Intel's "Olympus 2" is a Thunderbolt prototype board

People like me who bought a 2011 MacBook Pro are eager to explore the new Thunderbolt interface. Although no peripherals are available yet, there was much excitement about the interface at the recent NAB Show in Las Vegas, and many pre-production products were on display. It appears that LaCie will be first to market with a Thunderbolt storage device, but Promise will follow a few months later. And there were many intriguing interfaces on display as well, including Fibre Channel and video links, along with rumors about Apple’s plans for the Thunderbolt iMac.

Technology Demos Abound

Perhaps the most telling aspect of the Thunderbolt presence at the NAB Show was the overall level of excitement about the interface. Vendors and consumers alike were thrilled by the possibilities of this new technology, and preproduction Thunderbolt hardware brought a steady stream of visitors to booths as diverse as Adobe, AJA, Blackmagic and Matrox, as well as Promise, LaCie, Sonnet, and G-Technology.

Intel set the stage for a Thunderbolt-filled NAB Show

One high-profile Thunderbolt exhibit was Intel’s own pavilion. Located in a different exhibit hall from the rest of the infrastructure technology, Intel placed Thunderbolt on display alongside their new 10 Gb Ethernet adapters. The Ethernet representative joked with me that the only time anyone wanted to talk to him was while they were waiting for the Thunderbolt station to free up. This was my experience too, as there was a steady stream of visitors every time I stopped by. Intel was demonstrating the Promised Pegasus array with Final Cut and a DisplayPort monitor humming along at 800 MB per second.

Adobe integrated a Promise Pegasus array and a Blackmagic A/V adapter using Thunderbolt

Adobe was another company demonstrating the possibilities of Thunderbolt rather than a specific product. At their stand was a Promise array connected to a Blackmagic Thunderbolt video converter, all tied together with Adobe software and running on a MacBook Pro.

G-Technology: Diving Into Thunderbolt

G-Technology, soon part of Western Digital, showed the possibilities for future Thunderbolt products

They did not have production hardware ready for the show, but G-Technology was pleased to be able to demonstrate their commitment to Thunderbolt using Intel’s reference board and a passive PCI backplane. Although tightlipped, the G-Tech engineer did note that he was impressed with the ease with which they were able to roll out a functioning Thunderbolt prototype. This bodes well for future product development efforts.

This little AV-oriented company recently got a big boost in profile: Having recently been purchased by HGST, they now find themselves owned by Western Digital, the world’s largest hard disk drive manufacturer. It is likely that Western Digital will come out with a variety of RAID devices built on the G-Technology base, including a line of Thunderbolt storage products to compete with LaCie and Promise.

LaCie, Promise, AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox

I’ve devoted separate articles to the main products on display at NAB Show, so I suggest taking a look at these individually:

• LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Preview
• Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt Preview
• Promise SANLink Thunderbolt Preview

Each Little Big Disk features two Thunderbolt ports, and LaCie demonstrated daisy-chaining four of the devices at NAB

There were two main categories of products on display at the NAB Show: Storage arrays and I/O interfaces. LaCie looks to be the first out of the gate with a Thunderbolt storage array. Their Little Big Disk is even bus powered, and portable enough to be of interest to MacBook Pro owners. It is likely that LaCie will follow on with a solid-state drive (SSD) boasting better performance, and I would bet that a 4- or 5-disk RAID array will follow before the end of the year.

The Promise Pegasus R4 is a desktop RAID system featuring Thunderbolt connectivity

Promise had both a storage array and an I/O adapter on display at the show. The Promise Pegasus is a 4- or 6-drive RAID storage system boasting up to 800 MB per second in ideal conditions. The SANLink, a Fibre Channel interface for Thunderbolt, is a bit puzzling until one considers its desktop use cases. The Pegasus shows what a desktop Thunderbolt peripheral looks like, and together with the SANLink presage Apple releasing Thunderbolt-equipped desktop computers like the forthcoming iMac.

The I/O interface boards at NAB were skewed toward multimedia, as was the show itself. Blackmagic, AJA, and Matrox all had digital video interfaces for Thunderbolt on display, but it is difficult for an infrastructure guy like me to adequately judge the merits of these products. One thing is certain: AV pros are excited to get their hands on these devices!

