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.

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.

A timely question from a comment on my cheap Momentus XT post and continued in my inbox:

How well does [the Momentus XT] perform in a Mac laptop? What I’ve noticed is substantial slow-down on my older MB Pro when there’s a lot of virtual memory usage (e.g. when running several apps plus Parallels.) For my next MBP (hopefully in the next 2-3 months), I’m considering 2 options:

1. Buy [the 500 GB Momentus XT] hybrid drive now, put it into my 1st gen MB Pro, and then move it to a new MB Pro when the boss lets me buy one.
2. When I get the new MB Pro, replace its hard drive with a 128 GB SSD, and put the rotating drive into an external (FW800) enclosure.  I’ve been tracking my disk utilization, and I figure I can live pretty comfortably within 128gb most of the time, as long as I have storage to move stuff I want to keep around but don’t use every day (e.g. mail archives, my iTunes stuff which I only use on the road, etc)

The interesting thing is these options are just about the same price, not counting the external drive enclosure.

I’ve had the Seagate 500 GB 7200 rpm drive in this (2.33 Core 2 Duo, 2005 vintage) laptop for a couple years now.  The fans kick in whenever anything disk-intensive goes on (e.g. mobile account rsync) and that is much more likely to happen when it uses more than 512 MB swap.

The current laptop is maxed out at 3 GB, the new one WILL have a full 8 GB, which should be a big help in reducing/eliminating swapping.

Weighing The Alternatives

It sounds like you’re looking at things the right way: Focused on lower cost and greater benefit without getting taken in by the coolness of SSDs or hybrid drives. And you’re also bringing up a key usability consideration: That external drive enclosure. So let’s weigh the merits.

How Does The Momentus XT Really Perform?

The Momentus XT is a nice compromise between "spinning disk" capacity and SSD performance with an emphasis on low cost

It’s really hard to benchmark a hybrid drive like the Momentus XT. An integrated hybrid drive, the Seagate includes an on-disk controller that attempts to keep its 4 GB of SLC flash memory full of the data you’re likely to ask for. So it’s always trying actively to predict what you’ll need and move that data between disk and flash. This is very different from an SSD, which always uses flash, or a hard disk drive, which mostly relies on the spinning disk for performance.

Most benchmarks are designed to hammer on the underlying storage media, actively bypassing cache. This really causes issues for the Momentus XT in benchmarks like Iometer. The best test of this drive I’ve seen is over at Storage Review, since it includes underwhelming Iometer tests and more-impressive Storagemark results. If you only looked at synthetic tests like Iometer, you’d think the Momentus XT was worthless. But the “workload trace” tests of Storagemark have it outperforming the 10,000 rpm Western Digital VelociRaptor!

The reality is somewhere in the middle: My friends Robin and Howard have both used a Momentus XT in their MacBook Pro, and were happy with its performance. They tell me the Momentus XT makes their computers feel much faster. But another friend, Greg, reports some serious issues with Windows crashing and an odd noise from the drive. Maybe it’s more stable in a Mac than a PC?

In my opinion, the Momentus XT is a nice compromise between “spinning disk” capacity and SSD performance with an emphasis on low cost. If I was going to upgrade my internal hard disk drive today, I’d buy a Momentus XT in a second. After all, I’m using a Mac and the additional cost is negligible. Plus, I tend to carry lots of data around – mainly video files for Final Cut. This last is the reason I haven’t “gone hybrid” myself: I already installed a 640 GB Toshiba drive!

What Are The “All-SSD” Tradeoffs?

The other option is to go all SSD, and this is what most computer vendors (including Apple) have selected for their high-end machines. Flash SSD technology keeps improving, giving better performance and a more-favorable cost/capacity balance. I don’t think 128 GB SSDs are yet available for the same $120 that gets you a Momentus XT, but that would get you the well-regarded 60 GB OCZ Vertex 2. A 128 GB SSD is likely to cost almost $250, changing the economic argument somewhat.

Capacity, performance, or low cost: Pick two!

