This GE lightbulb expired after just 5/100 of one percent of its promised useful life. And it is not the first of these bulbs I have seen fail so quickly. That's why I wrote the install date right on the base and save my receipt.

The idea of a product warranty is fairly simple: a company “warrants” that, should their product fail in a specified period of time and circumstances, they will repair or replace it. But the implication of the product warranty is far more subtle: it tells the consumer what level of reliability they should expect. In short, a warranty is all about confidence. But when does a warranty become a confidence game?

Typical retail products are backed by warranties ranging from a few months to a few years. Some products, such as cars and major appliances, are warranted for far longer. Products generally carry a warranty that matches their expected lifetime, and consumers have come to expect that products will last roughly this long.

But there can be quite a bit of gamesmanship in product warranties. Companies can “one up” their competitors by offering longer warranties, a typical tactic for up-and-coming car manufacturers, for example. A longer warranty is a promise to consumers that product quality has improved, as well as a security blanket in case this is untrue.

Companies also game the terms of their warranties. It is not uncommon to find that the “10 year warranty” on a new car only covers the engine and transmission, or that the 3 year warranty offered by Apple only includes one year of technical support. But the generous length of coverage is what gets attention, regardless of the terms and conditions.

Companies know this, and sometimes they offer warranties that they never expect to be called on to meet. Consider the incredible shrieking warranties on hard disk drives in the wake of the Thai flooding disaster. Seagate and Western Digital did not suddenly begin to cut corners on drive quality. Rather, they simply decided that they could no longer afford the extra cost of drive replacement and shrunk the warranty to match.

A recent example in my hands was a compact fluorescent (CFL) floodlight that carried a 4 year warranty from GE. It failed after just 41 days of occasional use in my kitchen, not the 6000 hours promised on the package. But the terms of the warranty made it clear that the company never expected to replace the product: I would have to mail it to Cleveland at my own expense, along with my original sales receipt, in hopes of receiving a replacement. This replacement transaction would probably cost far more than the bulb itself, so it is clear that the warranty was just a bunch of hot air.

I rarely purchase extended warranties for products, and never even consider offbrand or store offered warranty products. These are generally a scam, with vendors hoping that customers will forget or misplace warranty materials before a claim is needed. The only exception for me is AppleCare, which I happily purchased on my MacBook Pro after having the logic board replaced in my previous Apple computer. I even purchased the new AppleCare+ package for my iPhone 4S, since I really can’t survive without a phone.

What does this say about warranties and consumer expectations? Clearly, companies know that customers put a great deal of faith in product warranties, whether deserved or not. And customers have come to expect that a product with a longer warranty will offer a longer useful life. Sadly, this is often not the case, and many companies never expects to live up to the expectations they set right on the package.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | What’s the Point of a Warranty, Anyway?
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.

Two portable RAID systems arrived at my door. Which would you be more interested in?

RAID is becoming more familiar in the SOHO market, but portable devices using 2.5″ drives remain a novelty. I recently tested two such units, and came away with mixed impressions. Although the ToughTech Duo from CRU-DataPort/Wiebetech sports attractive design, it didn’t perform much better than the homely Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S. And neither is all that portable.

A Tale of Two Drives

CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech ToughTech Duo and Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S

I’ve been intrigued by the industry-wide shift from 3.5″ to 2.5″ hard disk drives, and was curious when this trend would come to consumer devices. CRU-DataPort, also (confusingly) known as Wiebetech, was first to offer up a two-drive portable RAID unit for me to test. Their ToughTech Duo is a rounded elongated brick with a brushed aluminum finish, LCD screen, and big rubbery buttons.

The ToughTech Duo arrived with a pair of 750 GB Seagate drives installed, but it supports many others as well. I swapped in a pair of 500 GB Toshiba drives (sent separately by IDEMA for my use in tests) and was immediately impressed by the ToughTech’s metal drive carriers. They hold the drive firmly and latch in place securely yet require no screws. The overall build quality of the ToughTech Duo is solid, and the interface is easy to use – perhaps too much so, as we will shortly see!

