I purchased Novatel's latest 4G MiFi, the 4510l, from Verizon and am very impressed by it so far

Somewhat disappointed in the Clear PXU1900, I decided to try another 4G mobile broadband solution. Verizon began their LTE buildout after Clearwire’s WiMAX was already widely deployed, but they have moved aggressively to catch up. And Verizon has the benefit of better if less-plentiful spectrum for their network. My experience with Verizon’s 4G LTE service, and their Novatel MiFi 4510l modem, has been quite positive so far.

Verizon LTE: State Of The Art

You should probably read 4G Connectivity Options Proliferate and Hands-On Review: Clear WiMAX Service (and PXU1900 USB Modem) first!

A few years, back, it looked like WiMAX was the wave of the future for mobile network access. With an all-IP platform and the support of computer giants like Intel, how could it fail? But everything has been derailed since then, and LTE has emerged as the likely 4G champ worldwide.

It is extremely odd that Verizon chose LTE for their 4G network. After all, they are the largest non-GSM mobile provider, having followed the path to IS-95 and EV-DO while arch-rival AT&T (and most of the rest of the world’s mobile operators) focused on GSM and HSPA. Although LTE is quite different from earlier GSM-based technologies, it shares some common supporting elements, including SIM cards and other access-control technology.

But Verizon has firmly and completely committed to LTE even as Clearwire and Sprint waver on WiMAX. In just over one year, Verizon has lit up their 4G data network to cover more than half the population of the USA, and they announce even more availability on a regular basis.

Verizon really has another ace in the hole when it comes to 4G. Clearwire’s 2.5/2.6 GHz WiMAX network suffers from interference from 2.4 GHz devices (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cordless phones, microwave ovens, security cameras, and all sorts of other wireless junk) and is extremely sensitive to walls, hills, and antenna orientation. In contrast, Verizon’s 700 MHz “Upper SMB block C” spectrum licenses are much cleaner and penetrate buildings far better. Even other LTE buildouts (from Lightsquared, AT&T, and Clearwire) will not be as solid in the USA as Verizon’s since they will use that troubled 2.5/2.6 GHz spectrum as well.

Verizon 4G Plans and Devices

Verizon’s 4G offerings are fairly pedestrian and somewhat expensive. $50 buys you 5 GB of monthly data on the 3G or 4G network, and $80 doubles that data allowance. A 2-year contract gets a generous equipment discount, as is typical in the industry.

I searched eBay for an inexpensive Verizon modem to purchase, since I dislike contracts, but came away disappointed. Verizon 4G devices sell for $150 or more, even as Clear 4G modems can be found under $50. I decided to settle for a contract, assuming the money I save now can be applied to the early termination fee if I decide to drop service.

On the device front, all of Verizon’s offerings support both 3G (EVDO) and 4G (LTE) data, which is great since I don’t live in a 4G area but often travel. I considered a USB modem for use with my Cradlepoint router, but my old PHS300 doesn’t support them. Even though I also have a brand-new CBR400, it’s not battery powered and my MBR1200 isn’t exactly portable!

Mini Review: Verizon Novatel MiFi 4510l

I had a positive (if not always excellent) experience with my 3G Virgin Mobile MiFi 2200 as well as a Huawei E585 I purchased for use in Europe, so I decided on a “portable hotspot” device from Verizon. They currently offer the Samsung SCH-LC11 and Novatel MiFi 4510l, but reviewers have not shown much preference for one over the other, and both are nearly identical hardware-wise.

I chose to stick with Novatel, based mainly on two minor advantages: Reviews suggest that the Samsung has trouble charging while powered on, making it less suitable for long-term fixed use. Also, although no 4G hotspot from any provider currently supports USB tethering, a throwaway mention in an AnandTech review suggested that this was indeed possible. I hoped that USB tethering, unsupported or not, might be possible in areas thick with Wi-Fi.

I purchased my Novatel MiFi 4510l from Wal Mart’s online mobile phone arm, Letstalk. They offered the device free with a 2-year contract, and threw in free overnight shipping to boot. After a little hassle with email and a phone call, I was able to get the device ordered and it arrived just under 48 hours after I clicked “buy”.

The MiFi 4510l is fatter but improved over its predecessor, the 2200

The MiFi 4510l is much improved over my old Novatel 2200. The old device has an impossibly-finicky power button, sometimes leaving the device on even when the lights were off. In contrast, the 4510l is easy to operate and reliably powers down. The new device also includes an integrated e-paper display which clearly shows signal strength and battery status.

But Novatel’s engineering still leaves much to be desired. Both MiFis share the same insanely-incompatible power cord (though the new one will at least charge when powered off) but use different batteries. The 4510l “forgets” its internal bandwidth usage counter every time it is restarted, a criminal omission on a device fast enough to deplete your data allowance in just a few hours! And the software interface is even less detailed and informative than before. Plus, Novatel insists on printing the default password on an external sticker!