Just about any SSD you pick will absolutely destroy the Momentus XT in both benchmark and real-world performance, but you’d never come close to the hybrid drive’s capacity without doubling the cost of the MacBook with a Kingston V+Series 512 GB device.

This is the SSD curse: Make do with less capacity and more performance or spend an arm and a leg.

Is SSD+HDD An Option?

Then there is the alternate path you suggest: Use both a hard disk drive and an SSD. There are two options here:

1. Replace the laptop’s optical drive with a hard disk drive using an adapter like the $99 MCE OptiBay
2. Use an external FireWire or USB drive, or repurpose your drive using a case

That second choice might not be an option for everyone. Do you really want to lug around a portable hard drive and cable? Do you want to connect it if you’re on a plane or in a meeting? Then there’s the fact that Macs don’t yet have native USB 3.0 or eSATA, so you’re looking at a maximum of 70 MB/s from a FireWire 800 port.

Either way, you’re talking about manually deciding which data resides on the SSD and which goes on the hard disk drive. Since Mac OS X is not nearly as friendly as Windows about using multiple drives, you’re certain to waste some of that expensive SSD capacity on rarely-used data. That’s fine, it just drives up the cost of the SSD+HDD combination.

One caution regarding SSDs in Apple machines: Mac OS X does not support TRIM, so ordinary SSDs will run into serious performance issues once they start filling up. You need a very aggressive SSD controller to maintain the awesome speed you start with. Something like the Kingston V+100 which uses the latest Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller with the updated firmware Apple uses in the MacBook Air.

Stephen’s Stance

I would never want to rely on an external hard disk drive solution, I need too much storage, and I’m too cheap to buy an OptiBay, let alone a decent-sized SSD. If I was in your shoes, I’d have just two options:

1. Spend $120 and get the Momentus XT for pretty-good performance and single-disk capacity
2. Spend $130 and get the 60 GB OCZ Vertex 2 for awesome performance and hack together some kind of OptiBay alternative

Although the second choice sounds like fun, it’s not a great idea in a laptop. I’m also not too good at manually managing data and would rather have something do it for me. This is why I’m so keen on the Momentus XT!

Given your circumstances, I suggest getting the Momentus XT now for your current laptop and seeing how you like it. If it doesn’t give you the performance you want, you can always go the SSD route with the new MacBook Pro and cry over the you $20 you wasted buying a hybrid rather than a regular 7200 rpm 500 GB drive. For what it’s worth, Apple currently charges $300 extra for a 128 GB SSD.

One word of caution, though: You mention that one of the main causes of performance issues for you is excessive swapping from virtual machines. This is a real red flag performance-wise. The Momentus XT has only 4 GB of flash, and your swapping VMs are going to eat that up, leaving none to accelerate other functions. You might find that the hybrid is even slower than a regular drive in this use case, since the controller would constantly be juggling gigabytes of data between flash and disk. An SSD will do much better with VM swapping, but if you’re not using TRIM you’re going to hit a wall sooner or later. The only real solution for a Mac user is to max out the RAM rather than trying to monkey with faster storage.

A Reader Talks Back

Here’s the opinion of a reader who upgraded his MacBook Pro to use the Momentus XT:

“To follow up on our previous discussion, I decided to buy the hybrid Momentus XT. It’s been in the laptop about 24 hours, and here are first impressions:

1. Getting into a pre-unibody MacBook Pro is no picnic!  I had to get a Torx #6 screwdriver and used about 6 different little containers to hold all the different kinds/sizes of screw.  And getting the top/keyboard assembly off of its clips was a struggle.
2. Right away I noticed the machine ran substantially cooler as measured by the fan speed.  The previous drive was a Seagate Momentus 500gb/7200 rpm 7200.4, and during disk intensive sessions e.g. TimeMachine backups the fans would crank up to 5000 rpm; they’d be pretty noticeable.  With the hybrid, during the same kind of backup activity, the fans have not run faster than 3200 rpm, which is comfortably below ‘notice’ sound levels.
3. The machine feels a bit faster, but Parallels definitely felt faster.  When I launched Parallels, the machine’s swap usage climbed to 2gb (on top of other stuff I run).  Before that would cause a significant hit, but with the hybrid the overall performance, and the performance inside Parallels, felt faster.

