Monthly Archive for October, 2009

New FreeBSD Foundation Project: HAST

Published on 23/10/2009 in Data Storage and File Systems. 0 Comments

The FreeBSD Foundation has announced that is funding a new funded project: HAST

“Pawel Jakub Dawidek has been awarded a grant to implement storage replication software that will enable users to use the FreeBSD operating system for highly available configurations where data has to be shared across the cluster nodes. The project is partly being funded by OMCnet Internet Service and TransIP BV.

The software will allow for synchronous block-level replication of any storage media (GEOM providers, using FreeBSD nomenclature) over the TCP/IP network and for fast failure recovery. HAST will provide storage
using GEOM infrastructure, which means it will be file system and application independent and could be combined with any existing GEOM class. In case of a master node failure, the cluster will be able to
switch to the slave node, check and mount UFS file system or import ZFS pool and continue to work without missing a single bit of data.

High-availability is the number one requirement for any serious use of any operating system,

said Pawel Jakub Dawidek, FreeBSD Developer.

Highly available storage is one of the key components in such environments. I strongly believe there are many FreeBSD users that have been waiting a long time for this functionality. I’ll do my best to deliver software that matches FreeBSD quality and that will satisfy the needs of our users.

Pawel has been an active FreeBSD committer since 2003. During this period, he has touched almost every part of the kernel. But, his main interest in FreeBSD is storage and security related topics. Pawel is the author of various GEOM classes (eli, mirror, gate, label, journal, hsec, etc.), geom(8) utility, various opencrypto improvements as well as port of the ZFS file system from OpenSolaris to FreeBSD.

The project will complete by February 2010.”

If you want, you can support this project too.

QNAP TS-110 Turbo NAS Server

Published on 20/10/2009 in Data Storage and NAS. 0 Comments

After the four-bay TS-410 and dual-bay TS-210, QNAP introduces the single bay TS-110 Turbo NAS server for home and SOHO users. The device has one 3.5-inch SATA hard drive bay support up to 2TB of storage capacity.

qnap-ts110

QNAP expanded its Turbo NAS lineup with the addition of the TS-110 desktop NAS server for home and SOHO users. The TS-110 supports a single 3.5″ SATA hard drives with up to 2TB of total capacity and features a Marvell 800MHz CPU and 256MB DDRII memory which provides solid performance with low power consumption. The TS-110 can be configured with QNAP’s exclusive Q-RAID 1 for high data redundancy. The TS-110 also supports advanced features such as iSCSI Target service with Thin Provisioning and a Gigabit LAN port and policy based IP blocking, S.M.A.R.T hard disk health monitoring, email and SMS notifications if there are problems with the unit, features generally found on much higher end NAS servers. The TS-110 also features 3 USB ports (with unique auto-copy feature on the front port) for expanding the storage capacity, printer sharing, or backing up the TS-110. The TS-110 also features an e-SATA port.

The TS-110 is a smart choice for installation in home or home-based business as it’s fully compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and UNIX networks and features a built-in UPnP/ DLNA media server (with TwonkyMedia enabled) supporting a wide range of DLNA media players such as Sony® PS3 and Microsoft® Xbox 360 gaming consoles. By installing the DLNA/ UPnP application on your iPhone or iPod touch, users can access the TS-110 on the home network and play videos, music, and photos from the server over the network. In addition, the high-speed PC-less Download Station with the unique QGet utility enables users to manage the BT/ FTP/ HTTP download tasks (fully BitTorrent compatible) remotely over the local network or the Internet. The TS-110 can perform centralized backups of all computers attached to the network to protect valuable paid downloaded music & video content, digital pictures, and documents.

“QNAP’s new TS-110 is an ideal choice for home and SOHO users due to its outstanding performance-to-price ratio” said Sam Lo, Product Manager of QNAP Systems, Inc. “When you consider the TS-110 can be a file server, home media server, host websites, and backup all the computers on the network, it’s a fantastic value” Mr. Lo added.

The TS-110 comes with QNAP’s new V3 of its NAS management software, embedded as firmware, adding significant new features including virtual disk drives support (up to 8 virtual disks via iSCSI expansion over the network). Network Discovery Services are enhanced with new Bonjour support offering zero-configuration networking for HTTP, SAMBA, FTP, AFP, and SSH based networks, and full UPnP support. Other new features of the V3 firmware include EXT4 support for very large volumes and file sizes and SNMP support. V3 includes an all-new AJAX-based web interface that is extremely easy to use and is broadly compatible with popular web browsers.