I really appreciated the CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech ToughTech Duo drive carrier

A short time later, Akitio offered me their 2-drive “Taurus Mini Super-S” for testing. A sharp square brick with a rough black finish, the Taurus Mini’s LCD was harder to read and the two tiny control buttons were nearly impossible to press. The drives reside behind a metal door operated with thumbscrews but attach to rough trays with standard Phillips screws. I suppose the drives are secure, but the Taurus isn’t reassuring to work with.

Both the ToughTech Duo and Taurus Mini Super-S include USB 2.0 and eSATA as well as two FireWire 800 ports for daisy-chaining. The omission of USB 3.0 is curious considering how widespread that interface has become on storage devices, but eSATA and FireWire allow these devices to reach their (limited) performance potential.

The CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech packaging is much friendlier

Both devices ship in gaudy boxes that would be right at home on the shelves of MicroCenter or Fry’s, but the Akitio is excessively verbose and nerdy. The packaging, like the overly-long product names, would put off casual computer users, especially Apple buyers looking for simplicity and ease of use. This is disappointing, since any device with FireWire but no USB 3.0 must be aimed at Apple users!

Configuring RAID

Both drives allow the user to switch between RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0 (striping, with no data protection) using the panel buttons. But since this operation is destructive to the data stored, this might not be all that useful. Most users will likely select one or the other and leave it that way, a blessing given the microscopic buttons on the Akitio.

An average user is likely to leave the drive plugged in when performing RAID changes, leading to disastrous results with the Wiebetech drive. The Akitio resets itself when RAID levels are changed, but the Wiebetech (curiously) does not. I was able to continue writing and reading data after switching to RAID 1, but a reboot destroyed the format and the data. I made the company aware of this issue and they assured me it would be corrected. But I haven’t seen a fix yet, and it’s been a few months. The fact that the documentation instructs users to unplug the drive on RAID changes isn’t reassuring: Few buyers will actually read and follow these instructions.

Interestingly, both devices use the same on-disk format for both RAID 0 and 1. I was able to pull the drives from one and use them in the other with no apparent issues. Wiebetech assured me that their RAID 1 format simply writes all data to both drives. I was able to confirm that this was the case, with a removed RAID 1 drive remaining readable using a direct SATA connection.

Usability Concerns

There's a lot of stuff in the Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S box!

Although both devices are admirably small, they are not really all that compact. Carrying either drive (along with its power brick) in my backpack was definitely noticeable both in bulk and weight. And these are surprisingly heavy devices – each weighs more than my 2011 MacBook Pro!

Both devices get fairly hot under heavy use as well, and neither sports a fan. The Akitio has what looks like a heatsink along the bottom, but I didn’t notice that the rest of the body stayed cooler. And the Wiebetech got downright hot, even setting off its internal temperature alarm during benchmarking! This was an isolated occurrence, however, and I was unable to cause it to overheat again.

It is way too easy to erase all data on the ToughTech Duo by changing RAID levels with the big, friendly buttons

The ease of switching RAID modes is disturbing to me, since this destroys all data on the drives even without considering the Wiebetech’s data loss-inducing bug. But the LCD and buttons are fairly useless apart from this rare operation.

Performance and Compatibility

I tested both devices with the same Toshiba 500 GB drives to gauge their controller performance, but the Seagate drives shipped with the CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech device are much quicker overall.

Sequential read performance with RAID 0 pushes the limits of FireWire at about 83 MB/s, with RAID 1 only slightly behind

Sequential write performance isn't as good, with both units lagging when using RAID 1. Although equal in performance with RAID 0, the Wiebetech lagged severely in RAID 1 performance

Random read performance is nicely homogenous, with both drives topping out around 45 MB/s

Random writes were a different story, with the Akitio and Wiebetech close together for both RAID 0 and 1, but each demonstrating superiority in a different area. The Akitio just kept accelerating as I/O's got larger with RAID 1, while the Wiebetech pulled ahead with RAID 0. Oddly, RAID 0 writes lagged behind RAID 1 on the whole.

