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Searching for sense in the NAS market

Posted on 5 Aug 2010 at 11:37

Steve Cassidy searches for rational behaviour in the NAS marketplace

I know I’m meant to be the voice of authority and all that, but I really can’t make any sense of the NAS market at all just now. I suspect my problem is that I’m looking for rational behaviour – just occasionally – from manufacturers and the buying public.

I suspect my problem is that I’m looking for rational behaviour – just occasionally – from manufacturers and the buying public

These last few weeks have been very eventful, because they saw the release of several NAS boxes based (finally) on Intel’s Atom platform. PC Pro has been reviewing NAS devices for a while, both in our Enterprise section and the main reviews section of the magazine, and we’ve divvied them up between sections on the assumption that readers will know what distinguishes big from small and what these different market sectors require from such devices.

I haven’t been making much noise about NAS in this column, mainly because most of my clients’ data processing requirements are multilayered, the very opposite of NAS: they need their servers to earn their keep by being able to do several different jobs at once.

Idle hands

It’s my basic and inescapable observation that most of these clients’ servers will struggle to average 10% processor utilisation over their working day, never mind 30%, which would be quite exceptional.

If you find a pair of idle hands in most small-to-medium businesses then it isn’t long before they’ll be found a job to do – that’s how business works and especially how network-savvy IT management works, the mark of a well-placed technology investment.

It’s easy to increase the utilisation of a general-purpose server above that low baseline by consolidating jobs on the under-used box, but you can’t do that with NAS devices. They have one job to do – in fact, the most common use I find for NAS boxes in actual businesses (as opposed to their IT managers’ home entertainment systems) is as single-session backup devices for their “real server”.

Now that’s a bit of jargon that demands unpacking to make its point. When I say “backup device”, I don’t mean something that’s capable of taking over all the jobs the server it fronts for is able to do.

I often worry that the less clued-up buyers imagine – on the basis of some article they glanced at in WHSmith while waiting for their train to be announced – that this is really what “backup device” means. If you know someone who believes this, please don’t laugh at them but put them straight in a hurry.

In the most realistic usage model a NAS is called a “backup device”, because it can be used as the target for a disk-imaging utility such as Acronis, Paragon Drive Backup or your own personal favourite.

At a couple of my clients’ sites, they’ve all been taught how to use the Acronis bootable CD to back up the server at the end of each working day. This works well as a server backup since Acronis can either reboot or shut down the machine it’s working on once the backup finishes.

Plus, when there’s only one machine pushing backups at the NAS box, that too will perform well enough (close to the maximum speed for the LAN/switch combination these guys were running in fact).

That’s the other special jargon that needs clarification – the phrase “single-use backup device” actually means “don’t try to hit a small-beer NAS box with multiple transactions”. It’s this second condition that leads to so many firms possessing a thin, rack-mount box shut down with all its lights off, about which their IT team will sadly shake their heads and say: “ah yes, we never could make that work right”.

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User comments

Vendor brutally rational

Let me try to demonstrate why the vendors are entirely rational and continue to manipulate the laziness and fears of customers.
Consider first Windows Home Server. This product should not exist. All versions of the Windows should have, for many years now, supported a primary operating system function: to protect the data on the machine. It is a disgrace that M$ should have abandoned their attempts at a replacement for NTFS, Apple should have abandoned their attempts to use ZFS and that ORACLE have cancelled OPENSOLARIS from whence we might have had an open version of ZFS. Just as a business has what you define as 'multi-layered requirements', why would a home with 4 PC's (say) want to buy WHS on another box? I like the acronym PDTD, which I came across somewhere on the Internet, to describe the behaviour of vendors: Profit Driven Technology Decision. If you examine the storage market with this principle in mind you will see that vendors are entirely rational and offering up only those products which maximise their revenues.
Consider next HP's MediaSmart Server, the first suspect for a license of WHS. This product should not exist. It is a low-powered device with a limited set of functions, costing the same as a mid-range desktop PC. Hot-swap disk bays are a useful plus but let me ask you this: why is there no consumer desktop with 4 hot-swap disk bays? Surely the incremental cost to add hot-swap disks to any royalty OEM PC would be superior to a separate machine (down from £594 to £349 on Amazon UK) running a novel OS? Design-wise and customer-value wise it would obviously be better ... but it wouldn't be good for the vendor, so you will never see it.
Moving up the scale, and since I like to think I know 'what distinguishes big from small across different market sectors', how about an 8-bay DROBO with iSCSI: down from £1099 to £999 on Amazon UK. A grand for a limited, low-powered file server? You cannot be serious! Why didn't I buy a proper file server instead? (Forget your 20% overhead.)
I'll tell you why. Configuring up an entry level DELL T410 or T610 or T710 DELL file server (PCPRO recommended products) one can easily arrive at something to blow HP MediaSmart and DROBO out of the water. Morover the architecture includes XEON CPU and ECC memory for even greater data security. However the prices for all these products (MediaSmart, DROBO, DELL server) include but a single low capacity disk. Given that a consumer-grade 2TB disk is less than £100 how much would you expect to pay for a DELL enterprise 2TB disk? How does £540 sound? Now I know many of the differences between a consumer disk talking to a motherboard RAID chip and an enterprise disk talking to a specially designed RAID card. They do not amount to a price hike from £100 to £500+. Moreover DELL (for one) have taken deliberate steps to prevent a customer buying a server ready for someone else's disks. The DELL rebadged RAID controller will spit out 'foreigners' unceremoniously. Nor can a customer buy a cabled machine without RAID controller to insert an unbadged controller: DELL will not sell the cabling and trays without the disks. This vendor lock-in approach trades on the business manager's fear of server downtime and data loss ... many large/medium businesses are prepared to pay the vast premium, small businesses just shake their heads in disbelief. This is another reason why there is no 4-bay hot-swap consumer device: it would cannibalise enterprise sales.
The equivalent of WHS in the business sphere? Windows Storage Server. Merely another special OS which wraps up the small work of an iSCSI target.
Those not persuaded by my argument might examine Google's storage strategy: vast quantities of cheap components protected by proper engineering. For fun try explaining to a DELL account manager that Paterson et al defined the I in RAID as Inexpensive. In 1989.
It is abundantly clear to me then that vendors' have a very clear plan to exploit customers' fears and laziness ... for where is the backlash against their pitiful designs and restrictive practices?

