Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" is coming, and it's bringing a few storage features to the table

Apple’s not an enterprise company or a storage company. In fact, they’re rapidly jettisoning both – consider the sad fate of the Xserve RAID. But Apple does have enterprise features and storage features in their operating systems. And Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” is a great case in point. From Versions to Time Machine Local Snapshots to AirDrop, Lion brings some storage love, and iCloud’s Storage API could be game-changing. Let’s look at what’s new and key in terms of storage in the latest version of Mac OS X.

New and Updated Storage Features in Lion

Lion is strong on consumer-oriented features, of course. And Apple is leading the industry in pushing user-friendly storage features for data protection and sharing. OS features like Core Data incremental storage enable Auto Save and Versions, Time Machine gets local snapshots, and FileVault is updated into a whole-disk encryption (WDE) tool.

Update: Probably the most important storage feature, CoreStorage, went un-covered! Read more at Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)

Auto Save, Versions, and Resume

AutoSave and Versions leverage advances in HFS+ and a new Core API

Like iOS, Lion enhances the “back where you were” nature of computing with Auto Save, Versions, and system Resume. These completely change the end-user computing experience: Applications don’t have temporal “use once” interfaces but have lasting, historical state. And the ability to move through time (à la Time Machine)

Of course, lots of applications have had auto-save in the past. But Lion adds OS-level interfaces and APIs to enable applications to save data in a standard way. And these will be integrated with Resume (see below) for a very iOS-like experience.

Lion enables all this by enhancing the old, familiar HFS+ filesystem with Core Data incremental storage, a snapshot-like interface to save and recover multiple point-in-time instances of a single document. This is a delta differencing system, probably on a block level, in the filesystem.

Versions are accessed through the title bar document name, as well as a Time Machine-like interface in some applications. Applications can open up multiple versions of the same document at once, and you can cut and paste between them.

Resume is very cool. Applications using the new Lion APIs can save their state, even through reboots! This is what computers should have always done, but no one ever implemented it. Why should a reboot wipe out where you were last? Although not really a storage feature, resume relies on Auto Save and new APIs to store application state.

Time Machine Local Snapshots

Time Machine in Mac OS X "Lion" includes local snapshots as well as storage of backups on external disks

See also Local Snapshots in Mac OS X Lion Time Machine: Is It A Good Idea?

And speaking of Time Machine, it’s been enhanced with Local Snapshots, a mechanism for storing data on the local drive in addition to an external Time Machine drive. The Time Machine interface combines local snapshots and the backup drive or Time Capsule into a single timeline when browsing.

This appears to use Core Data incremental storage as well, though it’s not definite. And it’s unclear how local snapshots will interact with Versions.

AirDrop

See also Snooping on AirDrop in Apple’s Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”

AirDrop is a new wireless file sharing protocol. Although it smacks of Wi-Fi Direct or Bluetooth, it’s neither. Instead, AirDrop is a newly-developed proprietary mechanism of sharing data between two Macs over a Wi-Fi link. It’ll be speedy and simple but incompatible with the vast majority of systems out there.

FileVault 2

Face it, FileVault was little-used and unfriendly. That’s all changed with FileVault 2 in Lion. It’s encryption done right and might just push average Apple users to protect their data. Kind of like what Time Machine did for backup. That’s a good thing.

What’s new in FileVault 2?

• Full-disk encryption, rather than an image-based hack.
• Encrypt in place, in the background, while you work. No more waiting and losing your computer for hours or days while encryption is installed. And the encryption process will resume even after a reboot (or two)!
• Encrypt external drives, too. Very sweet, especially for Time Machine backups!
• Remote wipe service, probably through iCloud
• XTS-AES 128 support

FileVault 2 is full-disk only, but supports multiple users (each with their own encrypted home area) by storing the full-disk key in each user’s keychain. They access it by using their login password, just like they always did. Apple will offer an option to store the encryption key in iCloud, but this does not appear to be the default condition.

Of course, users with poor passwords, or those vulnerable to social engineering, will still be vulnerable. But some encryption beats no encryption any day! Lion uses the login window for sleep and screen savers, so FileVault 2 protects in those states as well.

NFSv4

Lion adds support for NFS version 4, which is a welcome update. But it doesn’t appear to support version 4.1, or parallel NFS.