Wiebetech's bundled Seagate drives easily outperformed the Toshibas is random benchmarks, nearly doubling random write throughput

But the Toshiba drives were faster in sequential operations, with the Seagates lagging well behind

Stephen’s Stance

I often receive storage devices for review, but it’s unusual that two such similar ones arrive at once. After giving each a fair amount of testing and use, I come away unimpressed. The Akitio looks and feels like the sort of no-name OEM device often overlooked by buyers, while the slickly-designed Wiebetech exhibited disconcerting bugs. Both have confusing names and packaging as well. If I had to pick one, it would be the CRU-Dataport/Wiebetech ToughTech Duo, thanks to its more compact size and user-friendly drive sleds. Note that the Akitio appears to be cheaper at retail, but this is due to the cost of the hard disk drives in the Wiebetech/CRU-Dataport device.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Two Dual-Drive Portable RAIDs Reviewed: Akitio and Wiebetech
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.

The Seagate GoFlex Desk already ships with the new Barracuda ST3000DM001 drive!

Today, Seagate consolidated three sub models of the Barracuda hard disk drive line into one. The new Barracuda is a 7200 rpm drive that the company claims combines the efficiency of their Barracuda Green with the performance of the Barracuda XT. It turns out that I had one of these drives in my hands for a few months, since they have been shipping in the GoFlex Desk external hard disk drive for a while.

The Green Revolution

See What Is The Secret To Efficient Hard Disk Drives? for more info!

“Green” hard disk drives were all the rage for the past few years. Market leaders, Seagate and Western Digital as well as challenger Samsung all produced “green” drives. The three manufacturers claims that these drives drew less power and were thus more appropriate for the bulk storage needs of end-users.

Each manufacturer used a different technique to accomplish this low-power trick. Samsung’s offering was a traditional 5400 rpm hard disk drive that squeeze out efficiency by using fewer platters, heads, and other drive components. Their EcoGreen F2 hard disk used three or fewer high density platters, but my own experiences were not all that positive. I had to EcoGreen drives called out in my Drobo.

Western Digital’s Caviar Green was much-lauded in the press, with many believing it was a variable speed drive. This turned out not to be the case, with performance gains due to firmware tweaks and a simple 5400 rpm mechanism. I had fairly good luck with my half-dozen or so Caviar Green drives, though I didn’t notice they were particularly energy-efficient or performant.

Seagate was the only vendor to try something really radical in the “green” space, introducing a 5900 rpm mechanism with generous and dense platters. Initially called the Barracuda LP but later wearing the Barracuda Green name, these drives were popular for a balance of performance and energy efficiency. I bought a number of them myself, and although they weren’t that fast they were just fine for bulk external storage needs.

I Feel the Need for Green

Consumers weren’t exactly beating down the doors of drive manufacturers asking for low-power hard disk drives. Rather, these drives were born from a need to conserve power mostly in external add-on storage applications. Although 3.5″ drives cannot be bus powered in a USB enclosure, low-power is still a major benefit. Smaller adapters, simpler electronics, and less heat enable the production of cheaper and simpler external drives.

And it’s not as if a USB 2.0 drive can actually benefit from a high-performance hard disk mechanism. With a maximum transfer rate under 40 MB/s and seriously reduced I/O performance, USB 2.0 just didn’t need much in the way of performance. Even today, USB 3.0 drives, like the Seagate GoFlex Desk poke along way below the capabilities of that interface. No rotating hard disk drive will deliver true USB 3.0 performance, and he remains a major concern in the extra drive market.

The New Seagate Barracuda

You gotta love hard disk drive hero shots like this!

I already had one of these! See How To Open a Seagate GoFlex Desk Hard Disk Drive Case

Apparently, there just wasn’t enough market demand even for an industry leader like Seagate to produce three separate hard disk drive lines. So the company’s new lineup is consolidated on a single specification: 7200 rpm, 64 MB of DDR2 cache, and 1 TB platters. These drives will be available in 1 TB, 1.5 TB, 2 TB, and 3 TB capacity points and are apparently already shipping as the innards of GoFlex Desk external storage.

