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  • Origin Storage 10:32 on 29/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 10GbE, 12-bay NAS, , , , ,   

    Thecus N12000 moves up a gear with support for 6Gbits/sec SAS drives, fine performance and a good range of business network storage features 

    Despite the proliferation of small business NAS appliances, only Thecus has made any effort to support SAS drives. It went on the offensive with the excellent N7700 and now ups the ante with its rack mount N12000 – the first in this sector to support the latest 6Gbits/sec SAS drives.

    Supplied to us by Origin Storage, the N12000 is a 2U rack chassis with room for up to twelve hot-swap drives. The price above includes six 600GB Seagate Cheetah 6Gbits/sec SAS drives, but Origin also offers near-line SAS and SATA drives if capacity is a higher priority than performance.

    The N12000 is a solidly built system, with a sturdy flip-down panel hiding the drive bays, the power and reset buttons, and an OLED display and control pad. It also hides two USB 2 ports, with four more at the back.

    The motherboard design has allowed Thecus to be imaginative with features. Rather than use a riser it has three low-profile PCI Express slots, with the first occupied by a dual-port USB 3 adapter. One of the motherboard’s SATA interfaces has been cabled out to the back using an eSATA header card. However, Thecus doesn’t currently offer any expansion shelves.

    The drives are handled by an LSI SAS PCI Express card, and the appliance is 10-Gigabit ready. Origin offers a single-port Intel X520-SR1 card for £799 and a dual-port SR2 card for £999. Two Gigabit data ports are provided, and a third is used as a heartbeat link to another N12000 for high availability (HA). Thecus currently supports HA for single-array systems but it aims to support HA for multiple arrays in the coming months.

    Installation is little different to Thecus’ desktop units: a Setup Wizard finds the appliance on the network and provides quick access to the main Ajax-based web console. A substantial redesign makes features a lot more accessible.


    For testing we chose to place all six SAS drives in a single RAID5 array. You can’t access any services while it’s building, and the array took just over two hours to create.

    With a fast 2.93GHz Intel Xeon X3470 processor and 4GB of DDR3, the N12000 delivered a top performance in our lab tests. Using a Broadberry dual-X5560 rack server running Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit, drag and drop copies of a 2.52GB video clip returned read and write speeds of 103MB/sec. The FileZilla FTP client reported averages of 103MB/sec for uploads and downloads, while our 17.4GB collection of 10,500 files copied to the appliance at a rate of 71MB/sec.

    The N12000 supports link aggregation, so we bundled the two Gigabit ports into an 802.3ad LACP dynamic link, which our HP Procurve 2848 switch spotted and automatically created for us. Partnering the X5560 server with a Dell PowerEdge R515 server, we mapped separate shares to each one from the RAID array and saw Iometer report a cumulative raw read speed of 219MB/sec.

    IP SAN features are good. Thecus supports thin provisioning, which lets you create high capacity virtual volumes that start small and have blocks dynamically allocated as they grow in size. Performance is excellent, with Iometer reporting a high raw read speed of 110MB/sec for a 50GB target.

    For backup, the price includes five copies of Acronis’ Backup and Recovery 10 for Windows Servers. Once you’ve created a vault on the appliance, backups of selected disks or volumes on the server can be run at daily, weekly and monthly intervals

    Along with good data restoration features, Acronis provides plenty of disaster recovery tools. You can create a boot disk and enable the Startup Recovery Manager feature, which adds an option to the boot-up sequence allowing the server to run a recovery environment for bare metal restores.

    The appliance’s OS is protected by Thecus’s dual-DOMs. The second DOM maintains a backup copy that’s called up if the primary one fails, and you can schedule backups to be run regularly.

    Other backup options include support for Rsync, where the appliance acts as a target for other appliances. A free add-on module allows it to replicate to other targets, and Thecus has another that enables scheduling of folder backups on the appliance to local USB and eSATA devices.

    As with Netgear’s ReadyNAS 4200, Thecus doesn’t offer any expansion capabilities so you can’t daisy-chain JBOD units from the main chassis. However, its Stackable feature does allow you to declare iSCSI targets on other Thecus appliances to the N1200, which can then export them as network shares.