So I think this upgrade is a win if you’re considering replacing an existing drive with a 500gb/7200 rpm drive, just on the basis of reduced heat.  What remains to be seen, of course, is the reliability of this drive (I’ve had bad luck with Seagate 3.5″ drives.)”

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Are Hybrid Hard Drives A Good Alternative To An SSD?
This post was categorized as Apple, Ask a Pack Rat, Everything, 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.

It won't be long before other manufacturers adopt the new SATA SSD form factor introduced in the MacBook Air

More information about the unconventional SSD used in Apple’s new MacBook Air. As I discussed in my previous coverage of this new flash form factor, it resembles a PCI Express Mini Card but is much smaller. Toshiba has now proved my speculation that the device uses SATA signals rather than the PCI Express lane used by the similar AirPort card. We also know that the lauded performance of the device is due to its chips and controller rather than skipping SATA in favor of PCIe as some had speculated.

Toshiba Blade X-gale™ HG Series SSD

Toshiba is one of the world’s largest NAND flash manufacturers, and the company uses these chips to produce integrated solid state disks (SSDs) for OEMs. Toshiba’s SSD product offerings are divided into two lines: The mainstream SG series and the high-performance HG Series. The SG line includes standard SATA, slim SATA, and mSATA cards, the latter using the Mini-PCIe form factor. These products only promise 50 MB/s of write performance, while the HG Series can top 180 MB/s writing.

The new "Blade X-gale" SSD form factor used in the MacBook Air is part of the high-performance HG Series from Toshiba

Since the MacBook Air’s SSD is part of the third-generation HG series, its performance is much better than the SSDs used in typical netbook-class computers. NAND flash drives typically suffer during writes, but Toshiba promises sequential write performance for the HG Series of 180 MB/s, matching the read performance of their SG Series. This is almost as fast as the 3 Gbps SATA interface used!

Tiny SSDs like these can only use a few high-density flash chips, so eking out this kind of performance is doubly impressive. The “blade” form factor is about the size of a large USB flash drive and includes just four NAND chips on the top of the board. Toshiba includes both read and write cache in their controller, as well as encryption hardware which is apparently disabled by default. The device supports TRIM, even though Mac OS X does not (yet).

Toshiba offers Blade X-gale SSDs in 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB models. Apple apparently uses all three, offering the smaller pair in the 11 inch MacBook Air and the larger two in the 13 inch model. These products are not available at retail yet, and Japanese reseller PhotoFast has apparently withdrawn their GM2 SFV1 Air Upgrade Kit which used similar modules, so there’s no telling when MacBook Air owners will be able to upgrade.

The 256 GB module is 3.7 mm thick, 1.5 mm more than the 64 and 128 GB siblings. One assumes that this reflects its use of 8 NAND chips rather than 4, and this might lead to better performance as well. Speaking of dimensions, the card is actually 24 mm wide and 108.9 mm long. My previous guesses were quite a bit off.

Stephen’s Stance

This new SSD form factor is certainly intriguing. Although no standard name has been coined at this point (Toshiba’s name, “Blade X-gale,” is a trademark), we will be watching with great interest to see if it catches on. I’ll be calling it a “blade SSD” until I hear a better name.

The compact dimensions of the connector and module itself should be welcomed by tablet and portable device manufacturers, and the fact that it can carry PCI Express as well as SATA signals makes it very appealing. The next-generation NAND chips should easily double capacity within the next year, too!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Toshiba Offers “Blade” SSDs (Like Apple’s MacBook Air)
This post was categorized as Apple, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Hybrid Hard Drives: Take Two

Thar she blows! Seagate's hybrid ssd/hard disk drive is real!

The new drive family sports 4 GB of NAND flash and 32 MB of DRAM operating in tandem as a cache. It is a 2.5″ model, and since Seagate doesn’t currently produce a drive fatter than 9.5 mm one can assume it is a two-platter model and will work in most laptops. It sports a 3 Gb/s SATA interface with native command queueing (NCQ), nicely up to date but nothing special.

