(I'll get around to fixing up DW at some point) (done)
The thing that bugged me about the Drobo pricing was expense against other 'consumer' boxes that include NAS. I'm not really in the market though - despite dealing with such things for a day job, I haven't yet reached the burnout point. So I'm still willing to put up with a reasonable level of interaction with the machines during the setup phase.
One of the things about storage appliances (and RAID cards, they're even less trustworthy) is the classic question - "what happens when it breaks?". I know Drobo have a statement on this, but most manufacturers just quietly assume their hardware will never break, while worrying about spindle failures. Failed RAID cards have led to so much data loss over time. At least I know if my fileserver snuffs it, I can pull that zpool out and pop it in another box without stress.
On the interface front, I like the idea of a simple interface - with an "advanced" button. Or a "BEWARE; DRAGONS" button. The trend towards feature simplification - for example, having to mess with about:config in Firefox instead of having menus for those options - is frustrating because it becomes harder/impossible to make changes outside of what the interface designer felt was important enough to put at the front.
I could really thump someone at Sony for the interface changes they made in the last major Playstation3 update - an attempt to unclutter the menus has decreased usability, and *there's no option to turn it off*.
Actually, taking a quick peek back at the Drobo website - they're now doing an eight-bay unit that talks iSCSI as well as Firewire-800. That's pretty cool.
My biggest beef with RAID boxes has been this whole four spindle limitation. I have a zpool of 4 x 750GB spindles that's approaching full. I could replace them with 2GB spindles, but that still has a clock on it as far as capacity goes, and 2GB spindles have a shabby reliability record to date. Eight way is pretty damn good.
The only problem is the price starts at $US1499 - which is too huge for a box with no Fibre Channel/SAS connectivity.
I'm not sure home penetration is going to be as simple as an interface cleanup, either. Getting people to see the value in redundant storage seems to be a problem, almost as tough as getting people to see the value in backups...
This is turning into a ramble - probably best done with drink in hand. Fancy a bevvy sometime?
no subject
The thing that bugged me about the Drobo pricing was expense against other 'consumer' boxes that include NAS. I'm not really in the market though - despite dealing with such things for a day job, I haven't yet reached the burnout point. So I'm still willing to put up with a reasonable level of interaction with the machines during the setup phase.
One of the things about storage appliances (and RAID cards, they're even less trustworthy) is the classic question - "what happens when it breaks?". I know Drobo have a statement on this, but most manufacturers just quietly assume their hardware will never break, while worrying about spindle failures. Failed RAID cards have led to so much data loss over time. At least I know if my fileserver snuffs it, I can pull that zpool out and pop it in another box without stress.
On the interface front, I like the idea of a simple interface - with an "advanced" button. Or a "BEWARE; DRAGONS" button. The trend towards feature simplification - for example, having to mess with about:config in Firefox instead of having menus for those options - is frustrating because it becomes harder/impossible to make changes outside of what the interface designer felt was important enough to put at the front.
I could really thump someone at Sony for the interface changes they made in the last major Playstation3 update - an attempt to unclutter the menus has decreased usability, and *there's no option to turn it off*.
Actually, taking a quick peek back at the Drobo website - they're now doing an eight-bay unit that talks iSCSI as well as Firewire-800. That's pretty cool.
My biggest beef with RAID boxes has been this whole four spindle limitation. I have a zpool of 4 x 750GB spindles that's approaching full. I could replace them with 2GB spindles, but that still has a clock on it as far as capacity goes, and 2GB spindles have a shabby reliability record to date. Eight way is pretty damn good.
The only problem is the price starts at $US1499 - which is too huge for a box with no Fibre Channel/SAS connectivity.
I'm not sure home penetration is going to be as simple as an interface cleanup, either. Getting people to see the value in redundant storage seems to be a problem, almost as tough as getting people to see the value in backups...
This is turning into a ramble - probably best done with drink in hand. Fancy a bevvy sometime?