Stephen’s Stance

That NAB Show is a hotspot of Thunderbolt interest should come as no surprise: The broadcast and media professionals present represent a nexus of Apple customers and storage power users. Because they have been dragging their feet on eSATA and USB 3, Apple ran the risk of alienating this core customer group. But Thunderbolt promises to deliver a new level of performance and a whole world of peripherals. The excitement was palpable!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | The First Thunderbolt Peripherals On Display At NAB Show
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Features, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

SANLink is a Fibre Channel interface for the MacBook Pro, and that's no joke!

Thunderbolt was everywhere at the NAB Show, including many new products previewed or unveiled just last week. Beyond the two previously-known storage devices, the Promise Pegasus and LaCie Little Big Disk, a number of interfaces were also on display. Since this was the NAB Show, much of the focus was on the audio and video interfaces from Blackmagic and AJA, but Promise had a surprise in store: Their SANLink is a Fibre Channel interface for Thunderbolt.

SANLink: Connecting MacBook Pros to the SAN?

The SANLink is a compact portable device that allows a Thunderbolt-equipped computer (currently the 2011 MacBook Pro line) to Fibre Channel SAN. Featuring two 4 Gbps Fibre Channel ports, the SANLink demonstrates the kind of high performance that we can expect from future Thunderbolt peripherals.

I have to admit, the SANLink left me scratching my head at first. Why would a MacBook Pro user want to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN? Is this even a good idea? Considering that the slim Thunderbolt connector is not firmly fixed in place, a sudden disconnect is likely and would prove highly disruptive to the SAN, not just the laptop. And what laptop user wants to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN anyway?

I talked to the product manager from Promise, who suggested a use case for this device: Mobile video production systems sometimes use Fibre Channel for high-performance storage connectivity, and a MacBook Pro user could use theSANLink to access these storage devices as well. I will concede that a few people at the NAB Show were probably intrigued by this possibility, but I’m betting that the SANLink will be much more useful in an entirely different market segment.

The SANLink promises massive I/O performance, even on a laptop!

Considering that Apple is set to update the iMac line this month, it seems likely that the SANLink will allow these gorgeous desktop computers finally to meet their destiny as audiovisual workstations. Running Final Cut Pro X on a new Sandy Bridge iMac with high-performance Fibre Channel storage will be a revelation, and will likely cause a raft of Mac Pro users to “switch”. Promise is certainly barred from talking about future Apple products, even if they have inside information, but this is a much more logical use case than the SAN-on-the-go.

SANLink suggests that we may soon see a variety of high-performance interfaces developed for the Thunderbolt ports soon to be found across Apple’s product line. I would not be at all surprised to see 10 Gb Ethernet adapters, P2 and ExpressCard readers, docking stations, and perhaps even a PCI Express expansion bay.

Stephen’s Stance

Although the SANLink appears to be something of an oddball, it indicates the shape of things to come. Thunderbolt will transform the use cases for portable and all-in-one computers, likely spelling the end of the empty boxes for desktop use. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if Apple soon canceled the Mac Pro line entirely in favor of a beefed up Mac Mini and iMac stable. And the dozen or so MacBook Pro users wanting to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN will finally have the opportunity to do so sometime later this year.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Promise SANLink Thunderbolt Preview
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The Promise Pegasus R4 is a desktop RAID system featuring Thunderbolt connectivity

When Apple announced the new MacBook Pro at the end of February, there were just two Thunderbolt peripherals featured: The LaCie Little Big Disk and the Promise Pegasus. Both of these storage devices were on display at the NAB Show in Las Vegas last week, and each appeals to a different market segment. The 2-drive Little Big Disk is a portable matched up with the MacBook Pro, while the Promise Pegasus is a 4- or 6-drive desktop RAID system. Promise expects to deliver the Pegasus to the market sometime after the summer.

Introducing Pegasus

Promise Technology is a storage company that should be familiar to many Mac users, since Apple sells their rackmount RAID units as a replacement for their canceled Xserve RAID. Most of Promise’s storage products are larger devices intended for business use, but the company does make a line of smaller desktop RAID systems called the SmartStor.

The new Pegasus storage systems from Promise are Thunderbolt versions of the company’s latest 4- and 6-drive SmartStor lineup. Unlike LaCie, Promise’s SmartStor drives are available in a “bring your own drive” model, allowing consumers to use whatever hard disk drive they desire. This reduces the initial cost of purchase but also raises compatibility and support headaches, since customers may use unsupported or mismatched hard disk drives.