There are three models in the Momentus XT line, all with the same 4 GB/32 MB cache:

Unlike the previous-generation H-HDD drives, the new Seagates have fully-integrated SSD cache featuring speedy SLC chips. The dependence on the host operating system to make caching decisions was one of the things that sunk H-HDDs in the past, but this looks to be an entirely different solution. Seagate looks to have integrated the flash as an extension of the RAM cache and is using the drive’s own logic to determine what to cache and when. This will not only be more-generally applicable (not requiring a special OS) but will likely work better, since on-drive cache management has improved greatly over the years.

Stephen’s Stance

Assuming I’m right about Seagate’s fully-integrated cache architecture, this drive ought to blow away everything else on the market. The Register includes test results showing SSD-like performance for many workloads, yet this drive is half the cost and twice the capacity. It beats the 10k VelociRaptor drive in every test and will absolutely smoke any “normal” 7200 or 5400 rpm laptop drive. Feel free to exclaim “wow!” at this point.

How excited am I? How about this: Although I upgraded it just last month with a 640 GB Toshiba hard disk drive, I want a Momentus XT in my MacBook Pro. I’d rather have one of these than a straight SSD, considering the mix of performance, capacity, and price. Maybe I can move the Toshiba into an MCE Technologies OptiBay?

I will be watching this release with great interest. Word is that Seagate will officially unveil the drive in a webcast on Wednesday, May 26. I look forward to a flood of performance tests from my favorite consumer sites, and expect it will interest the enterprise guys, too (this means you, Howard!) Could hybrid drives finally be getting real?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Smoking-Fast Laptops: Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid SSD Disk Drive Confirmed!
This post was categorized as Apple, 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.

Hard disk drive makers are adding flash storage to their conventional spinning-platter drives to improve performance and are targeting the performance PC market. Wait a second, haven’t we seen this before? As Rocky eventually said to Bullwinkle, “but that trick never works!”

Flash as a Cache

Using flash memory as a disk cache is a pretty good idea. Flash has awesome random read performance and fairly good write speed (compared to a hard disk drive, at least). That’s why more and more enterprise storage vendors are adding flash as a disk cache, not just a plain tier of storage.

EMC is the latest to make the move, announcing “FAST Cache” for their midrange Clariion and Celerra enterprise storage systems last week. They join NetApp, Sun, and others already offering similar capability. Fusion-IO has been the champion PCIe flash provider, but STEC is expected to join them soon.

See my post, Is Flash A Disk Or A Cache?

Flash-as-a-cache hasn’t been as easy to roll out as flash-as-a-disk, but it promises to be more effective. An array that completely integrates flash can take advantage of its positives (fast random read, fast-ish write, low power) without stumbling over its shortcomings (big write blocks, shorter lifespan).

Flash in a Disk

Although EMC is doing the right thing by adding FAST Cache, their implementation uses disk drive form factor flash rather than the PCI cards selected by others. It may prove more-difficult to optimize the system for the characteristics of flash when one is writing through a conventional disk drive interface like Fibre Channel or SAS. Would-be flash-and-platter drives face the same issue: How do you use flash effectively when it’s abstracted from the server and presented as a conventional disk?

The hybrid hard disk drive (H-HDD) method, rolled out back in 2007, added ATA commands allowing a compatible operating system to specify whether data sent to a hybrid drive should be written to flash or disk. These products were paired with Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost and SuperFetch to produce performance gains that never materialized in practice. The so-called “ReadyDrive” has become a footnote in history, along with Intel’s “Robeson” effort to add a flash cache to the motherboard.

It is unclear what the new generation of hybrid hard drives allegedly on the drawing boards at Toshiba and Seagate would look like. It is unlikely that they would use the H-HDD interface, but they will likely be aimed at the same performance laptop and desktop market. Servers have continued migrating towards advanced enterprise storage systems that pack their own cache, reducing the impact of bare hybrid drives.