The 4510l is about as thick as two 2200s, but still small enough to slip into even a small pocket. It lasts hours on a charge and, when plugged in, can indeed fill the battery and function simultaneously. Unlike the Clear modem, the (single) external antenna port is covered by a rubber plug. The e-paper display is reasonably informative, and the three-color LED joins in, showing 2G/3G (purple), 4G (green), and power-off (yellow).

Out and About With Verizon LTE

I’ve been really impressed by Verizon’s LTE coverage, especially indoors. Although only the airport had service in Austin, I’ve gotten LTE signals far outside Cleveland and Denver. And unlike Clear’s WiMAX, which slowed to a crawl just a few feet indoors, the Verizon LTE network hummed along over 5 Mbps deep inside hotel and office buildings.

Verizon’s LTE network speed is impressive compared to 3G, especially when it comes to uploads. Clear obviously throttles upload speeds in some cities, with 300 Kbps a universal maximum regardless of download throughput. But Verizon’s LTE network was nearly symmetrical in my tests, ranging from about 5 Mbps in Denver and Las Vegas to over 10 Mbps in Cleveland.

3G (and even 2G) data support was gratifying as well. In completely unscientific head-to-head testing, the Verizon Mifi consistently outperformed my Virgin Mobile (Sprint network) MiFi in the wilds of Northeast Ohio. My AT&T iPhone 4 was faster than the Verizon 3G network in some areas, but almost uselessly-slow in others. In all tests, the Verizon chugged along, providing predictable and acceptable 3G performance.

In terms of network performance, I really have only one gripe with the Verizon MiFi 4510l: It has trouble in areas of faint LTE coverage. I have encountered a few instances where it tried to connect to LTE, then failed and claimed to connect to EVDO but no data was going through. Others have reported the same issue, suggesting the tedious “fix” of forcing it to 3G or 4G when in these locations.

Hopefully future firmware will address the network failover issues. It would be nice if Verizon also added a usage counter than survived reboots, though simply querying Verizon’s online account information and integrating it into the web interface would be a fine alternative. Hardware-wise, it would be great if some MiFi added 5 GHz Wireless-N support to clear up the 2.4 GHz band!

Stephen’s Stance

I would not hesitate to recommend Verizon’s 4G LTE network. It’s head-and-shoulders above Clear/Sprint WiMAX and will likely stay that way for a while thanks to their use of the 700MHz band. Verizon’s rapid network expansion and broad 3G network are reassuring enough to entice me into a 2-year contract. And the Novatel MiFi 4510l is a fairly solid device, though not perfect.

One more thing: I am very close to tethering the 4510l to the Cradlepoint over USB. It appears to be very possible, given the correct setup. Watch this space for news!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Hands-On Review: Verizon 4G LTE (and the Novatel MiFi 4510l)
This post was categorized as Features, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Startup Pure Storage launches today with an all-flash array for the same price as disk

Flash memory is awesome, but SSD isn’t a drop-in replacement for disk. Flash is totally different from spinning disk, yet most storage arrays still treat it as disk-like block storage. That’s why I was pleased to hear from startup Pure Storage, who are asking the core question, “what should an all-flash storage device look like?”

Another Storage Startup?

Pure Storage is a storage startup led by veterans of Veritas, NetApp, Sun, and Apple. The company has raised $55 million from key investors, including flash giant, Samsung.

Pure is working on what they call “the first all-flash enterprise array”, a slogan that will certainly draw the daggers of Nimbus Data, which has been selling an all-flash enterprise array for over a year. Like the Numbus S-Class, the Pure array relies on inline data reduction and compression to optimize the cost of storage, bringing flash capacity within reach of enterprise customers.

The Pure Storage FlashArray FA-300 array features active/active controllers with 12 CPU cores. These controllers attach to 24-bay drive shelves full of 2.5″ SSDs, and multiple units are clustered with 40 Gb InfiniBand. Pure Storage boasts that this combination allows 300,000 read and 180,000 write IOPS with less than one millisecond of latency. These are impressive performance numbers, but that’s not really the focus of the company.

Most beta customers use Pure Storage for a combination of performance and capacity. They are pleased to not have to worry about storage performance, but are also interested in reducing floor space and power demands of many-spindle storage arrays.

The smallest Pure Storage array (which includes one controller and one shelf of SSDs) provides 5.5 TB of raw capacity, presumably using 24 256 GB SSDs. A high-availability configuration would include two controllers and two shelves of SSDs for 11 TB of raw storage.

You should also read my follow-up piece on Pure’s pricing, When Pricing Gets Squishy Competition Heats Up

Optimized I/O

Pure also relies on MLC flash, a technical choice that will likely be the target of competitors. But the company insists they can overcome the limitations of inexpensive MLC flash (slower writes, reduced longevity) through intelligent software optimized for just this storage medium.