Although some SmartStor devices offer NAS connectivity, the Pegasus is a direct attached storage (DAS) device with no Ethernet connectivity possible. In fact, the Pegasus appears very simple in the flesh, with nothing but two Thunderbolt ports and a power outlet around the back. Promise will sell two models of the Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID storage system: the 4-bay Pegasus R4, and the 6-bay Pegasus R6.

The Thunderbolt cables appear tiny, even on a compact desktop device like the Pegasus R4. Those are quiet variable-speed fans.

Inside, the Pegasus features seven different RAID modes, including high-performance striping (RAID 0), drive mirroring (RAID1), single or dual drive parity raid (RAID 5 and 6, respectively), and stacked raid 10, 50, and 60.

Promise suggests 800 MB per second throughput, though only a stripe set of six drives is likely to deliver this kind of speed. RAID-protected data will likely come in below 200 MB per second, even for the 6-drive unit. This is still much faster than any USB or FireWire drive, and likely beats LaCie’s 2-drive Little Big Disk as well. But it is unfortunate that such lofty performance numbers are promised, if you pardon the pun.

Stephen’s Stance

The Promise Pegasus was featured in many displays at NAB, and appears nearly ready for production. We look forward to experimenting with the final product and putting it through its paces, since it will likely be the fastest Thunderbolt product on the market for a while. Although the Pegasus is luggable, it is not exactly a portable device like the Little Big Disk. This is not a criticism: It is good that two distinct devices will come to market rather than a raft of similar products. Like LaCie, Promise is setting the standard for the products that will follow.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt Preview
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.

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

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

Dividing the Storage Market

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

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

Little Systems With Big Capabilities

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

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

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

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

Stephen’s Stance

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

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

Download the guide and see for yourself!

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

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

Thunderbolt (nee Light Peak) is here!

Apple unveiled their new line of MacBook Pro laptops today, complete with “Thunderbolt”, the trade name for a production packaging of Light Peak and Mini DisplayPort. After much speculation (including quite a bit by yours truly), we finally have some concrete information about Light Peak, and perhaps a peek (if you forgive the pun) into the next generation of I/O technologies!

Note: The following comes from my own research on the day of the launch. Intel’s Thunderbolt Technology Brief is especially helpful, and many of these images come from there. Intel has promised to brief me on the technology shortly, and I will write a more complete and correct article at that time!

PCI Express At Heart

We have long known that Light Peak is more a transport than a protocol. Rather than competing with existing standards like USB and FireWire, Light Peak is an interconnect that can carry a variety of protocols. But we never knew exactly how this mechanism would work until now.

Apple’s and Intel’s Thunderbolt pages reveal that it uses PCI Express as its base transport mechanism. This isn’t the first time the serial PCI Express bus has been exposed to the “outside world” – the weakly-supported ExpressCard standard already includes a single PCI Express (v1) lane for plug-in cards.

But Thunderbolt is much, much faster than ExpressCard. With a confirmed 10 Gb/s of throughput, Thunderbolt is a significant upgrade, but what exactly is the technology behind it? Intel could have used four PCI Express v1 lanes, but this would fall short of 10 Gb/s in real-world throughput thanks to 8b/10b encoding losses and other overhead, and would also pose additional cabling challenges. It could also have specified a single PCI Express v3.0 lane, which would spec nicely to 10 Gb/s, but this standard is quite new, having been finalized in November, 2010.

Instead, it appears that Thunderbolt will use two PCI Express v2.0 lanes, each operating at 5 GHz and using 8b/10b encoding. This means that real-world Light Peak throughput will be limited to about 2x 4 Gb/s, 20% less than the rated number. But this scheme would be much simpler to implement, being compatible with Intel’s current Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets as well as nearly every existing PCI Express-capable chip and peripheral.

Thunderbolt = Light Peak Over Mini DisplayPort

Intel’s Thunderbolt port is not just a renaming of Light Peak, though. It is a packaging of Light Peak technology with Apple’s Mini DisplayPort (mDP) video connector standard. Note that the Thunderbolt name and logo are Intel’s trademarks, not Apple’s, and will likely show up on PC hardware as well.

Mini DisplayPort is a compact 20-pin connector for the DisplayPort digital video interface standard. Introduced in 2006, DisplayPort is intended to replace DVI and VGA (and supplant HDMI) for use in computer displays. DisplayPort gained significant traction in late 2010 as major PC component and display manufacturers like AMD, Intel, Dell, Lenovo, LG, and Samsung announced they would use it both internally and externally for future displays.

