raid

Data Robotics means business with DroboPro

I reviewed the Drobo awhile ago and was very impressed with Data Robotics' proprietary BeyondRAID technology used in the device.

Basically, it lets you mix hard drives of any capacity together into a volume that's well-balanced between the largest possible amount of storage and maximum data redundancy. While the Drobo's performance didn't meet our expectations, its technology offers a lot of potential.

Data Robotics on Tuesday expanded that potential into an all new product for the business environment, the DroboPro.

This is the company's first foray into the business sector, and it calls the DroboPro the "business class storage array that manages itself."

Much like the Drobo, the DroboPro also allows for mixing hard drives of different capacities, and you can hot-swap any of them without having to restart or interrupt the data access. This translates into no-downtime expansion of the storage volume. Moreover, unlike the Drobo, the DroboPro now includes protection against multiple concurrent drive failures.

While the Drobo is a pure external direct attach storage (DAS) device with USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 connections, the DroboPro also includes the iSCSI interface (via a Gigabit Ethernet connection). This makes the DroboPro one of a few hybrid devices that support both network attached storage and DAS. As you need to buy the DroboShare to make the Drobo work with a network, personally, I think the addition of the network port is the most welcome feature of the DroboPro.… Read more

G-technology jumps on the SSD bandwagon, releases two external drives

We're noticing more and more solid-state drives enter the mainstream market; the Intel X-25M drive's blazing fast transfer speed and completely unaffordable price tag felt bittersweet, but the prices aren't quite as bad for lesser quality drives like the Patriot Warp V.2. SSDs are popping up more often in the world of Netbooks, but we rarely see standalone external SSD.

Luckily, G-Technology made good use of this year's Macworld Expo by introducing a new family of external solid-state hard drives. Both the G-Drive mini SSD and the RAID 0/1 G-RAID mini SSD use 2.… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 886: That's our title!

We're coming to you from CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada and it's all about Netbooks today. I'm sure we'll get more buzz about 3D TVs and more later this week. Also, Ellie doesn't like it when we call out the title of the show, but that makes it easier for Jason to find them for his special edition! (And please excuse a bit of distortion in today's episode. Sorry! -Jason) Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 886

Yawn— MacWorld (woohoo iTunes DRM free!!) http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10133230-37.html http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090106-apple-mwsf-announcements-new-macbook-pro.html… Read more

Western Digital unveils new ShareSpace NAS server

Western Digital (WD), introduced on Tuesday its all-new NAS server called ShareSpace. The server somewhat resembles the design of the company's My Book external hard drives with easily accessible drive bays, eco-friendly hard drives, and quiet performance.

The new NAS server has four hard-drive bays: each can accommodate a 3.5-inch SATA internal hard drive up to 1TB in capacity, making the server's total storage space up to 4TB. The four hard drives can be installed or removed completely without using a tool and set up in RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 5 configurations. The NAS server … Read more

Make your own solid-state hard drive and save

No moving parts, shock resistant, and incredibly short seek time are some of many benefits you get from a solid-state hard drive. However, for now, the price for a SSD is so incredibly high that calling "insanely priced" might not be an over statement. It's hard to justify (or to afford for that matter) spending about $1,000 for only 64GB when you can pay about 10 percent of that cost for a regular 200GB laptop hard drive.

So how about making our own SSD?

Sans Digital just released the CR2T CompactFlash card enclosure that might make … Read more

A BlackBox for data that won't break the bank

No, I am not talking about something that's for or from an airplane. It's simply a network attached storage device from VOX. The full name--don't hold your breath, you've already read the creative part--is BlackBox Dual Bay Gigabit RAID Shared Network Storage. As if the naming it BlackBox were not sensational enough, VOX decided to paint the device silver.

Other than the confusing, yet very telling name, the device is actually straightforward. It's a dual bay NAS device that supports RAID 0 and RAID 1. It's always nice to have the option of using … Read more

Western Digital releases My Book Mirror

Western Digital today added a new member to its My Book line of external hard drives. The My Book Mirror Edition is a USB-only, dual-drive unit with RAID 1 redundancy. The 1TB model costs $290, and the 2TB model costs $550. With your data mirrored on both drives, your total storage space is half the stated capacity. The My Book Mirror can be configured with RAID 0, should you want to make use of the full capacity of each drive.

The My Book Mirror's two hard drives are replaceable--no tools required. The drives feature Western Digital's GreenPower technology, … Read more

Conflicting advice on backups

Just as patients have to trust their doctors, non-techies have to trust the advice they get from techies. My last posting was about an article in a newspaper that offered, what I felt, was questionable advice on setting up a WiFi wireless network. The July issue of PC Magazine recently arrived in my mailbox and it offers some advice on backing up your computer that is also, to me, questionable.

The article is called "Keep Your Data Safe" and doesn't seem to have been posted yet on pcmag.com.

One section of the article discusses external hard … Read more

Software upgrade redefines Synology's NAS devices

Setting up a network-attached storage device (or NAS) is oftentimes a pain. Usually the most frustrating part is getting Windows to identify it and map it as a drive. This way, you can actually use it as it was intended, as a network storage device. In CNET Labs, I've come across many types of NAS management interfaces, be they Web-based or desktop applications. All have one thing in common in my experience: they are not the easiest devices to set up. For this reason, I was very impressed by a demonstration from Synology of its new, soon-to-be released Disk … Read more