All I/O is thin provisioned and zero-detected, de-duplicated, and compressed in-line before it hits the SSDs. Since flash excels at random reads, data de-duplication does not have the performance impact most folks assume. In fact, de-duplicating data actually improves performance since less writing is required. Pure Storage uses a 512 B chunk rather than the larger chunks used by competitors, and they claim this gives a capacity advantage.

Pure’s array was designed from the ground up around flash, with minuscule latency and no tiering to spinning disk. The Pure Storage array does not use raw NAND flash but still relies on SSD (likely 470-series SATA drives sourced from partner Samsung). The Pure Storage “Purity” software optimizes I/O for these SSDs rather than relying on the in-drive software. They “cook” the data to the optimum chunk size, so the drive never needs to re-arrange I/O internally and performance does not diminish over time. Another optimization is I/O scheduling so drives are never written to and read from at the same time. Pure Storage also moves data over time for wear leveling, though it’s not clear how this interacts with the similar functionality already present in the SSDs.

Since flash memory has unique failure patterns, Pure Storage designed their own “RAID 3D” system to protect data. SSD drives sometimes fail entirely, but unrecoverable read errors (URE) are much more common. And as NAND flash ages (and device generations get finer geometry), error rate increases. Data is collected into a segment before writing, and each segment is written to all available drives. If a drive fails, data is re-protected in the background with at least dual parity. Since flash is so fast, rebuilding parity is much quicker than spinning disk-based systems. This wide striping also makes performance more consistent as drives fail and the system fills.

The Pure Storage Use Case

Pure Storage’s pricing is based on a 5:1 capacity reduction target, though the company claims that they often beat this in production, especially for VMware environments. Real-world data reduction cited by Pure Storage ranges from 4:1 for an Oracle environment to 17:1 for VMware.

The Pure Storage array is in its final beta round and the company expects to ship GA product by the end of the year. Key use cases are VMware and database environments – two high-I/O applications that have traditionally benefitted from flash storage.

Stephen’s Stance

It’s great to see fresh thinking in storage, and Pure Storage comes out of the gate with some impressive credentials: A top-tier team, excellent technical capabilities, and reasonable pricing. But it takes more than a great product to succeed in storage, and building awareness and sales are the next challenge for the company.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Pure Storage All-Flash Storage Array Revealed
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Many enterprise SSD makers are familiar to storage folks like myself, including Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Imation, Intel, Samsung, Seagate, and Toshiba. Readers of my blog may also recognize Fusion-io, LSI, Micron, OCZ Technology, Texas Memory Systems, and Viridant from my recent coverage, and may have heard of Solid Access Systems, Anobit, Pliant (now part of SanDisk), and others. But some names remain unfamiliar, at least for now. And others, notably Nimbus Data and Violin Memory, are puzzlingly missing from the StorageNewsletter list.

So here’s my rundown of the enterprise SSD makers to keep an eye on in the coming year!

For fun, I am grouping these by how much contact I had with them over the previous year. Although obviously not the most scientific measure of their impact on the storage world, perhaps this will help highlight those that are reaching out to independent bloggers like myself.

Well-Known SSD Players

See also Micron Bursts Into the PCIe SSD Market

First up is a group of companies that I’m quite familiar with, having recently been briefed on their SSD plans and products.

1. LSI
2. Micron
3. Nimbus Data
4. Texas Memory Systems

Next is a list of companies that, although I have contacts of one sort or another, I eagerly anticipate future briefings regarding SSD technology.

1. Anobit
2. Intel
3. Fusion-io
4. Hitachi GST
5. Seagate Technology
6. Stec
7. Violin Memory

SSD Contenders

See also Toshiba Offers “Blade” SSDs (Like Apple’s MacBook Air)

I have spotted the following companies at conferences, in industry publications, and on the web and feel that I am somewhat familiar with their SSD plans. But I welcome any opportunity to get to know them better, and encourage them to contact me via e-mail or by telephone.

1. OCZ Technology
2. Imation
3. Samsung
4. SanDisk / Pliant Technology
5. Solid Access
6. Toshiba
7. Viking Modular Solutions
8. Virident Systems

Who?!?

I was surprised to see this set of companies listed in the StorageNewsletter article, and more surprised when I went to their website and found that they were working on genuine and interesting enterprise SSD products. I would love to get in contact with folks at these companies so I can learn more about what they are up to!

1. BiTMICRO Networks
2. Foremay
3. Macrotron Systems
4. pureSilicon
5. RunCore
6. Smart Modular Technologies
7. Super Talent

Stephen’s Stance

In all, I located 25 companies that build solid-state storage devices for the enterprise market. My quick examination of their websites (or previous knowledge of the companies) reveals a wonderful and vibrant culture of innovation around solid-state storage technology. Watch this space over the next year, since I intend to cover the SSD space in detail!