By Jacko55 on 15 Aug 2010

Not so

There are innumerable 4-bay devices at the lower end of the market. Drobo make one; Promise are sending me one at the moment; I saw a games PC with 4 drive slots just today, and I'm fiddling with a LaCie 4BIG and a small metallic box made by Sonnet, in between domestic weekend duties. Apart from that, good comment!

By Steve_Cassidy on 15 Aug 2010

'tis too, oh voice of authority

I did not deny the existence of 4 bay devices - I mentioned one: the HP MediaSmart server. The others you quote all suffer the same problems. They are effectively 'small computers' with low rate processors and limited functions as compared to a mid-range PC, let alone a 'multi-layered' server. I understood the case for a device costing £150 with an ATOM processor saving money on electricity ... but the trend has been to increase the CPU, RAM and functions back up towards a proper computer/server!

Nor did I say there were no PC's with 4 bays ... and one can easily buy cases to construct 4,6 and 8 bay systems.

Nor did I say there are no applications or configurations where a separate detachable unit would be ideal.

What I did say was 'hot-swap disks on a royalty OEM PC would be superior to a separate machine'. Rather than pay £300 for an HP PC ... and then £300 for HP MediaSmart ... why not £400 for a consumer PC with hot-swap disks? I explained why not!!

Perhaps to complete your survey of storage products for home users and small businesses you could include a bespoke PC build (or two)?

By Jacko55 on 16 Aug 2010

Reality check

I have looked really hard at a Drobo and a 4BIG. Both seem quite unable to boot DOS, since all they have is a controller in them (no network interfaces on Drobo until you get to the "pro" range and they use a Marvell RISC CPU, shared with Apple's Time Machine). My Sonnet boxes are actually *electrical*, never mind "a PC in a box" - they just surface an eSATA port and power the drives from a tiddly PSU. On the "bespoke PC" front, I am fiddling at the moment with an HP xw5000, which has drive cages, cost me an afternoon's fiddling and some beer, and is ideal for FreeNAS.

By Steve_Cassidy on 16 Aug 2010

Yellow pill working, we see

Drobo - expensive, limited-function, crap computer.
Lacie 4Big - expensive, limited-function, crap computer.
HP MediaSmart - expensive, limited-function, crap computer + new crap OS (M$ said they couldn't develop a reliable new file system to replace NTFS - I believe them.)
Sonnet - just crap, but not expensive? You tell me.
Typical NAS offering - expensive crap. We agree on the pattern, let's move on then ...

... my semi-educated guess at the components of a bespoke, robust, consumer/small business, VALUE, file server configuration are:
1. XEON processor, simply to support ECC memory.
2. Motherboard supporting XEONs ... and at least 6 SATA disks (OK four at a pinch) ... and bonus points for eSATA, USB 3.0 and x16 graphics interfaces ( I might choose to actually use the fileserver as a workstation rather than try one of the specialised x1 graphics cards used on HTPCs, if I were a power home user or small business).
3. Case and/or accessories providing hot-swap drive bays, redundant power supplies and cooling fans, tool-free installation ... all that jazz.
4. Inexpensive RAID controller which either provides RAID 6 or blends an SSD and standard disks for vast IO performance (e.g. ADAPTEC MaxIQ). Otherwise I don't use RAID and just buy two servers for disk-to-disk backup. (Indeed if it costs me £540 for a single SATA II disc from DELL I might as well install INFINIBAND on my servers and replicate them.)
I liked the idea of OPENSOLARIS running on a XEON-based fileserver providing ZFS and a free iSCSI target. Alas poor OPENSOLARIS ... ORACLE knew you too well!
Such a heavy burden to sort all this out ... I defer to the 'voice of authority' for a series of workable solutions to suit all (small-ish) pockets.

PS free beer provided with all acceptable configurations.

By Jacko55 on 17 Aug 2010

Two more things ...

1. If you can come up with an eco-friendly solution I will compromise to a large degree.

2. If you lose a single byte of my data ... I will hunt you down.

Have a nice day ;-)

By Jacko55 on 17 Aug 2010

Thecus n5200

Mine has been working fantastically efficiently for just under 2years now.

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&cli
ent=firefox-a&hs=7nS&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unoffic
ial&q=thecus+n5200&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=2796356737331
106504&ei=wVNtTM6ZBs_14AbPlNXmCg&sa=X&oi=product_c
atalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCwQ8wIwAg#

I think Thecus have hit the sweet spot between high end functionality and usability with a minor learning curve.

If you experiment with DynDNS you'll have fantastic accessibility too.

By urbanaught on 19 Aug 2010

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Steve Cassidy

Steve is a networks expert and a contributing editor to PC Pro for more years than he cares to remember. He mixes network technologies, particularly wide-area communications and thin-client computing, with human resources consultancy.