Ingredients for Success

Rather than repeat the mistakes of the past, these companies could integrate real smarts into the disk controller, allowing it to autonomously move data to the flash cache to improve everyday performance without any special operating system support. This “tiered storage in a can” approach might deliver the goods that old-fashioned H-HDDs never could.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Hybrid SSD/Hard Disk Drives: This Time For Sure!
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Seagate's new GoFlex external drive lineup moves the smarts into the cable, simplifying function and connectivity upgrades

The external hard disk drive market is incredibly hot right now, but it’s also ultra-competitive. Stalwarts Seagate and Western Digital battle it out with everyone from disk makers like Toshiba and Hitachi to PC hardware companies like HP, Iomega, LaCie. The latest trend is dockable multi-function drives that are friendlier to use and offer advanced features like video playback. Most docks rely on USB 2.0, but Seagate just dropped a bomb on the industry with a simple twist: They moved the intelligence outside the case, repackaging the standard internal SATA connector as GoFlex, an external link to a variety of docks and adapters.

The Trouble With Hot Products

External drive makers face a dilemma: Fierce competition has driven down the price of external USB hard disk drives, hurting profit margins. Most brick-and-mortar stores sell basic external USB drives even cheaper than the bare hard disk mechanism contained inside, and sales can push them lower than online bulk drive purchases. It’s nice to be in a hot market, but not so great when it squeezes out all of the profit.

Drive makers responded by adding features. A few years back, the trend was upscale “pro” models with 400 or 800 megabit FireWire interfaces, one-touch backup software, or built-in encryption. We also saw “fashion” drives with sleek lines and bright colors. But these were one-sale sweeteners and did nothing for the brand as a whole. The next step was the introduction of desktop docking stations, encouraging the purchase of more devices from the same vendor. Then came a wave of video playback stations that connect to a television.

But all of these devices were limited by the USB 2.0 interface they used. USB was good enough for many uses, but it was too slow for some users. Those wanting faster performance simply ignored the dockable lines and went straight for FireWire 800, eSATA, or iSCSI over Gigabit Ethernet. The release of USB 3.0 forces vendors to scrap their current docks anyway.

What’s the Big Idea?

Seagate took these marketing lemons and turned them into lemonade. Their idea is simple: Move the interface and feature smarts outside the drive case and into the cable or dock. The GoFlex interface is almost identical to the standard SATA data and power interface found on physical hard disk drives. This gives plenty of performance, future-proofs the line as drive speeds increase, and allows a wider variety of interfaces to be used.

Take a good look: GoFlex uses SATA data and power connections!

Let’s say you go out and buy a simple basic 500 GB FreeAgent GoFlex portable drive. It comes with the USB 2.0 cable but not much else. You can still get a TV dock like before, but now you can also order up some speed with a FireWire 800 or eSATA Upgrade Cable. And you can mix and match drives and cables, using eSATA with your desktop and USB with your notebook.

This is a win from Seagate’s perspective, too. Assuming they made the connector just different enough to not be compatible with other vendors’ SATA drives, they retain the brand lock-in advantage while offering enticing features to their customers. Assuming they eventually offer GoFlex drives without the cable as upgrades for existing users, the technology also allows them to underprice their competitors.

My Take

GoFlex is definitely a clever marketing idea, repackaging existing technology in a novel way. I am pleased to see an upgrade path to faster interfaces like USB 3.0 and eSATA, though I wish Apple would hurry up and offer these ports on their machines. And I am eager to try the technology out, especially with third-party drives.

I imagine that GoFlex will give Seagate quite a differentiator in a competitive market and will encourage brand loyalty among customers. But TV docks have not been a big success (judging from the clearance section at my local Best Buy) and I doubt this will change that situation. I expect this technology to be a hit, but drives will be drives.

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© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Lemons Into Lemonade: Seagate Repackages SATA As GoFlex
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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.

Not For Laptops

As we’ve discussed before, modern laptops require thin 9.5 mm drives, which usually translates into two-platter units. This new WD Scorpio Blue is a three-platter, 12.5 mm design. So although this drive will certainly see lots of use in the hot mobile external drive market, we will not likely start seeing 1 TB laptops quite yet.