I would like to thank Jean-Jacques Maleval for spurring my research into these enterprise SSD companies. He is really doing a great job over at StorageNewsletter, and I recommend that you subscribe!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | My Incomplete, Subjective List of Enterprise SSD Companies
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Western Digital's Caviar Green series of hard disk drives has proven popular, but the IntelliPark feature is controversial, leading to drive failures in some use cases

Being one of the few remaining mechanical components of the computer system, the hard disk drive is also one of the major power consumers. A spinning hard disk platter effectively turns power into heat, working contrary to user expectation. Not surprisingly, most hard disk drive manufacturers have implemented a number of power saving features, reducing the impact of disk drives on one’s electric bill. But one power saving feature from Western Digital has come under increasing fire: the Intellipark system found in their Caviar Green hard disk drives is a serious liability when used in many “always-on” scenarios.

The Green Revolution

Western Digital’s Caviar Green series of hard disk drives is part of a trend in the hard disk industry toward power saving drive technologies. The Caviar Green series uses half the power of conventional desktop hard drives through intelligent power management and reduced spindle speed.

For more about these drives, see “What Is The Secret To Efficient Hard Disk Drives?“

Although marketed as providing nearly the performance of full power drives, the Caviar Green series really is substantially slower when pushed to the limit with random reads and writes. Happily, most users never really exercised their hard disk drives, and would see very little performance difference and a great deal of power savings by going with the Caviar Green or competing models from Seagate or Samsung.

One of the basic tricks Western Digital employees with the Caviar Green series is reduced spindle speed. Conventional desktop hard drives typically spin at 5400 or 7200 revolutions per minute. While Western Digital does not officially share the spindle speed of the Caviar Green series, independent tests have shown it to be only slightly more than 5400 RPM in some drives and as high as 6000 RPM in others. Contrary to early published reports, spindle speed is fixed rather than variable. In contrast, Seagate’s Low Power series spins at 5900 RPM, while Samsung’s EcoGreen uses a conventional 5400 RPM speed.

In order to attain good performance, all three vendors use the highest density platters available. Packing the bits close together accelerates throughput for sequential operations, making the drives appear to be as quick as one with a faster spindle speed. They also loaded the drives up with RAM cache: 64 MB in the case of the Western Digital Caviar Green series. This also helps accelerate performance, especially in random I/O situations.

IntelliPower and IntelliPark

IntelliPower is Western Digital’s trade name for a variety of power saving technologies, but reduced spindle speed is the centerpiece. But there is more to IntelliPower than spindle speed: Western Digital also ups the cache and includes power saving features to reduce the load on the disk drive.

One of the more unusual features of these drives is IntelliPark, which positions the read/write heads unloaded in a parking position and turns off certain drive electronics. From the factory, IntelliPark is quite aggressive, adopting this mode (referred to as “idle 3″ by the company) after just 8 seconds of non-use.

The Problem with IntelliPark

This is no problem for operating systems like Microsoft Windows, which have been tuned to leave disk drives in the idle state for as long as possible. But Linux and RAID devices are not nearly as friendly. Assuming that hard disk drives are always spinning, many of these systems write data much more frequently, often every 10 to 20 seconds.

When Western Digital Caviar Green drives are used in systems that write data very frequently, IntelliPark can become a serious liability. Continually parking and on parking the heads causes wear and tear, potentially leading to drive failure. The difference between a park operation every 10 seconds and one every 5 minutes is dramatic, both in terms of drive longevity and power savings.

Enthusiasts have been quick to suggest that this feature is a critical design flaw, causing otherwise good hard disk drives to fail. Predictably, Western Digital sees things differently. They contend that the Caviar Green series was designed to be used in operating systems like Microsoft Windows, and suggest using other drive models in Linux and RAID systems. They also offer an idle mode update utility which allows end-users to tune this parameter or turn it off entirely.

Stephen’s Stance

Although I cannot agree with the enthusiasts claiming that Western Digital Caviar Green hard disk drives are defective or fatally flawed, the execution of the IntelliPark feature are debatable. Parking heads every 8 seconds seems overly-aggressive to me, especially since many operating systems are not optimized for this condition. I continue to recommend using RAID optimized drives in RAID systems, but it seems that Linux desktops ought to be able to use desktop drives like the Caviar Green.

I tuned some of my Caviar Green drives to unload the heads only after 5 minutes of idle time using WD's WDIDLE3 utility

I applaud Western Digital for creating and distributing an idle mode update utility, since it allows these drives to be used in nearly any operating system while sacrificing only a little bit of the power saving benefits. My own experimentation shows that these drives function just fine in my Drobo storage array without excessive load/unload operations, so I continue to recommend them. Users should beware of these drives in devices such as this, however, and should consider using the idle mode update utility to disable IntelliPark.

Perhaps Western Digital should update the firmware of these drives to detect excessively frequent load/unload operations and automatically disable IntelliPark in these cases. Although they are within their rights to design a drive that is applicable only to certain use cases, automating this tuning would save them from unnecessary PR backlash.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Western Digital IntelliPark: Feature or Design Flaw?
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.

