Crave

The new DroboPro storage device from Data Robotics.

(Credit: Data Robotics)

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."

Data Robotics' DroboPro storage solution--photos

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.

The new WD ShareSpace NAS server.

(Credit: Western Digital)

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 features Gigabit Ethernet for network connectivity and three USB 2.0 ports for additional external storage or power management with a UPS unit. Unfortunately, these USB ports can't be used for any other USB-related functions such as print-serving or USB cameras.

The ShareSpace offers a good set of features found collectively in other NAS servers including FTP, iTunes servers, HTTP and FTP download capabilities, free Web-access via MioNet, and support for Microsoft Active Directory. The server also comes with backup software licensed to be used with up to three computers. Its front USB port can be used to quickly back up the entire contents of an external hard drive, such as the WD My Passport or any other USB hard drive.

The ShareSpace is equipped with WD's GreenPower hard drives, used also in the My Book series, that are said to use up to 33 percent less energy than other SATA hard drives. There are two versions of the ShareSpace, 2TB and 4TB, that cost $700 and $1,000, respectively, and both come with a three-year warranty.

The CR2T has the same form factor as a regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

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 this possible. The enclosure has the same form factor and works the same as a regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive. It can hold two CF cards and can even configure them in either RAID 1 (mirroring) or nRAID (spanning), where the two CF cards are combined into one.

The enclosure can take two CF cards in RAID 1 or nRAID configuration.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

The enclosure costs $99, and a 32GB CF card costs about $150 that would make your homemade SSD's price about $400, which is about half the price of regular 64GB SSD. Of course, you can choose to use smaller size CF cards for much cheaper.

However, there's a catch. Currently the fastest CF card only offers the speed of 40MB per second, which is very fast compared with ATA hard drives, but it is still slower than SATA SSDs (up to 100MB per second or more). So the CR2T is probably not a good choice to be the main hard drive for your laptop. However, it can make a great secondary hard drive or be turned into an external hard drive where data integrity is the main concern.

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.

The Vox BlackBox can accommodate two 3.5-inch SATA hard drives of any capacity.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

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 either a high-performance or a data redundancy RAID setup. The BlackBox can also work without RAID and show the hard drives as separate volumes. The BlackBox ships with two 500GB hard drives, making it the best deal in the NAS community with the price tag of only $310. That's about $0.31 per gigabyte. For now, you probably can't find another NAS device that offers better value.

The BlackBox boasts an interesting design. It's made entirely of aluminum and is very rugged and heavier than it looks, though it is still compact. On the front, its drive bays are locked and you can't open them with the provided keys. However, looking at the keys, you will soon realize that they are not necessary. You can open the case with a paper clip. You just need a pointed object to poke the little hole on the front of the drive bay and the latch will swing open.

The BlackBox also is the first dual bay, compact NAS device I've seen that doesn't have a power adapter but comes with just a regular power cable (found in most desktop computers). This means one less thing to clutter your work space. However, you might not want to leave the BlackBox on your desk since it's very noisy. The BlackBox requires a decent amount of ventilation since the power supply is in the box. It has two fans on the back and--when the device is turned on--these fans are noisy enough to be heard from across the room.

Overall, this seems to be a simple and interesting NAS device with a very appealing price tag. It's available for purchase now unless, but you might want to wait and check CNET.com for our review, which is coming soon.

(Credit: Western Digital)

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, which, according to the company, helps the My Book Mirror consume 33 percent less power than other dual-drive enclosures. Another bonus: these energy efficient drives don't require cooling fans, meaning the My Book Mirror should make for quiet desktop companion.

Should you have multiple PCs in need of redundant backup, it should be noted that WD's My Book World Edition II is a dual-drive NAS drive that adds only $50 to the price of the My Book Mirror--$600 for the 2TB model.

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 Station Manager 2.0 NAS Management Software (DSM). If you think this is a long-winded, hard-to-remember name, well, it is, but that's probably the only thing you'll have difficulty with.

Synology's new AJAX-based UI for its NAS devices.

(Credit: Synology)

First of all, DSM is a Linux-based application preloaded within the NAS device as a operating system that you can access and control via Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox. As the front-end user interface (UI) supports AJAX, unlike most Web-based UIs, allows for Windows-like functionality within the browser, including the ability to drag and drop as well as helpful Wizards that simplify the NAS management tasks. The interface is intuitive and very self-explanatory. Novice users guess fairly accurately what each button does, and after a few mouse clicks should have no problem understanding how things work. All this makes mapping a network drive to a Synology NAS device a no-brainer. While with most other NAS devices, the list of features stops here; with the DSM, it's just the beginning.

By supporting IP cameras, the DSM can also turn the NAS device into a surveillance station, which can automatically record video either by timer or by motion detection. This is an elaborate surveillance system that supports up to five cameras, and the recorded videos' quality is actually better than most tape-based surveillance systems. During the demonstration, the DSM showed multiple real-time monitoring screens using IE7 as its interface. With Firefox, it was only able to show a single monitoring screen. Synology says it is working on this browser inconsistency, and the company hopes it will be worked out by the time the software releases in April.