SMB with DFS

DFS is a technology in Microsoft Windows that virtualizes file server shares, improving flexibility. Lion’s SMB client supports DFS when connecting to Windows file servers.

Xsan Built In

Mac OS X Server will now be an optional extra to add to the standard Lion install, rather than a separate SKU. Part of this shift is the integration of Xsan, Apple’s OEM version of Quantum’s StorNext SAN file system. Xsan has been quite popular in the media space on client machines, and it appears that it does not require a Server license.

Xsan also gets case-insensitive volumes, which brings it more in line with the expectations of users used to HFS+. Finally, Lion gets ALUA-compatible multipathing, supporting a wide variety of storage arrays.

Probable: TRIM Support for SSDs

Apple enabled TRIM in certain versions of 10.6 “Snow Leopard”, but it only supported their OEM SSDs. Lion probably gets a fully-supported TRIM implementation that works with any SSD with TRIM, though this was not mentioned at WWDC or online. This is a welcome update, and one too-long in coming!

Stephen’s Stance

Mac OS X “Lion” doesn’t give storage folks much, but it could be a harbinger of massive changes. Although not part of Lion per se, the iCloud Storage API will likely see much use by application developers. But even Lion’s smaller storage feature list is welcome. Simple full-disk encryption in FileVault and Core Data incremental storage are promising. Let’s just hope TRIM comes along for the ride!

On the enterprise side of things, Lion is improving as a storage client with NFSv4, DFS, and Xsan built in. But there’s no mention of an iSCSI client, suggesting that project is dead. Thank goodness for Studio Network Solutions! And we’re still stuck with HFS+, suggesting the ZFS transition is off the table, too. Too bad – Versions and FileVault would have been much easier to implement on ZFS!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Key Storage Features in Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• My items:
  • How To Get People To Share Your Tweets, Blog Posts, and Updates
  • The Four Horsemen of Storage System Performance: I/O As a Chain of Bottlenecks
  • From CAS to Cloud: Revolutionary Storage
  • Niketown588: Coffee With Thomas Episode 12 – The Founder of Gestalt IT
• Enterprise IT:
  • The end of RAID
  • Flexible IT and the Path to the Services Future
  • The State of Statelessness: Cisco UCS vs. HP Virtual Connect
  • Microsoft FY11Q1 Results
  • Toward A Faster Web: Increase the Speed of Light
  • What version of SMB2 am I using on my Windows file server?
• Consumer tech:
  • Can I Get an ‘Hallelujah’ for Auto-Completion With the Esc and F5 Keys?

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

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, October 29, 2010
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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

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

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

Common Carriers

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

Bring-Your-Own-Drive

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

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

Large Array = Carriers?

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

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

Stephen’s Stance

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

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

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

Fear

Back when I used to teach the “Storage 101″ session at Storage Decisions, I was consistently amazed to find little awareness of enterprise NAS systems. People complained about LUNs and Fibre Channel but when I suggested using NFS or SMB their heads almost exploded. “We would never use that for application storage,” they shouted. “File servers are for home directories, not data center stuff!” Clearly, NAS faces an uphill battle.

In a recent piece I wrote, I referred to what I consider to be the prime best practice: Use the right tool for the job. It’s a simple statement, and one that resonates beyond IT and the technology world. But it can be devilishly difficult to see what the right tool is sometimes. Why not use NAS for virtual machine storage? NetApp has been beating that drum for years, yet NAS has a very small footprint in VMware. How about databases on NFS? Exchange over SMB? Block storage has a massive lead over NAS in all of these areas.

Rear this “best practices” piece, Use Process Solutions For Process Problems, Technical Solutions For Technical Ones

IT folks seem downright fearful of file-level storage protocols. Has NFS really burned them that badly over the decades? Can SMB/CIFS really be as bad as they think?

Loathing

I wonder if this terror has more to do with the products people have used than the fundamental concept of file services. Many NAS servers (and clients) are barely functional. Sadly, NFS and SMB are easy to get 80% right, but the 20% corner case interaction takes decades to overcome. My daily storage consulting work exposes me to a myriad of NAS configurations, and few of the multi-platform combinations end well.

Note: Although it has long been known by a variety of names, the Windows NAS protocol is currently called Server Message Block or SMB. Common Internet File System (CIFS) was a failed mid-1990′s attempt by Microsoft to make this protocol standard on the Internet.