"So it is down to you, and it is down to me."

Seagate and Western Digital appear to have locked up the majority of the hard disk drive (HDD) market with their respective acquisitions of Samsung and Hitachi’s business. Leaving Toshiba with just a sliver, the American companies will soon become giants, each with more than 40% of the total HDD share and a full line of products. Despite the noise made by solid-state disk (SSD) lovers, the HDD market is likely to continue to rake in profits for decades, and these two giants will battle it out for the foreseeable future.

Western Digital Looks To The Enterprise

Originally maker of integrated circuit chips, Western Digital entered the storage market in the early 1980s, producing hard disk drive controllers. It wasn’t until 1988 that Western Digital produced its first hard disk drive, after acquiring Tandon. These were decidedly low-end products, competing in the desktop PC business with the likes of Quantum and Maxtor, two companies that would later merge and sell to arch-rival Seagate.

Western Digital moved steadily upmarket after the year 2000, expanding buffer cache and platter speeds. This culminated in the Raptor line, the first 10,000 rpm serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drive, and Western Digital is still known as a purveyor of high-performance desktop hard disk drives today. The VelociRaptor, for example, is popular among gamers for its small low-latency platters and high spindle speed.

Although Western Digital sells a wide variety of hard disk drives, they’re not a familiar face in the enterprise storage market. They’ve produced a number of raid storage devices but have never been able to break in the high-end, and have similarly been left out of many OEM contracts.

All this will change shortly, as Western Digital will soon acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST). Formed as a merger of the hard disk drive businesses of IBM and Hitachi, HGST is a formidable competitor in many OEM areas, including enterprise storage. The combined company will control nearly half the storage market, offering products in every niche.

Toshiba looks mighty tiny next to Seagate/Samsung and Western Digital/HGST!

Seagate Expands In Asia

In contrast to Western Digital, Seagate is a familiar name in much of the storage market. Founded by a group of industry legends, including Al Shugart and Finis Conner, Seagate move rapidly from the personal computer space into the enterprise. By the late 1990s, Seagate was prime supplier for enterprise storage companies, competing with IBM and Hitachi.

Although formerly dominant, Seagate was surpassed in market share by Western Digital even before they acquired HGST. The new Western Digital would have dwarfed Seagate, whose 30% market share left them in a distant second place. It is perhaps easier to understand Western Digital’s moves that Seagate’s, but there is much logic in acquiring the hard disk drive assets of Samsung.

First, the transaction, worth 1 1/3 billion dollars, bring Seagate back within spitting distance of the new Western Digital. It also opens up the vast Asian OEM market, where Samsung has had much success, and guarantees a market for Seagate hard disk drives in Samsung products. But the relationship between these two companies goes much further: Samsung and Seagate are now related companies, just as Hitachi and Western Digital will be once the acquisition is complete. In both cases, the new companies will have a strong East-West alliance.

The NAND Angle

Although much of the attention in both transactions has revolved around a hard disk drive business, one should not overlook the solid-state implications. Samsung is the world’s largest supplier of NAND flash memory, and Seagate will gain an important relationship with the company. This may be the furthest reaching aspect of the transaction, since Seagate will be able to leverage this relationship as high-performance storage transitions to flash memory.

HGST had already been working with Intel to develop high-performance flash-based storage, and their combination with Western Digital will continue and expand this relationship. Intel, partnered with Micron as IMFT, is another leading supplier of flash memory chips, and the collaboration with HGST looked promising in the enterprise space. Therefore, both companies gain access to key flash memory technology thanks to these transactions.

Stephen’s Stance

Both Seagate and Western Digital have much to gain from these transactions. Western Digital becomes a full line giant of the industry, a credible competitor, and a successful supplier to OEMs. Seagate also retains its credibility in the market, but also gains access to Samsung, one of the strongest electronics companies in the world. Time will tell which of these companies got the better deal.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Seagate Versus Western Digital: The Hard Disk Drive Battle Lines Are Drawn
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• Things I wrote
  • VMware ESX SATA and PATA Compatibility Cheat Sheet
  • VMware ESX FCoE CNA Compatibility in Plain English
  • Samsung SP-H03 Pico Projector Review
• Other great posts
  • Wikibon are stepping up their game lately with some great posts like this: HP and Intel Help Open the FCoE Market
  • Mini Microsoft is always worth reading: Microsoft FY11Q2 Results
  • Greg Ferro talks about The Importance of Provider Independent IPv6 Addressing
  • Scott Lowe does his own “back from the pile” and he has some great links in Technology Short Take #10
  • I’m so excited to have Chris Wells join us from Tokyo for TFD! vSamurai – Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Japan, 仮想化, クラウドコンピューティング, 日本 – EN – Gonna Have A Field Day!
  • Sean Clark will also come to TFD: Tech Field Day 5 – San Jose – SeanClark.us
  • It was way late, but the Freedom to Tinker Predictions for 2011 is really worth a read
  • I totally agree: 3D is a massive headache! Why 3D Doesn’t Work and Never Will
  • Jason Boche did some great work this week: Jumbo Frames Comparison Testing with IP Storage and vMotion
  • Derek Schauland has a great idea: Synchronization from Drobo to the cloud
  • Xsigo is taking on King Kong: The Inside Story: What Cisco says About Xsigo
  • Erin Collopy is back in her new blog with the importance of knowing your audience

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

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, January 28, 2011
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

SP-H03 Pico Review: Keen touch control but dim lamp, auto-drain battery; tiny but with clunky accessories. A niche product.