TCheck out the details of the TS-110 and PCWorld’s verdict

How to buy Network Attached Storage (NAS) storage

Published on 19/10/2009 in Data Storage and NAS. 0 Comments

You’ve heard so much about NAS systems, you know how useful they are, and you want one.

There are so many companies building them, there are so many options. Where do you start?

PC Magazine has some useful tips. Things to keep in mind are:

Multiple drives don’t always mean more capacity. Sometimes multiple drives are there for redundancy, so one drive is mirrored by the other. If one fails, the other can still be accessed. Many NAS boxes let you turn off the RAID settings so that if there’s two 500GB drives inside you can use the full 1TB capacity; but not all of them will, as some vendors think they know best what you want. And that’s redundancy. (To be honest, they’re probably right.)

Setup user-level access on the NAS, so that only select people (be they your employees or your kids) can do whatever they want. Not everyone should have the privilege of creating new folders or deleting old data, after all. Better yet, make sure you can create groups of users and change their level of access and sharing all at once.

Backup is not always a given, but it’s getting to be a major selling point. Apple’s Time Capsule NAS, coupled with the Time Machine software (on Mac and Windows), is all about automatic backup, for example (but also builds in a networking router). Some new NAS boxes that aren’t from Apple are getting Time Machine support . You’ll find variations on backup scheme with more Windows centric NAS products.

Expandability for more storage is sometimes an option. In fact, many NAS products have USB ports built in so you can plug another external drive right in. Plugging in a printer might also work, so you can instantly share printing across the network.

Make your pick based mainly on capacity and price. Performance on these kinds of systems is not going to be very noticeably different from one unit to the next. That said, it never hurts to get one with Gigabit Ethernet if that’s an option.

Remote access has a couple of aspects. First is that you in general have control over the settings of your NAS from afar. Second, you get access to your data wherever you go, be it around the house, the office, or on the road. Since many NAS boxes are consumer friendly enough to have media streaming capability–even of your iTunes library–that means accessing your media as if it were your own personal Pandora.

Thecus announces N7700PRO, advanced NAS storage

Published on 19/10/2009 in NAS. 0 Comments

Thecus announced a 10GbE Ready, 7-Bay Power Storage Server: the Thecus N7700PRO

Inside the seven-bay tower resides an Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB of DDR2 800 memory, but there’s more – namely a PCIe slot that, when equipped with an optional 10Gb Ethernet adapter, raises the unit’s data transfer speeds to over 300MB/s.

While the original N7700 made its mark by being the world’s first seven-bay NAS device, the N7700PRO raises the stakes with breathtaking performance, unmatched reliability, and maximum flexibility.

tecus-n7700-pro

With the N7700PRO, blistering performance is the name of the game. At its core is an Intel® Core 2 Duo CPU and a whopping 4GB of high-speed DDR2 800 memory, making it the most powerful NAS unit available. In fact, with its PCI-e slot, the N7700PRO can reach data transfer speeds of over 300MB/s by adding a PCI-e 10Gb Ethernet adapter! All of this raw power easily manipulates large amounts of data – perfect for the N7700PRO’s seven 3.5” SATA drive bays that can accommodate up to 14TB of storage. Need even more storage at your disposal? With its stackable feature, you can connect up to five N7700PROs together and easily manage them all via a master unit. The N7700PRO is even compatible with iSCSI initiators and supports iSCSI thin provisioning for added performance and flexibility.

The raw speed is only part of the story. The N7700PRO is an ideal place to safely secure your data. Multiple RAID modes including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, and JBOD allow you to choose the ideal level of data redundancy to suit your needs. Online RAID expansion and migration are there as well for added convenience. For ultimate reliability, the N7700PRO also comes with a unique Dual DOM™ design, which features a secondary DOM that automatically reprograms the primary DOM should a failure occur. To ensure compatibility with as many networks as possible, the N7700PRO supports multiple file systems (Ext3, XFS and ZFS) and multiple operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). With the popularity of VMware, virtualization technology is now widely used in the IT world. Thecus® is now the member of Technology Alliance Partner (TAP), and N7700PRO is undergoing full VMware certification.

Powered by Intel® Core 2 Duo technology, the N7700PRO is one of the most powerful NAS devices in our arsenal

said Florence Shih, Thecus® Technology General Manager.

We are thrilled to bring the N7700PRO to users worldwide, and invite hardware enthusiasts and enterprise users everywhere to experience just what is possible with Thecus® engineering.