Consider the Mac. Apple added an SMB client to OS X in 2001 but, despite many updates, it is far from reliable. Mac users in general loathe connecting to Windows file servers, and business users have located numerous bugs in the handling of Mac-specific file types. It’s bad enough that one company, GroupLogic, created an entire AFP server for Windows just to solve these tricky issues.

This situation often happens in reverse, too. Windows admins are justifiably cautious when deploying non-Windows SMB servers, whether software (Samba, Novell, etc) or system (NetApp, Celerra, BlueArc, etc). As a very early NetApp user, I watched their CIFS/SMB server evolve over a decade and a half into a fairly robust solution, but the early years were downright painful.

Lest you throw rocks at Redmond, know that SMB is not alone with functionality problems. The interoperability of NFS servers and clients is a bit better thanks to open(ish) standards and open source implementations, but its reputation is just as bad. And Apple’s proprietary AFP protocol is downright notorious.

I’ve been there myself many times. I tried to set up a home server based on open source software (Linux, FreeBSD, Samba, Netatalk, etc) but rejected it outright after many frustrating years. Today I use a Mac Mini for file sharing in OS X and serving iTunes music and movies (goodbye, Firefly!) And years of fighting with Samba in enterprise environments taught me two things: It’s possible to get it running well with Windows clients but it’s astonishingly easy to get it wrong.

Enterprise NAS?

We all know that interoperability is devilishly difficult. I don’t envy the NetApp and EMC engineers that have to tweak and tune their server for every possible client, bugs and all. And I am impressed that, after probably millions of man-hours of work, they were able to come up with something stable for a subset of use cases. But this just makes me even more cautious about third-party NAS servers.

I talk to storage vendors all the time, and many of their new products support NFS and SMB. But my internal alarms start going off when I hear about these products. There are two simple reasons for this:

1. As mentioned above, NAS is rare in primary data center applications. It may be common for user files (euphemistically called “unstructured data”) and certain distributed applications (simulation, rendering, etc), but most use cases still call for block SCSI (FC/iSCSI) storage.
2. As further mentioned, getting NAS right takes a massive amount of effort. New and small vendors tend to slap Samba on their (Linux-based) box and call it a day. This is very, very far from being sufficient for enterprise use.

This is why I usually ignore NAS functionality in storage systems except for long-tenured and deep-pocketed vendors. Although the world is turning to “Unified Storage” and multi-protocol support, I’m focusing primarily on block (SCSI) and cloud (REST) capability because the former has proven somewhat easier than NAS to get working and the latter is both simple and “green field” with no legacy concerns.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Why Do I Ignore NAS?
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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

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

Stepping Up

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

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

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

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

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

A Wall of Drives

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

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

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

Where to Use It?

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

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

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

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

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Iomega Graduates and Goes to Work with the ix12-300r
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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

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

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

Desktop Storage

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

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

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

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

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

“Just Right” Storage

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

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

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

Every ix4 configuration comes loaded with four hard disk drives

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

QuickTransfer: Data Synchronization for Everything

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

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

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

Iomega’s Next Move

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

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

How much does the StorCenter ix4-200d cost?

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

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

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

One of the great things about being a Microsoft MVP is the access I get to Microsoft software and staff. As I mentioned in my post about the 10 cool storage features from the 2009 Microsoft MVP Summit, I was able to preview a lot of what Microsoft is doing with their Server software and storage features. And the best part is that the Microsoft product teams are keenly interested in our feedback and suggestions. I’m told, for example, that the awesome iSCSI Quick Connect feature in the new Windows iSCSI initiator software was developed based on my feedback!

As I note on my Windows Storage Server 2008 preview on Gestalt IT, Microsoft has always kept WSS close to the vest. It’s only available to OEMs, not retail customers, and has never even been shared with TechNet or MSDN subscribers in the past. So I was really pleased when Microsoft gave the File System Storage MVPs access to a beta version of WSS 2008 so we could get a feel for all of the new features. I’ve also had some great conversations this week with the Microsoft product managers responsible for it.

What’s exciting about Windows Storage Server 2008?