Some gadgets are clever, some are functional, and some are both. There is a fundamental tension in gadget-ology between the useful and the merely cool, and this is precisely the issue with the Samsung SP-H03 pico projector. It’s undeniably awesome looking, with a blackout brushed aluminum finish and vanishing white-LED touch-sensitive controls packed into the tiniest box imaginable. But actually working with it reveals frustrating shortcomings that limit its usefulness.

Introducing the SP-H03

The SP-H03 belongs to the species Pico-Projectorous Niftensis, the business equivalent of a Smart car or miniskirt. These tiny wonders are what they appear to be (a projector, an automobile, and an article of clothing, respectively) but are trimmed to the absolute minimum. In fact, they’re all three trimmed past the absolute minimum for the majority of consumers. This is fine if they fit your life, but none are suitable for the mass market.

The SP-H03 packs a WVGA (854 x 480) widescreen projector, a 30 Lumen white LED, 1 GB of memory, and a variety of inputs into a square box much smaller than a coffee cup. The projector itself is 70 mm (2.76 inches) square and just 27.5 mm (1.08 inches) tall. In person, it’s astonishingly, unbelievably tiny. Attach the 10 mm (0.4 inch) battery sled and you’re ready to hit the road with the smallest self-contained projector anyone is likely to have encountered.

The projector is controlled by disappearing touch controls on the top surface and has a manual focus slider and no keystone adjustment. On the side is a Micro SD card slot that can add up to 32 GB of internal storage with a Micro SDHC card.

The projector comes with a carrying case, power brick, and various connectors for expansion. The power supply is smallish but easier bigger than the projector when the long coiled cords are included. And external sources (VGA or Composite video) each require their own dongle. A USB flash drive (nothing drawing much power, please) can also be connected via an included dongle.

Short-Lived Portability

The SP-H03 is best appreciated in standalone battery-powered mode. Load it up with PowerPoint presentations and video files and wow the world with a portable A/V experience. There’s even a tiny internal speaker!

But things get hairy once additional projection time or an external input is required. The SP-H03 lasts about 2 hours in “Eco” (dim) mode when running on the battery, and connecting an external input drains it even faster. Put simply, it’s desirable to bring along the power brick and dongles “just in case” when traveling.

Add in a mini tripod, VGA cable, composite A/V cable, and Micro SD adapter and your travel weight just went way up. My projector kit bag (thus equipped) quadruples the size. Although it’s still far smaller than even the tiniest bulb-quipped projector, it’s no longer pico-sized!

Usability Issues

Are vanishing controls with no tactile reference really a good idea?

The limitations of the SP-H03 don’t end there, however. Between touchy controls, poor balance, battery drain, and a funky user interface, t’s not exactly the easiest device to live with.

The clip-on battery “sled” is a great idea with awful execution. It’s finicky to attach, requiring just the right angle-and-click move to keep from falling off. And once it’s attached, it constantly drains whether or not the projector is in use! There’s a blue LED showing full charge that never goes out, but I believe there is more than that diode draining the juice. The simple fix is to leave the battery disconnected (just flip it over and it still fits in the travel case) but this is a puzzling issue.

The small size of the projector causes issues, too. Although solidly built, it’s difficult to keep it in place, especially on a table but even when using a tripod. The VGA, composite, and USB dongles and power cord attach at the rear, destabilizing the projector when they are attached. And every touch of the controls shakes the whole setup – it’s best to keep hands-off!

The magic touch controls are a feast for the eyes but a pain for the fingers. With no tactile sense at all, one must keep one eye on the control panel and another on the screen when navigating the menus, a tough trick! One pointer: glide a whole finger across the top to cause the controls to light up without guessing.

The user interface is simple but odd. It is organized by source: “PC” or “AV” in one menu, Internal memory, USB, and Micro SD in another. Stored content is categorized into “Videos”, “Photos”, and so on and then by filesystem tree.

I had trouble reliably playing video off a USB drive, and just 700 MB of internal memory is usable, so I recommend copying content onto a Micro SD card. But not all cards are compatible: My 8 GB Kingston works fine, but the generic 2 GB card that came with my Zoom H1 audio recorder is unrecognized. On the plus side, the SP-H03 can handle a large variety of media formats, including WMV, MPEG4, and H.264 as well as PDF and office (PowerPoint, Excel, and Word) documents including the new “x” formats.