Note that these new drives apparently use the 4 KB “Advanced Format” sector size rather than the old 512 byte sectors. This means you’ll want to use them with new versions of Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X for compatibility and performance reasons. But my GoFlex Desk drive did not appear to be using 4 KB sectors when I examined it. I remain puzzled by this inconsistency. Seagate does include their “SmartAlign” technology, which helps avoid the performance impact of misaligned volumes, however.

Performance-wise, the new Barracuda exceeds its predecessors in terms of sequential read and write time, but it’s no great shakes when it comes to random I/O. Although somewhat faster than the previous generation 7200 rpm drive, not to mention the 5900 rpm Green, a generation spoiled on SSD is not to be impressed by these drives. In terms of bulk storage, however, they’re hard to beat. Considering that the 3 TB GoFlex Desk is available for under $150, these drives are a steal.

Seagate promises a hybrid flash-packing Barracuda XT in the future, and this should represent a serious performance improvement. But tests of the existing hybrid Momentus XT show mixed results, and many have complained of unreliability and buggy firmware. Hopefully this third-generation of Seagate hybrid storage technology will be a keeper.

It will be interesting to see how Western Digital reacts to this shift. Will they to drop their 5400 rpm “green” drive in hopes of simplifying their product line? Or will they continue on with no competition? The transition from USB 2 two USB 3 is well under way, and consumers will likely notice the difference in performance. Perhaps we have finally seen the and of 5400 rpm drives.

Stephen’s Stance

Increasing hard disk drive density always brought better performance, and Seagate’s use of faster spindle speed will help as well. My only concern is the increased heat generated by these new drives: My GoFlex Desk drives are definitely hot to the touch when in use. But the availability of 3 TB drives is to be welcomed at this price point.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | No More Green Drives from Seagate
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Hard disk drive capacity continues to increase at breakneck speed

Earlier this week, Hitachi GST (soon to be part of Western Digital) announced they would soon ship a 1 TB single-platter hard disk drive. But archrival Seagate rained on their parade financing immediate shipment of their own 4 TB unit. With the industry consolidating rapidly, it’s good to see healthy competition among the two remaining hard disk drive giants.

Seagate’s 4 TB GoFlex Desk

The 4 TB GoFlex Desk sets a new capacity record for hard disk drives

I’ve been quite impressed by Seagate’s GoFlex family of hard disk drives, and have bought quite a few for my own personal use. I love being able to mix and match interfaces based on immediate needs: I snap on a FireWire dock for bulk transfers from my Mac, then hand off the drive with a USB dock for maximum compatibility.

Seagate has been quite aggressive in pricing their GoFlex drives as well. I recently picked up a pair of 3 TB GoFlex Desk drives at Best Buy for under $140 each. The idea that I could buy 6 TB of capacity for under $300 is really mind blowing!

Now Seagate has announced immediate shipment of the highest capacity drive yet. The 4 TB GoFlex Desk drive will be available for a suggested retail price of $249.99, and will likely drop quickly below.

Hitachi GST’s 1 TB Deskstar 7K1000.D

Hitachi GST's Deskstar 7K1000 line packs 1 TB on a single platter

A few days before this, Hitachi GST announced that they would soon ship a single platter 1 TB hard disk drive, the Deskstar 7K1000.D. This marks the first time any hard disk drive company has been able to squeeze a terabyte onto a single 3.5 inch platter, and suggests that Hitachi may soon introduce a 4 TB four platter hard disk drive of their own.

Increasing areal density is a constant trend in the storage industry, but it is important since performance and thermal efficiency are driven by it. A four platter 4 TB hard disk drive will have somewhat faster sequential access performance than a less dense drive and will run cooler as well.