    By combining plenty of business related features with a decent server backup package, the N12000 moves Thecus into the big league for network storage. The 6Gbits/sec SAS drives deliver fine performance, it’s 10-Gigabit ready and it looks good value too.

     

  • Origin Storage 12:55 on 17/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Award, Drive RAID, , External Storage, Firewire 800, , Hard Drive RAID, Hard Drive Review, , , RAID, RAID External, RAID Hard Drive, RAID System, Sabio, Sabio DM2-PT   

    Sabio DM2-PT Review 

    RAID hard drives for Time Machine and mass storage on the move

    At first glance this little external hard drive looks very similar to Apple’s own Time Capsule. The very slim (155 x 155 x 22.5mm) form factor would be welcome on overcrowded desks and in laptop bags, but you do have to pay for this level of miniaturisation.

    The RAID enabled option that can take either two 9.5mm or 12.5mm SATA hard drives – combined using SPAN mode, or left as mirrored or stripped storage – gives you ultimate control over how your storage capacity is managed. The built-in RAID controller makes set-up fast and efficient.

    The drive’s performance is pretty impressive. Fast, very quiet and unobtrusive, we liked the fact that it offers masses of configurable storage in a device that hasn’t skimped on the fine details. For instance, connect this drive using FireWire 800 and you can dispense with the power adaptor; USB 2.0 and eSATA are also supported. In addition, the drive ships with all the cables you’ll need, which is a nice touch.

    The build quality of the drive is excellent, and the aluminium casing helps with heat dissipation, as this drive doesn’t use any fans. And if you do need to upgrade the capacity of the drives, this is easily accomplished. As the drive is aimed at users that need to transport large amounts of data, you’ll probably want to invest in a much sturdier case than the vinyl slipcase provided.

    The small footprint is ideal if you need to transport this drive, or have limited desk space
    Also supplied is the configuration utility. This is well laid out and makes it easy to get the RAID configuration you want, and also complete a rebuild if you use a mirror set up that fails. You can, of course, also use your Mac’s Disk Utility if you prefer.

    Macworld Buying Advice
    Overall, the external hard drive is excellent. We liked the low profile of the unit and its almost silent operation. The number of configurations you can choose lends this drive to mass storage when you’re on the move. But this drive is also superb if you’re deskbound and looking for a new drive for Time Machine, or need additional storage.
    Click here to read the review on the MAC World website

     

  • Origin Storage 11:53 on 17/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: IT PRO, , , , , , , , , Thecus N16000, , , , Thecus Technology   

    IT PRO Gets Great Results from the Thecus N16000 

    “…the Thecus N16000 is a fine choice.”

    Since day one, Thecus has always been the NAS producer that pushes the envelope and expands into new territory. With products that exude power, a high quality standard, and innovative design, Thecus has recently moved into the enterprise market with their new N16000 and N12000 NAS. Dave Mitchell, the owner of one of the most advanced electronics testing facilities in the world, had the chance to take Thecus’s flagship NAS and push it to it’s limit.

    Thecus’s vision and the N16000’s SAS support are unique: “Unlike most small business NAS appliance vendors, Thecus has always had its eye on the bigger picture and is still the only manufacturer in this market sector to support SAS hard disks. We first saw this in our exclusive review of the N8800 SAS but the new N16000 shows Thecus is upping its game ever further.”

    The N16000 has big speed even over 1Gb Ethernet: “We began performance testing over Gigabit Ethernet using a Broadberry dual X5560 rack server running Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit. The Iometer utility reported a fast raw read speed 110MB/s for a mapped Windows share whilst drag and drop copies of a 2.52GB video clip returned read and write speeds of 108MB/s. Using the FileZilla client to FTP the video clip also returned the same speeds.”

    When Dave Mitchell let the sails out with 10Gb Ethernet, the N16000 really screamed: “For 10-Gigabit Ethernet testing we moved over to a dual Opteron 4170 HE Dell PowerEdge R515 fitted with a single port Intel 10GBase-SR card. With a direct fibre connection to the appliance we saw Iometer return a storming raw read speed of 680MB/s for a mapped share…Most businesses will more than likely connect the appliance to a switch over 10-Gigabit and use it to link multiple servers over Gigabit and we can confirm that the N16000 is quite capable of handling these demands.”

