ix4′s Achilles heel: How do you effectively communicate the value of a device that does so much? Most of the buying public has never heard of most of these features, so the price remains hard for some to justify.

Every ix4 configuration comes loaded with four hard disk drives

Another hurdle for the ix4 is Iomega’s decision to fill it with hard drives. One cannot buy an empty ix4-200d, and both the 2 TB and 4 TB configurations come loaded with four hard disk drives. This raises the price of entry and scares off the very techies who might be interested in the device. The majority of Drobos are purchased with no drives at all, and storage geeks like me love the idea that disks can be added as-needed in the future. Although Iomega is open to users swapping out the drives in their own StorCenter device, this is not its intended use case. Iomega’s decision to sell the ix4-200d as a loaded appliance seems counter to the price sensitivity and flexibility needs of buyers.

QuickTransfer: Data Synchronization for Everything

One nifty new feature included with the ix4-200d is QuickTransfer, a one-touch data synchronization capability. Leveraging rsync technology, but hiding this complexity with a more-friendly wizard-based GUI, QuickTransfer allows users to set up synchronization jobs between the ix4 and a variety of targets:

• USB drives can be plugged into one of the three USB 2.0 ports and synchronized with a subset of the content of the ix4. For example, a portable USB drive could be “recharged” with the latest set of data before one heads out of the office.
• Two Iomega ix4′s, or other NAS systems for that matter, can be synchronized over the Ethernet/IP LAN. This would provide a robust and bandwidth-friendly remote office backup or data replication solution.
• A PC or Mac can also be synchronized over a network share, providing a simple alternative to the bundled backup software.

QuickTransfer is exclusive to the ix4-200d for now, but Iomega assured me that it would be included in future StorCenter products and added to the StorCenter Pro ix4-200r in the near future. It is unknown if or when other existing StorCenter devices will get QuickTransfer, however.

Iomega’s Next Move

What will Iomega do next? They must be ready to announce their vSphere 4 and Microsoft Windows Server certification soon, since both company’s web sites already list the device in their compatibility lists. Iomega ought to try to take advantage of the interest among VMware users with a big VMworld splash. They will be there, but it is awfully hard to get noticed at such a large event. I am looking forward to the event to get a hands-on test.

The ix4 should begin showing up for sale at online stores very quickly. Amazon listed the rackmount product within days of its release, and we expect the same this time. But will Iomega offer this cheaper device in retail stores? It would be great to have it available at Staples and Best Buy, but shelf space for a storage system this expensive would be hard to get. Instead, expect it at specialty outlets like Fry’s and perhaps Micro Center.

How much does the StorCenter ix4-200d cost?

• The 2 TB model (SKU# 34546 with four 500 GB drives) lists at $699.99
• The 4 TB model (SKU# 34549 with four 1 TB drives) lists at $899.99
• The 8 TB model (SKU# 34563 with four 2 TB drives) lists at $1,899.99

It also seems likely that the 2-bay product is up for a refresh in the near future. The ix2 can’t be said to be very attractive, so hopefully the company will do something about this with the next-generation product. It is unclear whether the inexpensive 2-bay device will get iSCSI support, but I suspect it will. Beyond this, might Iomega move further upmarket with an 8-drive unit? We shall see!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Iomega’s ix4-200d: A Killer Desktop Storage Array
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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.

Zip drives like this 1996 parallel-port example made Iomega famous, but EMC is giving the company a second act

Pity poor old Iomega. The company responsible for hot products like the Zip drive and coulda-beens like the Clik drive was stumbling in the early part of this decade, unable to distinguish itself from all of the other providers of commodity external storage devices for consumers. Although the company had built the Zip into a viable floppy drive successor, USB “thumb drives” took that market by storm, replacing removable disks with flash memory.

The company was working to break into the small business market in the middle of this decade, offering Rev disk-based backup, small desktop and rack-mount NAS servers, and internet storage in addition to well-regarded software add-ins. But by that time, Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital had come to dominate the external USB drive market, and Lexar, PNY, and the like had taken over the removable world.

Then EMC stepped in with their March, 2008, $178 million buyout offer. Iomega rebuffed the offer at first, since it was in the process of being merged with China’s Excelstor. But after some apparently tough back and forth between the companies, Iomega finally accepted a $213 million offer in early April, completing the acquisition in June. Although it made sense for EMC to move down-market, as Cisco did with their similar Linksys acquisition, many wondered how this would work out, especially when one considers the contentious buyout process.