Sun Microsystems’ new storage arrays (F5100 Flash Array)

Published on 19/10/2009 in Data Center and Data Storage. 0 Comments

Sun Microsystems has unveiled new integrated Flash arrays, promising to increase database performance by up to 10 times while reducing operating costs.

The company describes the Storage F5100 Flash Array as a “significant leap forward in the industry”, claiming to be the first to bring fully-integrated Flash-based storage with Flash-optimised software to enterprises.

sun-storage-f5100

The F5100 Flash Array has up to 2TB of solid-state Flash capacity, and provides 1.6 million read and 1.2 million write input/output operations per second in a single 1.75in rack unit, the firm said.

The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array is the world’s fastest and most power efficient flash array for accelerating database applications. It redefines database performance, cutting transaction times in half and doubling application throughput. The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array lets you scale your performance and capacity needs efficiently without impacting data availability so you can meet your growing business needs.

Sun claimed that this makes it comparable to 3,000 enterprise hard disk drives that would span over 14 datacentre racks and consume more than 10 times the energy, or 40,000W.

“This builds on Sun’s strategy to lead a new storage hierarchy driven by Flash technology to accelerate input/output throughput,” said John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun’s Systems Group.

“No other vendor today is shipping fully-integrated Flash-based hardware and software that leverages a world-class operating system to deliver breakthrough performance and value to our customers.”

The array has performed well in benchmarking tests, according to Sun, clocking up records on systems such as the Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll 9.0 application, where it was found to improve input/output performance with 10 times better latency compared to traditional Fibre Channel disks.

“San Diego Supercomputer Center [SDSC] has been evaluating the F5100 Flash Storage array as a high-performance SamQFS metadata target, which sits at the core of our archiving services and hosts well over 100 million files,” said Don Thorp, a production systems evaluator at SDSC.

“Performance improvement of 2.5 to four times was demonstrated for file cre ation and metadata scans, such as listing and backups.”

FreeNAS as a Print Server

Published on 19/10/2009 in File Server. 0 Comments

“FreeNAS is an excellent network storage solution simple enough for anyone to install. The system and space requirements are ridiculously small for this stripped-down version of FreeBSD. It’s got all manner of features accessible through it’s clean web GUI, more than most will ever need. It even lets you stream media to game consoles!

Despite it’s impressive built in abilities, there was one thing that I wanted it to do besides act as a great NAS, and that was to be a print server so I could share my HP Deskjet 6540 USB printer among my Windows and Mac OSX boxes. Easier said than done. After hours of playing around with CUPS and a few broken installs later, I saw the light.

On the FreeNAS forums, user sgrizzi created a thread on how to make it work with LPR, using the LPRng package, for a LiveCD based setup. It was EXTREMELY helpful, and he/she should get most of the credit, but the thread really needs to be condensed and clarified to be a useful guide. That is exactly what this Instructable is for, as well as modifying it for a standard full install of FreeNAS.”

This guide explains how to set this up.

How you can build a media NAS for next to nothing…or even less

Published on 12/10/2009 in NAS. 0 Comments

“If you have an old PC sitting around it’s surprisingly easy to create a NAS (Network Attached Storage) repository for your media. In this article, I’ll tell you how you can make one for next to nothing…or even less.

If you think NAS boxes are more IT than AV, then it’s time to think again. Blu-ray players, games consoles and digital set-top boxes are more often than not ‘network-enabled’ for access to content stored on a home network. The worlds of IT and consumer electronics are merging”

Home Cinema Choice looks at NAS in general and FreeNAS in particular.

Read the article here

VortexBox (media) NAS

Published on 12/10/2009 in NAS. 0 Comments

VortexBox is a free, open source, quick install Linux distribution that turns your unused computer into an easy to use music server/jukebox.

Based on Fedora 10, VortexBox is capable of streaming in multiple formats allowing you to hear your music on your other computers, iTunes, media centers, slim devices like squeezeboxes and other network media devices (such as Logitech Squeezebox).