Stephen’s Stance

Overall, the SP-H03 is a great but flawed super-portable projector. If you need to quickly show off a PowerPoint deck or video file indoors, it’s hard to beat. It’s also great for entertaining the kids on the road, but don’t expect too much of the battery or brightness.

The 30 Lumen LED is brighter than some competing projectors, but it’s definitley in the “turn off the lights” category. Many pico projectors don’t have VGA, SD card support, or internal memory either, making them much less useful in practice. And at $300 retail, it’s hard to argue with the price. It’s much cheaper than the comparable Optoma PK301.

Overall, the SP-H03 is a reasonable bur not great choice for a business traveler like me. I’ll keep it in my bag (with the battery disconnected), ready to bring it out in a pinch. But I definitely prefer a full-size projector if one is available!

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, 2011. | Samsung SP-H03 Pico Projector Review
This post was categorized as 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.

Is this really the best the world can offer to unseat Apple's mighty iPad?

Last year, as the pre-release hype around the iPad was reaching its peak, dozens of companies announced their own tablet computers or “pads”. Some predicted doom for Apple’s device even before it was released. After all, how could premium-priced Apple compete with the volume PC makers and all the factories in China?

Pretty well, it turns out. Almost a year later, no tablet has even come close to Apple’s mighty iPad, and it currently boasts 95% market share. Where are the iPad killers?

Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts

The iPad has succeeded beyond the imaginings of even the most wild-eyed Apple fanboy. Seriously. No sane person (or cracked fanboy) would have guessed that the iPad alone would be a $7 billion business of that Apple would sell over 10 million of them in the first year. But the company is on track to exceed both of these numbers, selling over 4 million iPads (worth $2.7 billion) in their fourth fiscal quarter. And this doesn’t include the holiday season!

What’s so great about the iPad? It’s not the basic components. The “Apple-designed” A4 CPU turned out not to be the game-changer we thought it might be; the internal storage (16, 32, or 64 GB of it) are merely fine; even the excellent IPS screen offers middling 1024×768 resolution. The lack of a camera for FaceTime, pathetic 256 MB of RAM, and long wait for iOS 4 further detract from the device, in theory at least.

The amazing thing about the iPad is that it’s such an excellent overall device built from such ordinary components. About the only really extraordinary elements in the iPad spec sheet are its solid build quality and excellent battery life. Yet the iPad continues to delight its users, inspiring word-of-mouth marketing like no product before it – even beating the buzz around Apple’s iPhone!

Apple just took these simple components and mixed them together into an excellent overall experience. My household includes literally dozens of computers, including three Macs and five iPhones, and yet the iPad is all anyone wants to use. I am often summoned by the children to settle “iPad time” disputes, even as two perfectly-fine (though Wi-Fi only) iPhones sit idle. Not to mention the TiVo, Mac Mini, Wii, and assorted GameBoys.

Where Are The iPad Killers?

We like to break the ice at the Tech Field Day events I organize for Gestalt IT with a fun gift exchange. Since the iPad was introduced the week before, buying one as the grand prize for our April event was a no-brainer. Then came July, and iPad mania was strong enough to demand another iPad. In September, I hunted high and low for something more-compelling but settled on an iPad again.

Now here we are November and I have another event coming up. I made a real effort, shopping the various Android tablets against the now-dated iPad. Yet nothing comes close even now:

• 

  The Dell Streak is too small to compete as a tablet and too big for a phone

  The Dell Streak isn’t a bad device, but it’s way too small to compete with the iPad. I’d get an iPhone or Droid if I wanted a tiny “tablet”. It’s also encumbered with a 2-year wireless contract or a high price: I’d get an iPad if I had to spend over $500 anyway.

• Archos was early with an Android tablet, but their chintzy offerings didn’t seem worth a few hundred dollars, especially with a $499 iPad on offer. The limited software and tiny size were really off-putting.
• The newer Archos tablets like the Archos 70 and Archos 101 are much nicer, with capacitive touch screens and modern Android builds. But their plasticky build quality and phone-based OS didn’t leave me with a great feeling. I’d still happily spend $200 more for an iPad.
• 

  The Samsung Galaxy Tab is well-built but expensive

  Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is probably the best 7-inch Android tablet out there, but the cartoony interface screamed “not ready for prime time” to me. Plus, I’ve only seen the 3G versions for sale, and it’s crazy expensive. Seriously – $100 more than an iPad WITH a contract from Verizon or Sprint. An unlocked 16 GB Galaxy Tab is an astonishing $1,000.