Stephen’s Stance

This is really an amazing capacity point, but Seagate’s method and timing is a little suspect. The company reached the 4 TB mark by packing five 800 GB hard disk platters into a single drive. Considering how hot my GoFlex Desk drives run, I’m somewhat concerned by this. Clearly, Seagate took a shortcut so they could jump ahead of Western Digital/Hitachi GST in claiming to be the first to ship a 4 TB hard disk drive, but it’s likely that a family of 1 TB per platter Seagate drives will be released shortly as well. So goes the march of progress!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Seagate Jumps Hitachi’s Density Record With 4 TB Hard Disk Announcement
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 3 TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive STAC3000101

The other day, I bought 6 TB of storage for under $300. This statement alone is startling to folks like me who have been following the storage and hard disk drive industry, but there is another fact that is more difficult to swallow: It will take days to copy data to these huge 3 TB drives, since the USB interface on each Seagate GoFlex Desk drive is good for just 30 MB/s on Apple Macintosh computers. Searching for a faster alternative led me to crack open the case and experiment with the drive inside.

Introducing the GoFlex Desk

You should read Lemons Into Lemonade: Seagate Repackages SATA As GoFlex before you continue…

I purchased two 3 TB Seagate GoFlex Desk drives from a local retailer for just $139 each. This is an amazingly cheap way to get 6 TB of storage!

My goal is to back up all of my Tech Field Day video to the two drives, using rsync to ensure that each contains a full exact copy of the video data folders. I’ll then store one off-site in a fireproof box for extra protection.

I selected the Seagate GoFlex Desk based on my good experience with their portable line of GoFlex drives. I liked the idea that the drives can be connected to a faster interface (FireWire 800, for example) for filling and then use a slower, cheaper one (USB 2.0) to read the data later or in another location.

The capacity of these drives is simply astonishing, but I question the design. The drive sits in a sealed plastic box with little ventilation, and it got hot to the touch during active use. The interchangeable docks are great, but I was disappointed that the FireWire dock has just a single port – I couldn’t daisy-chain FireWire off my iMac for data transfer, so I was stuck with USB 2.0.

Opening The Case

You might also want to read How To Add An eSATA Port To An Intel iMac

I decided to try connecting the drive to another interface for the copy operation. I had an eSATA dock handy, and my iMac has a DIY eSATA port, but this required removing the drive from its plastic container. Here’s how I accomplished that task.

Note that this likely voids the warranty on the drive, and I found that it did not function properly anyway. More on that later, though.

Step 1: Crack the Case

First, we must crack open the plastic case. The case splits in half along the seams, as one might assume. To locate the top, place the drive flat on a table with the GoFlex (SATA) port on the bottom. We will be removing the top of the case from this perspective.

Using a broad, flat spudger or putty knife, press firmly at the top of the seam in the case to release the clips inside. You have to press very firmly, but the clips will give way one by one.

The clips are more visible in the image above.  Repeat the process on the other side, and pry apart the ends.

Remove the Drive

Now that we have the plastic case open, we can remove the hard disk drive itself from the inner steel case.

Although the drive appears to be easy to remove, it is bolted into a three-sided steel case. Pull it free from the plastic case and we can begin to extract it.

Pry off the rubber bumpers or feet you see and you will discover a screw beneath each one. Unscrew all four and you can extract the hard disk drive itself.

Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001

Turns out this was one of Seagate’s new Barracuda drives! See No More Green Drives from Seagate for more info!

Inside my 3 TB GoFlex Desk I found a Seagate Barracuda drive, presumably a 7200 rpm Barracuda XT. But the disk, model ST3000DM001, is not listed on Seagate’s web site. I presume it’s a special OEM drive not intended for consumer use apart from the GoFlex system.

Surprisingly, this apparently is not an Advanced Format (4K sector) drive. It reported 512 KB sectors. More interestingly, although I reformatted it with GPT, the drive itself appeared to be have MBR format, something that shouldn’t work with a 3 TB drive. Seagate is doing some special mojo here.

This meant that the drive did not function correctly when directly connected with SATA. Though I probably could have reformatted it fresh, it would probably not work with the GoFlex dock then. It also did not function with the portable GoFlex adapter, and just attempting this required a complex cabling setup between that adapter and the drive since it requires more power than USB can deliver.