Note that Seagate rolled out a 640 GB FreeAgent Go USB drive last month. Although the company still hasn’t officially revealed the drive mechanism inside this mobile drive, we have surmised that it uses the 9.5 mm laptop-friendly two-platter design with 333 GB per platter. The new WD unit uses the same platter size and density, taking more wind out of Western Digital’s sails.

Shaking Up External Storage

But since both the initial WD and Seagate drives are aimed at the portable USB unit market rather than landing inside laptops, WD’s announcement of both 1 TB and 750 GB sizes should give it a nice differentiator on the shelves of retail stores.

Seagate has relied on 9.5 mm drives for quite a while, so it is unlikely to be able to match WD’s capacity for quite some time. We expect Hitachi GST and Samsung to quickly match WD’s capacity point with 3-platter 12.5 mm units, as they have done in the past, enabling OEMs like Iomega and LaCie to meet WD’s challenge. It remains to be seen if Seagate and Toshiba will ship 3-platter drive units to compete or wait until they can reach 1 TB with two-platter drives.

Enterprise Implications?

All of this talk of increased capacity inevitably leads to the question of whether these units will find their way into data centers and enterprise storage systems. At this point, Western Digital has not been very successful in the enterprise space, so this particular drive is unlikely to play there, either. But a potential 1 TB Hitachi GST response could indeed be used in enterprise storage.

More interesting is the impact that these 333 GB platters will have. Even if 1 TB drives don’t arrive in enterprise storage units today, this new areal density mark is likely to trickle up to this market. With HP announcing that they would shift to the 2.5 inch form factor for all of their enterprise storage products over the next few years, derivative high-capacity drives from other manufacturers could be the first real entry in the enterprise space.

Conclusion

So although this announcement will not shake the laptop or enterprise markets, it does promise to inject new energy into the portable external drive segment, likely reducing prices for existing products as well. After all, with a 1 TB drive sitting on the shelf, who would want to buy a 250 GB drive even at half the price?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | WD’s 1 TB Laptop Drive? Not Quite!
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Lots of innovation is currently on the horizon in the enterprise drive space, notably the application of desktop and mobile technologies to the space. Right now, you can buy a 15,000 RPM 2.5″ dual-SAS enterprise mechanism from two different companies! Or maybe you want a 1 TB bulk drive with SATA? These are a far cry from the bread and butter 10- and 15k 3.5″ SCSI and FC drives we’ve long been accustomed to. Click through for the full story…

Segment Differentiators

The market for enterprise drives is quite different from the desktop world. Buyers are less price- and power-sensitive and much more concerned about raw performance.

Vendor claims of enhanced reliability have been questioned by many, but it cannot be doubted that these drives are often engineered differently. Seagate representatives told me that they focus on stronger casings to reduce flexing under stress of faster rotational speeds and increased heat. They also often use different bearing, airflow, and filter designs. And enterprise drives use lower-capacity platters. But objective studies have not revealed great reliability improvements.

Drive interfaces are quite different than other market segments. Although SATA and Serial -Attached SCSI (SAS) is becoming more common, the bulk of enterprise drive shipments use Ultra SCSI or Fibre Channel. State of the art is 3 Gb dual-SAS and 4 Gb FC, with parallel SCSI and especially 2 Gb FC becoming less common. We will soon begin seeing 6 Gb/s SAS, and multi-channel drives promise to multiply interface performance.

Spindle speed has long been the defining characteristic of enterprise drives. Back when 5400 (and even slower) ATA drives were common in desktops, enterprise arrays relied on 7200 and 10,000 RPM SCSI and Fibre Channel drives. These days, desktops have ratcheted up to 7200, and enterprise units have climbed to 15,000 RPM, with 10,000 RPM becoming the new standard. These speeds (7200, 10k, and 15k) are available across the board on all enterprise drives.

Emerging Trends

Two trends are particularly notable in the enterprise space: “Enterprise” brothers of high-performance desktop SATA drives, and 2.5″ form factor units.