Apple switched to DisplayPort in late 2008, and has exclusively used Mini DisplayPort since 2009. They released the compact mDP specification for free use by other manufacturers, and support for the standard is growing.

Maintaining Compatibility With Mini DisplayPort

Although it is not 100% clear exactly how Intel added Light Peak PCI Express lanes to the Mini DisplayPort connector, we do have a general idea.

All 20 pins in the mDP connector are already used for the DisplayPort video and associated data signals, leaving none for PCI Express. Although the mechanical tolerances of a mDP connector are better-suited for an optical interconnect, and Thunderbolt does hold out the promise of optical connections, the initial Thunderbolt implementation uses electrical signals to carry PCI Express data.

Intel’s illustration appears to show PCI Express and DisplayPort data multiplexed over a single connection. But this would be tricky to implement while still maintaining backwards-compatibility with existing Mini DisplayPort devices, as touted.

Intel accomplished this bit of magic by only multiplexing when compatible endpoints are detected:

“if a DisplayPort device is detected, a Thunderbolt controller will drive compatibility mode DisplayPort signals to that device”

They re-use the existing pins for a multiplexed connection of PCI Express and DisplayPort data for Thunderbolt-capable endpoints but fall back only to Mini DisplayPort signaling when a mDP device is detected. This likely means that the PCI Express lanes will be entirely disabled when connected to an existing Apple Cinema Display or other Mini DisplayPort device.

One Big Surprise: Two Channels!

There is one more surprise in store from Intel and Apple:

“A Thunderbolt connector is capable of providing two full-duplex channels. Each channel provides bi-directional 10 Gbps of bandwidth.”

Whoa there! So this little Mini DisplayPort connector includes 20 Gb/s of throughput in each direction, plus up to two DisplayPort v1.1a connections with 8.64 Gb/s each. This yields a grand total of 57 Gb/s over that slim wire. That’s one impressive interconnect!

Intel's Thunderbolt Controller diagram is revealing!

The Intel Thunderbolt controller is fed four PCI Express v2.0 lanes and a DisplayPort signal from the “Cougar Point” platform controller hub (PCH). A DisplayPort signal can also be routed in from a discrete graphics card. Each Thunderbolt controller can apparently drive two Thunderbolt connectors, though it is likely that these will share the same four PCI Express lanes using a crossbar switch built into the controller.

A Wide World of Peripherals

LaCie stands make a big splash with Thunderbolt-compatible storage devices

As mentioned, just about any existing PCI Express chipset can reside on this Thunderbolt bus, and the topology is extremely flexible. A Thunderbolt peripheral could be an endpoint, using the PCI Express lanes to drive FireWire, USB, Fibre Channel, or just about any other interconnect. It could also be a hub, allowing further Thunderbolt connections, or a pass-through in a daisy-chain topology.

It is somewhat surprising that Apple did not release a new Thunderbolt-capable Cinema Display today. In fact, only storage devices from Promise and LaCie are noted in Apple’s page. They do promise a user can “daisy-chain up to six new peripherals, such as the Promise Pegasus RAID or LaCie Little Big Disk, or five peripherals and an Apple LED Cinema Display.” But this indicates that the Cinema Display would be at the end of the chain operating in Mini DisplayPort compatibility mode.

It is likely that Intel is supplying the Thunderbolt chips used in peripherals as well. If Intel is the single source for these chips, it could drive up cost and reduce availability of compatible peripherals. But it would also likely improve interoperability and compatibility in general.

Stephen’s Stance

Although Thunderbolt is backward-compatible, only the forward-looking use cases are really compelling. A future Cinema Display with USB, FireWire, and Ethernet ports would be a start. It would be easy to imagine a slimmer MacBook with just a few internal ports that relies on its display to provide DVD, ExpressCard, and other expansion devices. I’d love to see a Thunderbolt- and Sandy Bridge-equipped MacBook Air!

It is disappointing that Apple and Intel decided to use the Mini DisplayPort connector rather than USB, but the USB Implementer’s Forum was apparently opposed to that idea. Since Apple controls mDP and modern Macs increasingly include just that connector and USB, it was an easy alternative choice. Although today’s MacBook Pros include just a single Thunderbolt port, one suspects that future machines might reduce the number of USB connectors or eliminate FireWire in favor of a second Thunderbolt.

This is an exciting development in I/O and storage. Watch this space for future updates!

