SMB NAS Roundup
by Ross Whitehead Jason Clark Dave Muysson on December 5, 2006 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Buffalo TeraStation TS-1.0TGL/R5
The Buffalo TeraStation is primarily targeted at SMB/SOHO applications. It comes with four "Quick" swap SATA drive bays, two USB 2.0 ports, one 10/100/1000 Network port, and one RS232 port. It also comes with most of the basic functionality that an administrator would require, such as SMTP alerts, logging, and UPS support (APC only). Client OS support is available for both Windows and Linux systems. RAID 1 and 5 are supported along with Span and JBOD. Protocol support includes CIFS, SMB, and FTP.
We were a little disappointed that the drives were not hot swappable, meaning a maintenance window to shut the system down is required if a drive fails. However, with the remote disk backup support to other TeraStations, users can access their data on another NAS during the maintenance window.
The USB 2.0 ports provided on the back can be used for either APC UPS support or for adding additional storage to the NAS. Active Directory integration for user security is also provided, removing the need to maintain multiple user lists.
With the exception of the QNAP TS-401T, the Buffalo TeraStation was one of the largest units tested in this roundup. That said, the dimensions for the unit are 170mm (W) x 235mm (H) x 310mm (D) and it weighs 7.3Kg with drives. The front of the unit comes with an LCD screen displaying network and status information, Link, Message, and Error LEDs, as well as an Access and Fail LED for each drive. The rear contains two USB 2.0 ports, one Gigabit network port, an RS232 port, and a cooling fan.
Admin Interface
The management interface for the TeraStation is web based and fairly easy to navigate. A custom setup program is included for Windows to ease initial setup.
Pros
Cons
Retail (Shopping.com): $660 - $851
The Buffalo TeraStation is primarily targeted at SMB/SOHO applications. It comes with four "Quick" swap SATA drive bays, two USB 2.0 ports, one 10/100/1000 Network port, and one RS232 port. It also comes with most of the basic functionality that an administrator would require, such as SMTP alerts, logging, and UPS support (APC only). Client OS support is available for both Windows and Linux systems. RAID 1 and 5 are supported along with Span and JBOD. Protocol support includes CIFS, SMB, and FTP.
We were a little disappointed that the drives were not hot swappable, meaning a maintenance window to shut the system down is required if a drive fails. However, with the remote disk backup support to other TeraStations, users can access their data on another NAS during the maintenance window.
The USB 2.0 ports provided on the back can be used for either APC UPS support or for adding additional storage to the NAS. Active Directory integration for user security is also provided, removing the need to maintain multiple user lists.
With the exception of the QNAP TS-401T, the Buffalo TeraStation was one of the largest units tested in this roundup. That said, the dimensions for the unit are 170mm (W) x 235mm (H) x 310mm (D) and it weighs 7.3Kg with drives. The front of the unit comes with an LCD screen displaying network and status information, Link, Message, and Error LEDs, as well as an Access and Fail LED for each drive. The rear contains two USB 2.0 ports, one Gigabit network port, an RS232 port, and a cooling fan.
 Rear |
 Front |
| Click to enlarge | |
Admin Interface
The management interface for the TeraStation is web based and fairly easy to navigate. A custom setup program is included for Windows to ease initial setup.
 Web Interface - Status |
 Web Interface - Disks |
| Click to enlarge | |
Pros
- Clean, intuitive interface
- USB Disk support
- Quiet
Cons
- Slow
- No media features
- No redundant Power or NIC
Retail (Shopping.com): $660 - $851
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
23 Comments
View All Comments
yyrkoon - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
My problem is this: I want redundancy, but I also do not want to be limited to GbE transfer rates. I've been in communication with many people, via different channels (email, IRC, forums, etc), and the best results I've seen anyone get on GbE is around 90MB/s using specific NIC cards (Intel pro series, PCI-E).The options here are rather limited. I like Linux, however, I refuse to use Ethernet channel bonding (thus forcing the use of Linux on all my machines), or possibly a combination of Ethernet channel bonding, with a very expensive 802.11 a/d switch. 10GbE is is an option, but is way out of my price range, and 4GB FC doesn't seem to be much better. From my limited understanding of their product, Intel pro cards I think come with software to be used in aggregate load balancing, but I'm not 100% sure of this, and unless I used cross over cables from one machine, to another, I would be forced into paying $300usd or possibly more for a 802.11 a/d switch again. I've looked into all these options, plus 1394b firewire teaming, and SATA port multipliers. Port multiplier technology looks promising, but is Dependant on motherboard RAID (unless you shell out for a HBA), but from what I do know about it, you couldn't just plug it in to a Areca card, and have it work at full performance (someone correct me if I'm wrong please, Id love top learn otherwise).
My goal, is to have a reliable storage solution, with minimal wait times when transferring files. At some point, having too much would be overkill, and this also needs to be realized.
peternelson - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
It sounds like your needs would be solved by using a fiber channel fabric.
You need a FC nic (or two) in each of your clients, then one or more FC switches eg from Brocade or oems of their switches. Finally you need drive arrays to connect FC or regular drives onto the FC fabric.
It isn't cheap but gives fantastic redundancy. FC speeds are 1/2/4 Gigabits per second.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - link
I've been giving Areca a lot of thought lately. What I was considering, was to use a complete system for storage, loads of disk space, with an Areca RAID controller. The only problem I personally have with my idea here is: how do I get a fast link to the desktop PC ?I've been debating back and forth with a friend of mine about using firewire. From what he says, you can use multiple firewire links, teamed, along with some "hack" ? for raising to get 1394b to 1000MBit/s, to achieve what seems like outstanding performance. Assuming what my friend says is accurate, you could easily team 4x 1394b ports, and get 500MB/s.