Once VortexBox has been loaded on an unused PC it will automatically rip CDs to FLAC and MP3 files, ID3 tag the files and download the cover art.

vortexbox-nas

Features

Convert an old PC to a CD ripper / jukebox / NAS in 15 minutes
Based on Fedora
Automatically tags all files from freedb.org
Automatically downloads the cover art
Automatic sharing of file to SMB (Microsoft) file shares
Automatic reindexing SqueezeCenter after every CD is ripped
AppleTalk – for OSX or bonjour for Windows
DAAP – Automatically shares all MP3s for streaming to iTunes and Roku Soundbridge
NFS – For Linux Boxes and almost anything else, Solaris etc
DLNA – ushare pre installed to support DLNA players, xbox 360, etc
Reads DHCP IP address to sound card using TTS for headless operation
Easy installation of mplayer for AlianBBC support
Works well as a backend server for XBMC (XBOX media Center) running on XBOX, widnows, OSX, AppleTV, and Linux

iXsystems introduces iX-N4224 Orion Server Series (ZFS)

Published on 09/10/2009 in Data Storage. 0 Comments

iXlogo iXsystems has introduced the iX-N4224 Orion Server Series, designed for storage-intensive applications, ZFS implementations, and virtualization, iX-N4224 Orion servers offer up to 48 terabytes of storage with 24 hot-swappable SAS/SATA drive bays in a 4U configuration. The iX-N4224 is expandable to up to 240 drives and 480TB storage capacity with the optional Orion JBOD Expansion Units.

The iX-N4224 provides the ideal platform for high-capacity storage applications requiring simplified server management, performance, and power savings. The intelligent Intel® Xeon® 5500 series quad-core processors adjust performance and power usage to meet the exact requirements of computing workloads. Power is conserved by automatically putting the CPU into the lowest available power state during low utilization periods. Performance is also maximized by the processor operating above the rated frequency to speed specific workloads. This intelligent power management, coupled with ultra-high efficiency power supplies and optional low power hard drives and RAM, make the Orion servers and JBODs top of their class in storage capacity/density per watt.

ix-4224front_t

Features of the iX-N4224 Orion Include:

Intel® Xeon® 5500 series server processors for ultimate compute power and intelligent energy usage
Up to 144GB of DDR3 1333 energy efficient RAM
250MB, 500MB, 750MB, 1TB, and 2TB hard drives for fully customizable storage sizes
24 hot-swappable SAS/SATA drive bays offer a maximum of 48 terabytes of storage per server
Expandable to up to 240 drives and 480TB storage capacity with optional Orion JBOD Expansion Units
A Gold level, 93% energy efficient power supply to cut energy costs
Three 5000 RPM cooling PWM fans and two 5000 RPM rear exhaust PWM fans for fantastic cooling
Integrated IPMI 2.0 Remote Management, Lights Out Management, KVM over LAN, and Dedicated Management Interface.

The iX-N4224 provides the ideal platform for deploying a ZFS-based solution, says Matt Olander, CTO of iXsystems. The ZFS file system requires hardware with the capability to expand on the fly. The iX-N4224 Orion Server Series provides this needed expansion capability.

As a highly scalable storage system, the Orion server is optimized for ZFS implementations. ZFS is a 128-bit file system, able to address 18 billion times more data than a 64-bit file system. This gives ZFS systems a technically limitless capacity, with limitations so large that the system will never encounter them. Instead of relying on one device, ZFS file systems utilize virtual storage pools to seamlessly store and pull data from multiple devices or many virtual storage pools amongst one or a few devices. This eliminates the need for a volume manager when using multiple devices.

Up to 9 Orion JBOD Expansion Units can be added to the iX-N4224 to provide massive storage capacity capable of handling ZFS file system requirements. With its large initial capacity and the potential to add further storage as requirements increase, the iX-N4224 provides an excellent choice for ZFS implementation.

Petabytes on a budget: How to build cheap cloud storage

Published on 09/10/2009 in Data Center. 0 Comments

This setup need lots of inexpensive but reliable storage space. Check out this “open source” engineering:

https://www.backblaze.com/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage.html

Touted by ZDNet saying, “Raw disk cost is only 5-10% of an enterprise RAID system’s cost. The rest goes for corporate jets, sales commissions, tradeshows, sheetmetal, 2 Intel x86 mobos, obscene profits and some pale and blinking engineers in a windowless lab who make it work.” http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=603

At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way—and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.

In this post, we’ll share how to make one of these storage pods, and you’re welcome to use this design. Our hope is that by sharing, others can benefit and, ultimately, refine this concept and send improvements back to us. Evolving and lowering costs is critical to our continuing success at Backblaze.

…

Backblaze Needs Plenty of Reliable, Cheap Storage

To say that Backblaze needs lots of storage is an understatement. We’re a backup service, so our datacenter contains a complete copy of all of our customers’ data, plus multiple versions of files that change. In rough terms, every time one of our customers buys a hard drive, Backblaze needs another hard drive. A long time ago we stopped measuring storage in our datacenter in gigabytes or terabytes and started measuring in petabytes.

To offer our service at a reasonable price, we need affordable storage at a multi-petabyte scale.

Read the whole aricle