1. It includes all of the storage enhancements in Windows Server 2008, including SMB 2.0 for much much faster file servicing over higher-latency links, SMfS, FSRM, enhanced VDS, and failover clustering.
2. WSS is the only way to get access to Microsoft’s iSCSI target software. It’s been improved in many ways from the prior releases, but its support for what Microsoft calls dual-active clustering is probably its most notable feature: You can’t share the same active LUN between cluster members, but each can have its own active LUNs and the can all fail over in the event that one member goes down.
3. The included single-instance storage (SIS) file-based deduplication has been much improved, scaling to 128 volumes per server and millions of files. It’s still not as effective capacity-wise as block-level deduplication (which I’d love to see, hint hint), but the performance is solid enough to use it for primary storage with production applications.
4. Probably the coolest feature exclusive to Windows Storage Server 2008 is its new browser-based remote administration capability. Just point your browser to the Storage Server machine (for example, “http://wss/desktop”) and you’ll get a full ActiveX version of RDP. Don’t use Internet Exploder? Firefox and Linux users will get a Java-based RDP instead! I will cover this feature more in the future, but let’s just say that every operating system should offer this!

Want to try Windows Storage Server for yourself? Breaking from the past, Microsoft will soon (like next week!) allow TechNet subscribers to download the full install. OEMs have a sekrit back-door site to try it out, too.

One more thing… This will be the last release of Windows Storage Server. There won’t even be a special Storage Server version of Server 2008 Service Pack 2! Starting now, Storage Server is just an optional feature of Windows Server. Purchasing and production use will still be limited to storage OEMs, but Microsoft has finally reconciled Storage Server with the rest of the Windows Server world. I imagine that most OEMs will release Service Pack 2 updates for their Storage Server customers shortly, and that future versions of the product will come closer to the base Server versions than WSS 2008. Although I can’t share what I know, I will say that Microsoft is continuing active development on their iSCSI target, single-instance storage, and other Storage Server features. I imagine that Windows Server 2008 R2 will support storage systems in the very near future!

On a personal note, reading A Brief History of Windows Storage Server Releases from the Microsoft Storage Server blog reminded me of the original unveiling of Windows Storage Server at Storage Decisions Chicago in June, 2003. The company loaded us all on one of those lake cruise boats with some celebrity impersonators, chocolate “Oscar”-style statues, an open bar, and a band. Good times ensued!

For more details, check out my Gestalt IT piece, Windows Storage Server-Based Systems Step Into 2008

Microsoft is detailing the new version of Windows Storage Server 2008 in a webcast Thursday at 8 AM Pacific. You should also check out the Microsoft Storage Server blog.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | I Can Finally Talk About Windows Storage Server 2008!
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

So let me sum up:

1. Server Message Block (SMB) 2.0 is probably the biggest news.  Microsoft re-worked this protocol for Vista and 2008 to reduce chattiness, combine multiple commands in a single packet, and allow larger packets.  This should improve performance for just about everyone, but is only in those two operating systems right now.
2. The excellent multi-path I/O (MPIO) driver from Microsoft is also included right out of the box, including device-specific modules for both iSCSI and Fibre Channel.  This is the first version of Windows to come with MPIO, though it’s available with the iSCSI initiator and OEM drivers for other versions.
3. As in Vista, Server 2008 allows you to shrink NTFS filesystems on the fly.  It’s not quite as flexible or forgiving as some third-party tools, but it’s certainly easy to use!  Just go into the disk administrator snap-in and try it for yourself.
4. Windows finally has the option to leave new LUNs alone instead of trying to mount them.  This was one of those things that gave Windows a rep as a bad neighbor in SAN environments.
5. NTBackup is gone, replaced by a new Server Backup MMC snap-in.  I haven’t tried it, but I hope it’s better than the one that comes in Vista!  I ended up keeping NTBackup around on my laptop…
6. A new MMC snap-in called Storage Explorer lets you manage WMI-compliant SAN devices.
7. The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and DFS interfaces are improved and are now scriptable.
8. Server 2008 now automatically aligns filesystem boundaries with storage, which was one of those dark and secret skills us storage guys used to share amongst ourselves.  This can increase performance in high-I/O environments.
9. NTFS (in both Server 2008 and Vista) now has symbolic link support, just like UNIX and Mac OS X.  Note that this got mangled in the TechTarget article.
10. NTFS was also tuned and tweaked a bit for better stability and crash recovery.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Windows Server 2008 Changes Storage
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.