Note: Images in this post come from Apple and Intel.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Thunderbolt = Light Peak = Mini DisplayPort + PCI Express
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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

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

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

Common Carriers

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

Bring-Your-Own-Drive

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

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

Large Array = Carriers?

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

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

Stephen’s Stance

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

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

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | SMB Arrays: Drive Carriers Or Not?
This post was categorized as Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Iomega's new ix12-300d brings EMC's SOHO company into the data center

EMC’s Iomega unit today released the 12-drive rack-mount storage product we have all been waiting for. It was never a question of whether Iomega could produce such a beast: The EMC LifeLine software and Iomega hardware were definitely up for it. The question was always if EMC would direct Iomega to fill the gaping hole in their storage lineup between the 4-drive ix4-200r and the entry-business AX4 arrays. The new ix12-300r packs 12 drive bays, scaling from 4 TB all the way to 24 TB, and backs it with quad gigabit iSCSI, redundant power, and everything else the small data center needs.

Stepping Up

The ix12 is a big step up. Although they sold multi-drive RAID systems even before the EMC acquisition, this new device is unlike anything we’ve seen before from Iomega. This slim (2U) chassis is all drives up front, with 12 hot-swap slots full of 3.5″ SATA storage. Under the hood is a dual-core 3 GHz Intel Core2duo E8400 “Wolfdale” CPU, a major horsepower upgrade from the single-core Celeron in the ix4-200r. It also has double the memory (2 GB) compared to that 4-drive product.

It all makes sense now: EMC's storage spectrum, from home to enterprise

If you’re concerned about performance after trying out a desktop ix4-200d, you needn’t worry. The desktop unit has a lowly 1.2 GHz Marvell 6281 and just 512 MB of RAM. While this might be enough for a desktop user, it could never handle the pounding of servers in a shared networked configuration. The ix4-200r, with its 3.2 GHz Intel Celeron D 352 “Cedar Mill“, offered much better performance even though its name was just one letter different. And the ix12′s CPU is three times faster still, though it remains a single-controller system.

More significant changes lurk around the back of the ix12. Dual redundant power supplies, a frequent request in this class, and variable-speed fans, surround four Ethernet ports. Each sports gigabit speed and the set supports Microsoft Windows MPIO, can be aggregated with 802.3ad, or used in VLAN configurations with up to 4 VLAN tags per port. The ix12 speaks just about every language, from NFS and SMB to AFP and iSCSI, and now adds WebDAV and DFS support, too.

A few limitations separate this new ix12 device from its enterprise-grade brothers, however. As noted, a single controller manages all access, so redundancy and parallel processing are limited. Although the ix12 sports 12 drive bays, it only has four SATA channels internally; each bay shares a channel with two others using SATA expanders. Don’t expect to push wire speed over all four Ethernet ports at once, even with all this newfound CPU power.

A Wall of Drives

Base ix12s ship with 4 drives installed, but we were disappointed to learn that additional drives must be purchased in 4-disk packs from Iomega. Although this decision is understandable, the ix series remains a holdout amid growing legions of bring-your-own-drive competitors. At least the company supports mixing and matching drive sizes, including 1 TB and 2 TB at present. We suspect that the unit uses the same reliable 5900 rpm Seagate Barracuda LP drives as the ix4-200d.

Iomega added a few tricks to the LifeLine software to take advantage of a possible 12 drives installed. First up is the addition of dual-parity RAID-6 for improved data protection. The company (and this reviewer) suggest this over RAID-5 once more than 5 drives are combined in one set. Don’t worry, though, because RAID configuration can be changed online and any unused drive can be used regardless of its location in the array. The ix12 also adds drive spindown, saving power when the RAID set isn’t in use.

Like the ix4, any portion of a RAID set can be carved out into an iSCSI LUN for Ethernet-connected hosts. Iomega claims that LUN provisioning times have improved with the added horsepower and software tweaks, and we hope this is true. A maximum of 256 LUNs can be configured in this way, though even 12 drives are unlikely to drive much performance to that many storage users.

Where to Use It?

Although not listed yet, Iomega promises that the ix12 will have a place on the Exchange ESRP, Windows Server and Hyper-V logo list, and VMware Compatibility Guide this month. It’s already the first Iomega product to be “EMC E-Lab Tested”, meaning it is on the EMC Support Matrix; this fact alone speaks volumes of EMC’s expectations for the unit. My own experience shows that Iomega iSCSI is fine for smaller VMware and Hyper-V deployments.