All four current enterprise drive vendors offer high-capacity SATA drives in the enterprise market. Ranging in size to 1 TB, these drives are increasingly being deployed for tiered storage, disk-based backup, archiving, and other less performance-sensitive tasks. Paired with RAID-6, it is likely that the reliability of enterprise storage arrays using SATA drives will be satisfactory. Certainly their massive capacity will bring the per-GB price point down!

SATA in the enterprise has been controversial, but much of this has to do with the meager specifications of the SATA drives examined, rather than any limitation of the protocol itself. It must be pointed out that SATA and SAS share the same physical connectors and interface chips, and the introduction of command queueing (albeit a different implementation) across the board in the latest SATA drives means the interface could be appropriate for just about any use if paired to a fast-enough drive mechanism. I wonder if their opinions would change if they tested Western Digital’s 10,000 RPM Raptor instead of a 7200 RPM Hitachi or Seagate drive.

Undoubtedly, multi-channel and 6 Gb SAS will outperform SATA in the long run. And the implementation of command queueing, drive naming, and bus expansion in SAS remains superior. But SATA is plenty fast for many of today’s needs, especially when tiered storage is considered.

The other big trend is the introduction of 2.5″ enterprise drives. With ultra-fast 15,000 RPM 2.5″ enterprise drives now available from multiple vendors, this segment simply cannot be ignored. In fact, the fastest enterprise drive available today (by a slight margin) is a 2.5″ Seagate Savvio! Combine these amazing performance claims with the fact that more physical spindles can be packed into the same space and we have a winning combination for enterprise arrays! However, these ultra-dense 2.5″ arrays will also be ultra heavy, and paradoxically ultra hungry for power and cooling, since many more drives will be used, even though each drive is more efficient. This will lead to the same weird situation we now see with blade servers – where so much density is achieved that empty rack space must be preserved to keep weight, power, and cooling demands in check!

Specific Drive Offerings

There are a multitude of enterprise drives on the market, but many users have little say in what they get. Each vendor selects their own drives when it comes to enterprise storage arrays! But by examining the array of offerings, we can learn something about the market. More information is available in this Tom’s Hardware comparison table, which is updated regularly, as well as this Tom’s Hardware article.

Fujitsu

Fujitsu’s drive names can be perplexing, with dozens of different drives currently offered. Generally, though, you can figure them out with a bit of detective work. They use the second two letters in their naming scheme for drive families or generations – MAW is older than MAX, then comes MAY, MBA, and MBC. The number is the drive’s size – 3 for 3.5″ and 2 for 2.5″. The final two letters is the drive’s interface – NC or NP for parallel SCSI, RC for SAS, and FD for Fibre Channel.

Fujitsu focuses solely on the mobile and enterprise markets, and is joining most other vendors in the 2.5″ enterprise race. Let’s start with their 3.5″ units, though. Replacing the old 10,000 RPM MAW line is the MAX3, available in SCSI (NC/NP) or dual SAS (RC) and offering 36, 73, or 147 GB of capacity and 15,000 RPM. The MBA3 line is offered in 2 or 4 Gb FC (FD), SCSI (NC/NP), or dial SAS (RC) and boasts 73, 147, or 300 GB and 15,000 RPM.

The company has jumped into the 2.5″ form factor as well, which is no surprise given its line of mobile drives. The MAY2 RC was first, with dual SAS interfaces, 10,000 RPM speed, and 36 or 73 GB of capacity. This was upgraded to 73 or 147 GB with the similar MBB2 RC. Both boast 16 MB of cache. The new MBC2 RC, announced in May and available in 36 or 73 GB, is the stunner, though, with 15,000 RPM.

Hitachi

Hitachi’s naming focuses on drive speed – the 7K, 10K, and 15K names are easy enough to decode. Next is an indication of platter size and generation, which is much less specific. Larger numbers are generally newer and seem to refer to the flagship of that line. So the “300″ line tops out at 300 GB, the “147″ is older and smaller, and the “1000″ is the big up-to-1 TB SATA unit.

