Fibrenetix Qubex QX-652-FC4-3000

The latest Qubex from storage maestro Fibrenetix does a double whammy by delivering a compact desktop box with 3TB of RAID-protected storage that's also the first 4Gb/sec FC (Fibre Channel) product we've had in the Labs. The 2Gb/sec standard delivers good enough performance for the majority of network storage applications, but there are some areas where even this isn't fast enough.

Fibrenetix has aimed the Qubex specifically at the audiovisual market and applications such as HD video streaming and general broadcast, as well as video editing. The unit is well built with a solid aluminium chassis, and the sleek design means it will look good on any desktop. Fibrenetix has tackled the knotty problem of operational noise levels by employing up to two external power supplies. This has allowed a reduction in internal cooling requirements, and the end result is almost silent running.

The Qubex is equipped with a pair of 4Gb/sec FC ports, while storage is handled by an embedded Daytona RAID engine. This supports a good range of arrays, which includes the latest RAID6. Fibrenetix has plumped for SATA storage, allowing its products to deliver a high capacity at a better price than SCSI. The review system came with six 500GB SATA 2 hard disks mounted in solid hot-swap carriers. Note that, as well as supporting the higher SATA speeds, both the controller and hard disks support NCQ (native command queuing).

Installation is easy and the Qubex can be accessed via the CLI or a web browser. The latter is a little basic, but provides good access to all features. RAID arrays can be created easily, you can expand them on-the-fly and add a hot-spare drive. Multiple volumes may be created on each array, they can be assigned to either FC port or both for clustering, and filters may be used to allow or deny access to specific FC hosts. Plenty of alerting features are provided too, as the Qubex can issue SNMP traps and email up to eight addresses with information on selected error or warning types.

For performance testing, we called upon a Supermicro dual 2.4GHz Xeon rack server with 2GB of PC2100 memory and running Windows Server 2003. We used a pair of QLogic FC cards: a QLA2310F 2Gb/sec model and the company's latest QLA2460 PCI-X 4Gb/sec HBA. The Qubex came supplied as a six-disk RAID5 array, so we created a single 1TB volume, which we assigned to one of the FC ports. The server was first connected over 2Gb/sec FC. The Iometer test utility was then configured with two disk workers, 100% 64KB sequential read transfer requests and ten outstanding I/Os. It reported a raw throughput of 185MB/sec - close to wire speed. We then connected the server using a 4Gb/sec FC link, reran the same test and this time Iometer reported a stunning throughput of 381MB/sec. The RAID5 array also delivers the goods for write performance. Using the same transfer request sizes but with 100% write operations returned 373MB/sec.

The Qubex brings to an end the long wait for 4Gb/sec FC disk array products. It delivers a cost-effective high-speed solution to the target market with plenty of onboard storage. Above all else, it offers performance that will be hard to beat.

Author: Dave Mitchell