Clearly, the ix12 is a new kind of Iomega array. If the 200d and 200r were a sign that the company wanted to move out of the house, the ix12 is a demonstration that they have graduated. Starting at US $5,000, the ix12 is all business and its resume ought to impress in interviews. It can’t quite boast the scalability and redundancy of established arrays (including its brothers from EMC), but it ought to be an easy acquisition for companies looking for a little more storage here or there.

One is left with questions, though: How big will EMC let Iomega get? If 12 drives are acceptable, what about 24? Is SAS off limits? What about 10 Gigabit Ethernet and even Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) eventually? Can we dream of dual controllers? At some point, the Iomega lineup could even threaten the CLARiiON!

Then there is the competitive landscape. Iomega leapfrogged the 8-drive Data Robotics lineup and landed squarely in competition with the likes of the revitalized Overland Storage but at a much lower price. We also have Netgear, HP, Dell, and Promise, and there is an attractive D-Link box packing 15 drives and 10 GbE. Iomega also has to worry about its own big brother, the Dell/EMC AX4, starting around $12k. It’s a competitive market, and Iomega is in for a fight as even more vendors wake up to the possibilities in this market.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Iomega Graduates and Goes to Work with the ix12-300r
This post was categorized as Apple, 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.

Apple pulled the plug in typical fashion on February 19, closing the online Apple store down and reopening without an announcement. Users were greeted by cheaper and expanded iPod Shuffles and a new rev of the Xsan SAN filesystem product. It was quickly noted that the latter now supported third-party Fibre Channel storage arrays, but little mention was made of Apple’s own FC array product, the Xserve RAID.

It turns out that there was a reason for the oversight. Visitors to the former home of the product on Apple’s web site were greeted instead with a splash page pointing them to Promise Technology’s VTrak E-Class array, and all documentation for Xsan 2 prominently features the Promise array. Users fumed, bloggers blogged, and Apple said nothing about the demise of their product.

Gizmodo finally teased something like an official statement from Apple later in the day. Apple’s Anuj Nayar admitted that the product was no more, and claimed the company would still sell drive modules “while supplies last.” SearchStorage.com got a much more official-sounding answer, but it remains the same: Xserve RAID is gone.
Users were having none of this. Although the Xserve RAID was outdated, with PATA disks and 2 Gb Fibre Channel, most expected a refresh. And they voiced exasperation with Apple’s quiet retirement and less-than-strong statements of continuing support for existing customers. A few users suggested stocking up on spares, while others defended Apple’s cutting off of a “non-core” product line.

At the end of the day, it does seem to be in Apple’s best interest to allow third parties to handle RAID array development and sales, as TidBITS points out. But it would have been a wiser choice to handle their often fanatical customers with more concern and forthrightness. At the very least, the company should issue a statement about the demise of the product and their continued support for existing customers.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Apple Customers Vent Over Ex-Xserve RAID
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Let’s start with today’s good news. Apple updated Xsan with broader support for third-party Fibre Channel hardware, making a good product better. Although it requires Leopard, Xsan 2 now allows a single Mac to access multiple SAN devices, improving performance and flexibility. Geared towards the company’s primary professional customer base, Xsan lets a large number of Mac machines share Fibre Channel-connected volumes and file systems.

Now the bad news. I’ve long loved Apple’s simple Xserve RAID for the same reason I loved my old iPod – it was simple, lacking about half the features of my half-decade-old Nomad Jukebox, but so easy to use that I actually, you know, used it! The Xserve RAID was severely limited by comparison to every other enterprise storage array. No snapshots, thin provisioning, tiered storage, deduplication, etc, etc… But it worked. And that was plenty for the company’s core user base, especially if they were using it with Xsan, as probably 90% were. Before Microsoft coined “simple SAN”, Apple delivered it.

But no more. Now, the company redirects visitors to the old Xserve RAID URL to Promise’s web site, and their decent VTrak E-Class RAID system. This Fibre Channel RAID array is up to date with 4 Gb interfaces, SATA, and SAS, and, although basic, is not as stripped down as the old Apple product. But I’ll miss it. I especially loved the nifty LED activity bar graphs, the identifier buttons, and the Appley goodness of the industrial design.

Update: Yup, everyone is noticing the change now!

• TUAW: XServe Raid no longer available, Apple partners with Promise
• Computerworld: Apple outsources its server storage to Promise Technologies
• StorageMojo: Apple’s Xserve RAID bites the dust

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Apple Revs Xsan and Kills Xserve RAID?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.