• The new Huawei S7 is an alternative to the Archos 70, but isn’t really an iPad competitor. It’s a junky-feeling plastic device with a mediocre screen for $200 less than an iPad. Just like the Archos.
• The HP Slate 500 is definitely the coolest Windows 7 machine out there, but the proliferation of cut-priced netbooks cuts it off at the knees. The tablet form factor is nice, but is it worth more than two similar-spec netbooks?
• 

  The HP PhotoSmart eStation C510 is cheaper than most 7" Android tablets and includes a really nice printer!

  Probably the best value in an Android tablet comes with a free HP PhotoSmart printer attached. The $399 eStation C510 printer comes with a 7-inch wireless Android tablet every bit as good as the Archos or Huawei for around-the-house use. Sure it doesn’t have 3G or GPS, but who cares at this price?

• The bad mojo around the JooJoo eliminates it from consideration.
• The random Android-powered “xPad” devices (iRobot aPad? Seriously?) are total junk, with non-responsive resistive screens, crappy build quality, outdated software (Android 1.6?!?) and horrible batteries. About the only thing they have going for them is a proliferation of USB ports and SD slots.
• 

  The Barnes & Noble Nook Color looks like a nice Android e-reader

  The new Barnes & Noble Nook Color looks cool but isn’t shipping yet. When it does we’ll have another 7″ Android-powered tablet for a nice $50 less than the Archos or Huawei, and Barnes & Noble is thankfully stripping it down to focus on core e-reader features. If you just want an iPad as an e-book reader and occasional browser, this looks like a good alternative.

Have I missed something? Is there some awesome iPad alternative I haven’t listed here? I’m sure there are dozens more, but none can hold a candle to Apple’s aluminum wonder in terms of usability, build quality, or (gasp) price.

Stephen’s Stance

I guess I’ll just buy another iPad for Tech Field Day San Jose 2010. Some may call me an Apple fanboy, but I’m failing in a serious attempt not to give money to Steve Jobs and company. I really wish I could give an HP PhotoSmart eStation C510 or HP Slate 500, but the former is too big and the latter is too expensive to justify. The Samsung Galaxy Tab and Dell Streak are great, but both are way too expensive and chained to wireless contracts to boot.

It amazes me to say this, but apart from the Amazon Kindle, the Apple iPad remains the only really compelling portable electronics buy this year. It’s nicely integrated, well-built, reasonably inexpensive, and universally desirable enough to be given as a (very nice) gifts. Nothing else really comes close. I guess Apple will have no trouble selling another 5 million iPads while the rest of the industry tries to get their products in order. But by that time, the next-generation iPad will launch.

Note: Of course the Cisco Cius looks great, too. And Cisco’s relationship with Apple suggests it might interoperate with FaceTime. But it’s not released yet, so it didn’t make this list.

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, 2010. | The Tablet Wasteland and the iPad Oasis
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Ask a Pack Rat:

Another great question, this time on Twitter:

Just purchased an empty DroboFS, do you have a preferred HD to use with Drobo? TIA!

Stephen’s Stance

I just love my Drobo, though I’m thinking of upgrading it to a Drobo S since it’s getting pretty full! The ability to add and replace drives as you use it is very powerful, and I’ve taken full advantage of it! Here’s my own personal Drobo hard disk drive history:

1. Purchased the Drobo and two 1.5 TB Samsung EcoGreen F2 (HD154UI) drives from NewEgg. One drive was DOA.
2. Grabbed a 1 TB Western Digital Green (WD10EADS) drive from Fry’s to protect my data. No trouble with that one.
3. Received a replacement Samsung HD154UI. Worked fine since, though it did fail to spin up at first this week after a power reset.
4. Removed the 1 TB WD drive and added two 1.5 TB Western Digital Caviar Green (WD15EADS) drives. No trouble with those since.
5. Picked up a 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda LP (ST31500541AS) as a temporary standalone drive as well as a spare for the Drobo.

I’ve been very happy with the Western Digital and Seagate drives I used – every one has performed flawlessly. There are many negative reviews of just about every drive on the market, including both the WD and Seagate models I rely on. And I’m much less happy with the Samsung EcoGreens. They’re proven flaky in my use, and I’m very glad I am using Drobo’s BeyondRAID or I would never store anything important on them!

My suggestions:

1. Vary the type and manufacturing date of drives (easier with Drobo BeyondRAID) to reduce the likelihood of a “bad batch” causing problems
2. Go for 1.5 TB or 2 TB drives since they’re the best value for the money at this point
3. Green (5400/5900 rpm) drives are fine and may reduce your power consumption
4. Stick with the Seagate Barracuda LP and Western Digital Caviar Green (EADS or EARS) drives
5. Make sure you buy from an authorized reseller and have a valid warranty (Seagate offers 5 years on retail drives, WD is 3)

I’ve been posting cheap drives to my Deals feed lately, and will likely continue. $79 for this 1.5 TB WD Green drive is a pretty good price today, for example.

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, 2010. | Which Hard Disk Drives Should You Use In A Drobo?
This post was categorized as Ask a Pack Rat, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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.

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, 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.