Stephen’s Stance

Buying 3 TB of storage for less than $150 is a modern miracle, and I’m happy with these drives as purchased. But cracking them open isn’t all that worthwhile, since the format requires the GoFlex Dock adapter. I could wipe them entirely, of course, but that defeats my intended use. So I repacked the drive in its plastic box and will rely on the official connectivity method.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | How To Open a Seagate GoFlex Desk Hard Disk Drive Case
This post was categorized as Apple, 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 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.

The Iomega StorCenter PX4 is both an evolution of the older IX4 and the start of a new line of business-focused devices

Iomega today announced a new line of small desktop and rackmount storage devices. The PX Series addresses many of the limitations of the IX line, bringing high-performance CPUs, SSD, “bring your own drive” options, and “personal cloud” data protection. But the PX will not replace the recently-refreshed IX; instead, it segments the market between home office (IX) and small business (PX).

A Look Back At the IX

I have been ambivalent about Iomega’s IX line of StorCenter devices since they appeared in 2009. Although they bring impressive features like iSCSI and multimedia at a low cost, devices like the ix4-200d in my lab left me wanting more. This was especially true in the area of performance, where the 4-drive ix4 delivered a mediocre 25-30 MB/s of iSCSI throughput in my testing.

The core issue for the ix4 was its reliance of an under-powered embedded CPU and modest 512 MB of integrated DRAM. It was nice to have a sub-$1000 iSCSI array for VMware ESX and Microsoft Windows Server testing, but there was no way I would deploy it in a production business environment. The performance issue was addressed with the ix12-200r, but it came at a steeper price and that rack-mount device was not intended for use outside the data center.

Another concern about the IX was its dizzying set of features. One got the feeling that EMC’s engineers were given free rein when adding features to the StorCenter’s “LifeLine” platform, and the result was something of a mess. This improved with each successive release, but the IX feels like a servant of too many masters: Is it a home multimedia device, a security server, an office file server, or an iSCSI target for virtualization?

PX: A New Level of Performance?

The PX changes everything, or appears to at least. Clearly aimed at the small business and remote office market, the PX promises an enterprise feature set and the horsepower needed to deliver serious performance.

		PX4-300d	PX6-300d	PX4-300r
Form Factor		Desktop		Rack-Mount
Disk Slots		4	6	4
CPU		Intel Atom D525		Intel Celeron
RAM		2 GB SO-DIMM

Let’s start with the brain. All StorCenter PX devices include a dual-core Intel CPU: An Atom D525 in the PX4 and PX6 desktop models and a Celeron multi-core in the rack-mount PX4. All three models also feature 2 GB of RAM, and SSD can be used for high-performance applications. The StorCenter operating system should perform much better on this platform, which is reminiscent of the existing ix12 array. Expect that device to be refreshed shortly with SSD support and perhaps a Sandy Bridge CPU.

The new devices have been completely redesigned mechanically. The PX4 is similar in total volume to the IX4, though it appears smaller since it is taller and skinnier. The PX6 is a veritable tower, while the rack-mount PX4 has a conventional look but adds an optional swappable power supply and redundant fans for datacenter use.

Flexible Drive Options

Iomega has added "bring your own drive" capability to the PX line

There are three firsts in terms of drive support:

1. Iomega has added a “bring your own drive” (BYOD) option, allowing end users to buy an empty or partially-populated PX device and add supported drives in the future. The software does not support dissimilar drives as flexibly as some competitors, but this lowers the price point substantially.
2. The PX Series supports solid state drives (SSDs), as we will discuss in a moment.
3. Finally, the included drive carriers now support 2.5-inch drives, though capacity and price points make this less interesting except when it comes to SSDs.

This is a big step forward for Iomega, who has long required their own drives to be used in these devices. Iomega will ship 1, 2, and 3 TB Hitachi 7200 rpm Deskstar drives at first, but may add other options in the future. I expect a low-power “green” drive from Seagate or Western Digital.