Hitachi’s enterprise credentials rest on traditional 3.5″ drives with Ultra SCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces. The 10K300 is the company’s entry level, with 10,000 RPM and capacities of 73, 147, and 300 GB. Although that drive boasts only SCSI and 2 Gb FC, the faster 15K147 adds 3 Gb SAS and 4 Gb FC, along with 15,000 RPM speeds.

Just introduced is Hitachi’s top-dog drive, the 15K300. Combining 15,000 RPM speed and 300 GB capacity in a 3.5″ enterprise drive is impressive, and 2 Gb FC is no longer offered.

Hitachi’s new entry-level enterprise model is the A7K1000. Based on the 7K1000 desktop SATA drives, this unit has 3 to 5 platters for 500 GB, 750 GB, or 1 TB capacity. The similarities might lead some to question this 7200 RPM SATA drive’s enterprise credentials, however.

Hitachi also just introduced a 2.5″ enterprise drive, the C10K147. With sizes of 73 and 147 GB, speeds of 10k RPM, and a SAS interface, there is little to differentiate this drive apart from its small size.

Seagate

Seagate’s entry-level line is the Barracuda ES. Now in its second generation (the ES.2), this line is an uprated Barracuda SATA drive with optional dual-port SAS for enterprise applications. Running at 7200 RPM like its desktop brother, the ES line reaches 1 TB.

Seagate’s mainstream enterprise offering is the Cheetah line. The seventh-generation 10K.7 is the 10,000 RPM traditionalist, in 73, 146, and 300 GB capacities and Ultra SCSI and 2 Gb FC interfaces. The 15K.4 offers 36, 73, and 146 GB capacities, 15,000 RPM performance, and adds 3 Gb SAS as an option.

Seagate’s performance leader is the perpendicular-recording 15K.5. The company boasts 100 MB/s sustained throughput from this modern 73, 146, or 300 GB 15,000 RPM drive. 4 Gb FC, 3 Gb SAS, and Ultra SCSI are all offered. A variant of the 15K.5 is the Cheetah NS. Available in 300 GB and 400 GB sizes and 4 Gb FC or 3 Gb SAS, Seagate claims power optimization benefits in addition to best-in-class capacity.

Seagate entered the 2.5″ enterprise drive market back in 2004 with the Savvio line. The 36 or 73 GB 10K.1 was upgraded in 2006 to 73 or 146 GB in the 10K.1 line. But the real winner is the 15,000 RPM Savvio 15K announced in January. This 36 or 73 GB drive is easily the highest-performance 2.5″ on the market, boasting impressive 104 MB/s throughput numbers.

Western Digital

Western Digital trails the pack, offering no 15,000 RPM, FC, or SCSI drives at all. They do boast the world’s only 10,000 RPM SATA drive, the Raptor, as well as a decent-sized 750 GB SATA unit in their RE2 line. I’m looking forward to their future offerings, especially if Green Power is included (as expected).

Conclusion

The arena of enterprise hard drives is perhaps the most interesting in the entire market. Combine the twin impacts of large, slow 3.5″ drives and tiny, fast 2.5″ drives and we will soon see the market split along tiered storage lines. Although simply re-driving a storage array might not make it greener, tiered storage will reduce the average cost and increase the specific performance of enterprise arrays.

Some specific things that excite me in this space:

• The amazing 15k RPM 2.5″ drives from Seagate and Fujitsu give just the right amount of capacity and performance in a tiny form factor. These are perfect for servers and storage arrays alike. I expect Hitachi to come along with a similar drive soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if laptop-king Toshiba joins in, too.
• Western Digital’s entry into the enterprise space won’t work without OEM wins, but their 10k RPM Raptor drives should prove enticing. I’d expect to start seeing these in tier-2 servers soon, but don’t look for them in enterprise storage arrays, at least not in this generation of hardware.
• The exit of Ultra SCSI is all but assured. Farewell, 68-pin connectors!
• SAS promises to finally offer the front-end connectivity demanded by today’s large, fast drives.

Tomorrow we’ll be looking at laptop and mobile drives. See you then!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Specialized Server/Enterprise Hard Drives
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.