We needn’t have worried – ever since the EMC buyout, Iomega has rocketed forward, introducing intriguing new products, finding synergies within EMC, and gaining mindshare. Although they still peddle commodity storage, Iomega’s new line of EMC-powered NAS systems is getting the real attention (VMware geeks especially should take a hard look at the StorCenter ix2!) But the company ought to make a few marketing changes if it is to really succeed.

EMC Throws a Lifeline

Without a doubt, it was EMC’s LifeLine software that injected the most adrenalin into Iomega. Although it predated the acquisition, LifeLine is a perfect fit for Iomega: It’s a Linux-based NAS operating system with RAID, Retrospect backup, integrated media services (compatible with iTunes, Xbox, Wii, and UPnP), print services, and unusual features like Picture Transfer Protocol, Bluetooth, and Axis surveillance storage.

It’s a great combination of home features, and Iomega quickly launched a product including this software: the StorCenter ix2. Although Iomega had used the StorCenter brand name for years on a variety of NAS devices, the ix2 was the first to use EMC’s LifeLine software. The combination of Iomega, LifeLine, and Retrospect makes for a compelling home product, and many a “terabyte home” is switching to the platform. But the product’s inherited industrial design is plain (one blogger suggested it had a Wife Acceptance Factor issue), and the naming is confusing. A casual shopper would have no way of differentiating the various StorCenter products – indeed, it is difficult for me to figure out the various product lines from Iomega’s sales-oriented web site!

Predictably, Iomega is expanding their LifeLine-powered lineup both down- and up-market. The company recently introduced a smaller single-drive LifeLine-powered home NAS device, and we are hearing rumors of larger office-oriented versions. But the little guy also uses hand-me-down clothes, and is tagged with a mouthful of a name that is at once inconsistent and forgettable: Home Media Network Hard Drive. The average consumer would have no way of knowing what lurks under the skin of this home NAS, since it looks exactly like the basic USB-connected Prestige line! Why can’t the company that gave us the pretty eGo drive design something a little more attractive – check out what the competition is offering!

Moving On Up

Although their home-oriented offerings are compelling, VMware geeks should keep their eye on the upscale uses of the LifeLine platform! It hasn’t been officially announced, but EMC folks are saying that iSCSI will be added to LifeLine in short order. And the platform is already VMware certified!

Interested in building your own VMware lab? Pick up an ix2 and use NFS until the iSCSI software is added. It’s on the HCL, and makes an excellent platform for playing around with ESX! Plus, you can stream iTunes and store webcam video of your door at the same time!

Although the rest of the StorCenter line isn’t currently LifeLine powered, I’m sure it’ll be upgraded in short order. It might not be powerful enough for real enterprise computing, but a small office or lab would be well served by EMC’s kid-brother systems.

Although Iomega’s latest offerings are compelling, the company really needs to do something about its marketing. Ditch the bland and confusing names and cases and come up with something really compelling. Let buyers know which systems are LifeLine-powered and transform the web site from an online store into a site that draws attention to the unique features of these systems. Although EMC’s products might sell themselves, the consumer / prosumer / small business market is a tough one, as Iomega must already know.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | EMC Makes Iomega Relevant Again
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.

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.

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.

I’ve bought two 3200′s and a Western Digital MyBook (500 GB each) over the last 9 months, adding 1.5 TB to my home environment without opening a computer case or spending a fortune. The MyBook (which has eSATA) is connected to the Series 3 TiVo, one of the 3200′s is connected to my NSLU2 for home server duty, and the other is doing backup duty.

And, yeah, the most recent 3200 had that Chinese virus problem, but Avira’s AntiVir blocked it and a quick reformat wiped it clean… It’s kind of amusing to be personally affected by a tech meme, isn’t it?

With the advent of “quick enough” USB 2.0 and blazing fast eSATA, I wouldn’t be surprised if these external drives change the face of the PC. I already know of a few folks who have switched to the Mac Mini and are hanging these drives outside instead of buying a big empty case to house internal storage. And the laptop market is booming, threatening to replace the traditional desktop PC. Perhaps the idea of a Lego brick PC wasn’t a bad one after all – it was just waiting for USB to ramp up the speed…

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, 2007. | Terabytes on the Cheap
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.

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.