The PX Series approved vendor list (AVL) includes many popular options, including the Hitachi Deskstar, Seagate Barracuda (including the LP line) and Western Digital Caviar and Green. The company has created an area in their support forums for customers to discuss other drive options, though only AVL-listed drives are supported. Since many of these drives are 4K natively, the PX Series should have no trouble with the shift to Advanced Format.

SSD Ahoy!

The introduction of solid state disk (SSD) storage is a major step forward. Iomega will use the excellent Micron C400 (aka Crucial M4) SSD in 128 or 256 GB capacity points. These  are installed in pairs and will typically be used as a RAID 1 mirror for performance-sensitive data. The best application for the SSD, therefore, is the 6-bay PX6-300d, along with a 4-disk RAID 5 set.

There is no automated storage tiering or SSD caching in the Iomega PX series. Administrators simply create RAID sets, LUNs, and shares on SSD or HDD and manually place data there based on need. It is possible to leverage the StorCenter’s included “copy job” functionality to create a rudimentary tiering system, but it seems likely that most users will rely on manual data placement.

It will be interesting to see what the combination of the dual-core 1.8 GHz Atom CPU and C400 SSD will offer in terms of performance. This represents a “maximum speed” configuration for the Iomega device and will likely set a new benchmark in the segment. Although just two Gigabit Ethernet ports are available for connectivity (no 10 GbE or USB 3.0), iSCSI and NFS performance should be very respectable. Iomega tells me they will be demonstrating a VMware VDI “boot storm” scenario using a PX6 with SSDs at EMC World next week.

Updated Software

Beyond the hardware, Iomega has revved the LifeLine software stack for performance, features, and integration. Iomega previewed many of these updates in the “Cloud Edition” versions of the IX2 and IX2 products earlier this year. This includes a cleaner interface as well as “Personal Cloud” software for SOHO or small business users.

The Personal Cloud is pretty clever, allowing different devices (StorCenter, IX Cloud, PX, PC and Mac) to share data using a peer-to-peer architecture. Desktop users experience Personal Cloud similar to Dropbox, using Explorer or Finder to mount a volume for drag and drop copies. This Iomega technology can be accessed remotely or scripted for data distribution between locations.

Owners of older Iomega IX devices can’t officially upgrade to Personal Cloud, but I’m told it is possible. Call the support team and ask for help. Sadly, this upgrade is destructive to data, so back up first!

One important change (necessitated by the BYOD option) is that the LifeLine operating system image is stored in (and executed from) flash rather than on the disks. The iSCSI stack finally supports SCSI-3 persistent reservations and trusted domains for clustering, and Iomega also promise that the updated iSCSI target software performs better with simultaneous file and block traffic.

Pricing and Availability

The PX Series is shipping to resellers now, and will be in end-user hands next week. Pricing is up from previous offerings, but still reasonable, especially in BYOD configurations. CDW has an exclusive on the pre-populated models, but others will sell BYOD versions (and the pre-populated arrays after 30 days).

Iomega will continue to sell the IX lineup for SOHO users but will focus on the PX for business and server use cases.

Stephen’s Stance

The StorCenter PX line is a major step forward for Iomega. The BYOD option is welcome, as is SSD performance and improved specs. With official Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Windows Server, and VMware ESX support, the PX is finally up to the task of business computing. We look forward to putting these new devices through their paces in the future!

Strategically, it makes sense for Iomega to segment their “network storage” offerings into the home/home office-oriented IX line and business-focused PX series. I would prefer even stronger differentiation and perhaps the elimination of home media features from the PX line. It pains me to mention it, but perhaps the IX no longer needs iSCSI support, since it was so woefully underpowered and unable to deliver on the promise of block storage. At least these features should be de-emphasized since they don’t appeal to the intended audience of the products.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Iomega StorCenter PX Series Preview
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Features, 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.

CalDigit USB 3.0 PCI Express Card Review

I recommend the CalDigit PCI Express card for Mac Pro users with a need for (storage) speed!

No, Apple didn’t send me a sneak peak at some new hardware. My USB 3.0 experience comes courtesy of CalDigit, who sent me their Mac OS X-compatible USB 3.0 PCI Express card for evaluation. I’m pleased as punch with the card and software drivers they delivered, and it makes me crazy that this isn’t included by default in Mac Pro desktops, let alone the new MacBook Pros to be introduced tomorrow.