Another very interesting and useful feature of Synology's DSM is the Photo Station 3. With this feature, users can easily upload a folder of digital photos that Photo Station 3 organizes into a Web album. The album engine automatically creates the album interface and thumbnails. All you have to do is put photos in the designated folders on the NAS. You can then caption each photo and allow others of your choosing to view the photos online.

And that's not all, the Disk Station Manager 2.0 NAS Management Software also supports the following equally useful features:

- Sony PlayStation and Xbox 360 support: turning the NAS device into a digital media adapter

- Expandable RAID 5 volume: Allowing new hard drive to be added and expanded in RAID5 format on the fly.

- MySQL Support: Supporting MySQL version 5.0.51.

- HTTPs and FTP with SSL/TLS: Accessing the NAS drive from the Web is made more secure, even on the entry-level NAS models.

- Audio Station: Allows user to play audio files directly from the NAS or an iPod to USB speakers, with remote control.

Synology's comsumer-grade NAS: Disk Stationi DS107+

(Credit: Synology)

From what I've seen so far, Synology's NAS device coupled with its DSM 2.0 software, by far offers the most features and best UI I've come across. At the time of writing this blog, I am also expecting an upgraded Disk Station DS107+--Synolgoy's consumer-grade NAS device--that supports most of the above features. So be on the lookout for our in-depth review on CNET.com.

All of Synology's NAS devices that ship in April or later will have this new interface preinstalled. Existing Synology devices can be upgraded to this new interface for free during this time too. The DSM software does not work with NAS devices from other vendors.

The Drobo storage device has always intrigued me as a backup server that is smarter and more flexible than the RAID box you would typically cobble together with an old PC. But without network ability it seemed like half a product: powerful storage logic shackled to lame connectivity. That's largely been fixed with the launch of DroboShare, a companion piece for the Drobo server that allows it to be network-attached.

The DroboShare mounted under a Drobo storage device

(Credit: Data Robotics Inc.)

DroboShare is a pricey add-on at $199, but it has gigabit Ethernet and is compatible with NTFS, HFS+, EXT3, and FAT32 file architectures, the last a nice addition we lamented the absence of in our original review. Support for a maximum 8TB capacity can be accomplished today by using two separate Drobo units loaded with four 1TB drives each and connecting both to a single DroboShare.

DroboShare is almost there. For the price, it should have pre-n Wi-Fi built in, as well. I mean come on, this is basically a gigabit NIC, USB 2.0 chip and a little firmware to translate four drive formats. That ain't $200. And it should have a more elegant way to connect to the Drobo than a USB jumper cable. But like Apple, Sonos, and B&O, the Drobo folks are trying to harvest a cult, not a value-aware consumer.

If you are sophisticated enough to appreciate the qualities of Drobo architecture you should also crave networked storage, so I imagine DroboShare will be a hit. For now, my home-built RAID boxes are working very well.

In the old days, you'd buy a RAID adapter card to let your computer attach to multiple hard drives that provided data capacity and protection. Nowadays, with flash memory, the storage fits right on the card.

Addonics' RAID adapter fits four Compact Flash cards.

(Credit: Addonics)

Addonics Technologies announced a $50 PCI card Tuesday that's got four CompactFlash card slots. The cards can be configured as four individual drives, a single large volume, or set up with RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) 0, 1 or 10 to stripe data across multiple cards or mirror data from one onto another.

Note that there's no support for RAID 5 and that cards can't be hot-swapped, so no adding capacity nondisruptively by plugging in newer, bigger flash cards, according to President Bill Kwong.

The company is considering a similar card with smaller SD cards, but doing so would require more electronics because Secure Digital, unlike CompactFlash, doesn't include built-in support to behave like a hard drive with an IDE interface.

The adapter here is the cheap part. If you want a solid amount of flash storage, the costs quickly go up. For example, an 8GB Lexar 300x UDMA card costs about $170. Multiply by four and you're looking at $680 for 32GB raw capacity, and less if you configure the RAID to protect your data.

Compare that with a 500GB Maxtor hard drive that costs less than $100, and you might turn a little pale. But bear in mind that flash cards can offer some faster performance, are silent, and are less power-hungry and bulky than hard drives.

"We have tested a Transcend 250X industrial CompactFlash card and were getting close to 40 MB/sec sustained data transfer. When we striped two of these (in a RAID configuration), we achieved read/write speed close to 80 MB/sec," Kwong said.

Perhaps the more relevant comparison is with solid-state disks, which pack flash memory in a device that looks and behaves like a regular hard drive with spinning platters. So far, these are also expensive when priced per gigabyte, but Kwong believes the PCI card approach could be more economical.

"I think all the solid-state disk suppliers price their product higher to make more profit," he said. "Our approach is to combine low-capacity, mature CompactFlash media to achieve large capacity. You can be the judge as to which approach will have a better price performance advantage in the next few years."

Addonics is aiming for some niche markets, including kiosks, arcade games, low-power PCs and shock-resistant computing equipment, Kwong said.