Review: Storage Offerings Perfectly Suited For SMBs

The data stored by small businesses is just as critical to them as it is to the enterprise. Even consumers in today's digital world need storage, and not just the storage provided by local hard drives. The right kind of storage offers redundancy in case of drive failure, and hot-swap capability, which allows failed drives to be replaced with no downtime. The right kind of storage also offers network access so stored files can be shared by multiple users. Enterprise-level storage devices provide all these features but are overkill for small business. The CRN Test Center looked at two very similar storage devices geared toward the SMB sectorone from Intel and another from MicroNet, each about the size of a toaster.

Intel SS4000-E
The Intel Storage System SS4000-E is a new storage device that's ideal for small businesses. Based on network attached storage (NAS) technology, the SS4000-E is both easy to use and affordable and can safely store up to 2 Tbytes of data. Multiple users can access the unit simultaneously, and files can be shared among Windows, Linux and Macintosh users and can be managed by user names or groups.

Small in size, the SS4000-E also is suitable for consumer use. Solution providers looking to expand into home integration should consider the SS4000-E as a central storage unit.

One thing solution providers will like about the SS4000-E is that it can be configured with different capacities depending on the application and eventually can be upgraded to its maximum capacity of 2 Tbytes down the road. The unit supports up to four 3.5 Serial ATA-I hard disks ranging from 80 Gbytes to 500 Gbytes. The RAID-configurable drives are hot swappable to avoid interruption of service when faulty disks must be replaced.

The SS4000-E is available as a barebones unit with no hard drives for $550. That's a beautiful thing for system builders that want to configure it themselves. It's also available pre-configured with four 500-Gbyte hard drives for $2,000. Unfortunately, the unit does not support the latest 750-Gbyte drives. More specifically, the SS4000-E has a 2-Tbyte limit to the size of the storage volume that can be created. It will support 750-Gbyte drives as long as the storage volume being created does not exceed the 2-Tbyte limit. Note that the 2-Tbyte capacity is met only by configuring the unit without RAID.

The SS4000-E is based on the Intel XScale 80219 processor and runs an embedded operating system based on the Linux 2.6 kernel. The four-bay unit is small enough to fit on a bookshelf. It features two Gigabit Ethernet ports for network connectivity, and two USB ports allow the connection of external hard disks, flash disks and so forth. A client backup and recovery application included with the unit provides system backup, remote boot and recovery for clients running Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003.

The SS4000-E is easy to set up and use. The four-bay unit measures roughly 6.25 inches wide by 8.5 inches high by 9.5 inches deep. Indicators on the front panel include an activity light for each hard drive, link and activity lights for each of the two NICs and for drive status and system status. The individual drives do not lock into place, but there is a Kensington lock slot on the back of the SS4000-E to prevent theft of the unit.

The SS4000-E supports RAID Levels 0, 1, 5 and 10. A RAID 0 array can be set up with two or more striped disks, where data is spread out across all disks for enhanced performance. A RAID 1 array can be set up with two mirrored disks for data redundancy, so essentially, only half the total disk space will be usable. A RAID 10 array using four disks combines mirroring with striping; this offers redundancy along with enhanced performance, but again only half the total disk space. A RAID 5 array combines striping with parity to offer a good compromise of performance, redundancy and storage space. RAID 5 arrays can be set up with three or four drives or with three drives and the fourth drive used as a hot spare.

The SS4000-E is managed from a Web interface used to set up users and access rights. The Web-based management utility also provides information on disk usage, service status, RAID, system log and current connections. The storage system console is installed from a CD onto the computers that will access the SS4000-E. The console automatically scans the network for any attached storage when it is started. The SS4000-E can be set up as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server and also can act as a DHCP client for easy network configuration. A built-in FTP server allows for high-speed file transfers.