The CalDigit USB 3.0 adapter is a PCI Express card intended for use in a Mac Pro. A graphic artist friend of mine was kind enough to let me use his very-expensive Apple workstation for testing, and was so impressed that he turned around and ordered a CalDigit card for himself. Installation is a snap – just open the Mac Pro, unscrew the retainer above the PCI Express slots, slide the card in place, and screw everything back together. (Side note: I love Apple’s tower case design!)

I didn’t see a 4-pin mini floppy power connector inside the Mac Pro case, but the CalDigit card does include a compatible header. This would give the ports more power than they can draw from the PCI Express bus itself, but I didn’t see the need. Using only the PCI Express bus, I was able to spin up and use every USB bus-powered drive I tried with no issues.

Installing the software was a snap, too. CalDigit’s driver appears to be locked to only their card (I tried it with a variety of other USB 3.0 cards with no success) but it did support every USB 3.0 drive I tried. This is in stark contrast to the LaCie USB 3.0 driver which only talks to LaCie drives! Specifically, I connected two different Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0 drives, a generic USB 3.0-to-SATA adapter, and Iomega’s screaming-fast USB 3.0 SSD. Every one was instantly available to Mac OS X and visibly out-performed FireWire and USB 2.0.

Real-World Tests

Since this was not my own machine, I was not able to perform my usual benchmarks. But I did test some copy operations, experimenting with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 and 800 connections. The 1 TB Seagate GoFlex drive pushed over 100 MB/s when using the CalDigit USB 3.0 card, according to my iPhone stopwatch, but were limited to about 45 MB/s and 30 MB/s when using FireWire 400 and USB 2.0, respectively. I had previously tested this drive using eSATA on my iMac and found it topped out at about 110 MB/s, so the drive itself appears to be the bottleneck when using USB 3.0.

Swapping in the Iomega USB 3.0 SSD was eye-opening. This drive proved to be blazing fast in my tests earlier in the week, topping 200 MB/s in both read and write operations when connected to my Asus Cougar Point motherboard running Windows 7. I wasn’t able to perform adequate benchmarks with the Iomega, but my stopwatch showed it accelerating past the GoFlex and easily pushing 150 MB/s or more. I wouldn’t doubt that the CalDigit card is capable of 200 MB/s with an appropriate storage device.

The CalDigit controller lagged in writes, but performance was still impressive

The story was somewhat different under Windows. My instrumented tests (using Atto Disk Benchmark in Windows 7) showed a curious slowdown in write operations compared to the ASMedia USB 3.0 controller selected by Asus for my P8H67-M Pro motherboard. The CalDigit card and drivers matched the ASMedia at over 200 MB/s in read operations to the Iomega SSD, but lagged behind at 150 MB/s when it came to writes. I wonder if perhaps Mac-oriented CalDigit did not optimize their Windows 7 drivers for this card. Of course, 150 MB/s is still more than four times faster than USB 2.0, and I would never have noticed this if I was only using a hard disk drive!

Stephen’s Stance

If you own a Mac Pro, there is no need to wait for Apple to release USB 3.0 hardware and software. I can unreservedly recommend the CalDigit USB 3.0 PCI Express card for Mac Pro owners. The performance and ease of use is well worth the $79 MSRP. With so many external storage vendors rapidly switching to USB 3.0, the days of FireWire 800 being top dog in Mac performance are over. I’d love to connect the new USB 3.0-equipped Drobo S to this card!

CalDigit promised to send me an ExpressCard USB 3.0 adapter to try in my MacBook Pro as soon as they refresh their stock. I’m eager to try it out, since I’ve noted less-thrilling performance in the other USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapters I have tried. Those maxed out at around 110 MB/s in my Dell XPS/Windows 7 laptop, suggesting serious performance limits for the ExpressCard form factor. I am curious to see how the MacBook Pro performs in comparison.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | USB 3.0 For Mac Is Here!
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.