08.31.2010

Promise SmartStor DS4600 DAS RAID Array for SOHO

The SmartStor DS4600 is a direct attached storage (DAS) appliance with four 3.5in hot-swappable drive bays. It’s basically the same as the SmartStor NS4600, but with no network support: rather, it connects directly to your PC via USB 2 or eSATA, and for Mac users, FireWire 400 and 800 are also offered.

This is Promise’s first

DAS

 solution for the home market and extends the proven SmartStor range of

NAS

 products. It offers users a simple way for these customers to implement DAS. The product uses Promise’s

RAID

 technology and expertise in enterprise storage to deliver features such as robust error handling, extended rebuild features, hot swap support and hot spare function to small business customers. These are features more associated with enterprise-class products but the Promise DAS offers ease of use and install as well as these data recovery powerful functions.

With a lack of recognized storage expertise in many smaller companies, Promise has developed simple configuration tools for easy install. Promise’s One Touch Configuration allows setup without the need to install any additional software. Through the use of the One Touch button, small business users can create

RAID 1

 or

RAID 5

 volumes automatically. In addition, the use of Promise’s SmartNAVI Management GUI allows users to perform many tasks from the desktop, including the ability to choose their own RAID data recovery mode.

The unit’s abilities depend on how many drives you install. Fit one drive and it will work just like an expensive external hard disk enclosure. Move up to two drives and RAID 0 striping and RAID 1 mirroring become available. With three drives, RAID 5 becomes an option, offering a balance between fault-tolerance and storage capacity. And if you fully populate the SmartStor with four drives you can enjoy

RAID 10

 – two disks combined into a RAID 0 array and mirrored onto the other two disks. If you can’t decide which sort of array to use, press the one-click setup button and the DS4600 will automatically select and build one for you, based on the number of disks installed.

The SmartStor DS4600’s best performance was in RAID 10 mode over eSATA, where it read and wrote large files at average rates of 170MB/sec and 227MB/sec, with small files coming in at 74MB/sec and 122MB/sec. These are very respectable scores, but they Don't show much benefit from striping.

For added protection, when configuring your system you can also designate one of the four bays as a spare drive: this drive won’t be used to build the original RAID array, but if one of the other disks subsequently fails (in any mode except RAID 0), the SmartStor can automatically dismount the wayward device and rebuild the array using the spare hard drive recovery mode. A bank of 11 multicoloured lights at the front makes it easy to check the unit’s status at a glance.

Otherwise, the SmartStor DS4600 can be managed via the basic SmartNavi software suite, which can set up your

RAID array

 in a few clicks and exposes a few system controls, such as controlling the fan and the audible failure warning. If you leave it running all the time it can also email you error notifications and perform backups, supporting both scheduled tasks and on-demand backups instigated by pressing the button on the front of the unit. It’s a little intrusive though, offering no way to disable the big ugly splash screen that comes up every time you boot your system, nor the icon in the system tray.

Source:www.macworld.com