    The included Acronis’ Backup and Recovery 10 provides excellent backup options: “Thecus also provides some decent backup software with the N16000 as you get five copies of Acronis’ Backup and Recovery 10 for Windows Servers included in the price. We found this easy to use as you create a vault on the appliance and then schedule regular backups of disks or volumes on the server.”

    IT PRO’s verdict is in; the N16000 is an excellent choice for enterprise NAS/SAN needs: “For a 16-bay NAS/IP SAN appliance that supports both SATA and 6Git/s SAS drives, the N16000 is very good value…The new N16000 moves Thecus into the big league for network storage as it provides high storage capacity and plenty of useful features at a reasonable price…If you need the best possible performance and you’re willing to invest in the 10-Gigabit Ethernet equipment to get it, the Thecus N16000 is a fine choice.”

    To see more speed results including iSCSI performance, see the full review here: http://www.itpro.co.uk/634150/thecus-n16000-review

    To explore the Thecus N16000 further, click here.

    To explore the complete Thecus range at Origin, click here.

    For our complete product range at Origin Storage, click here.

     

  • Origin Storage 17:09 on 15/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    The mobile security conundrum 

    Whilst the range and variety of IT security defences for portable computers – that’s netbooks and laptops to most people – is excellent, and able to cater for all budgets and types of user, it should be apparent to any security observer that the same cannot be said for smartphones and tablet computers.

    With 45 million iPads already having been sold, and with the prospect of Android tablets and BlackBerry tablets also selling in their millions, it’s clear that IT security professionals working within companies of all sizes have a security problem on their hands.

    And this is before we even begin to talk about securing the rising numbers of smartphones in the business workplace.

    With most business users toting one or more mobile devices with a variety of email, documents and contact details in their memories, it should be clear that smartphones and tablet computers should be afforded the same levels of security and protection as the laptops and netbooks in circulation.

    And the lines between portable computers and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are becoming blurred. Toshiba already has an Android-based netbook released, and several vendors – notably Acer and Lenovo – have laptops running Windows and Android coming down the technology turnpike this summer.

    The pressing question facing the hard-pressed IT security manager is how, in the face of a paucity of tablet and smartphone-specific security offerings, and a general apathy amongst corporate users, how to get the mobile security focus back on track?

    According to a just-released major report from the CNCCS – Spain’s national cybersecurity advisory council – a general lack of security awareness amongst mobile users and their general carelessness are the two main risk factors for smartphones in business.

    The conclusions of the June 2011 report are that, unlike the previous generations of mobiles, which are – at worst – susceptible to local Bluetooth hijacking, today’s smartphones are subject to the same risks as PCs.

    New attack vectors, says the report – which was researched by our security colleagues at Panda Security and F21Sec – will increasingly be exploited by fraudsters as online banking services use these devices as second authentication factors given the current convergence between PCs and cell phones.

    Against this backdrop, the research recommends that users take all necessary precautions when opening email messages, SMS attachments or clicking links – the latter of which is an entry point for the latest Zeus attacks.

    Users should also, says the report, be wary of any files, links or numbers received from unsolicited email or SMS messages, and avoid using untrusted WiFi networks.

    Most notably of all, is the recommendation that firms should take smartphones into account when establishing their corporate security policies.

    The just-released CNCCS report confirms many of the findings of Origin Storage’s survey of IT security professionals at April’s Infosecurity Europe show, in which we discovered that 41 per cent of IT professionals are carrying sensitive information on their smartphones.

    Against a backdrop of 19 per cent of respondents revealing their employers had suffered a breach as a result of a portable device going missing, and more than half of those respondents revealing that the portable device was not encrypted, it is clear that something has to be done.

    What was interesting about the results of the survey was 70 per cent of organisations had made data encryption mandatory in their businesses, suggesting that many users of portable devices are breaking their own firm’s security policy rules in their day-to-day business.

    This apathy also perhaps explains the fact that 37 per cent of respondents admitted that between four-fifths and all of their sensitive data stored on their portable devices was unprotected.

    It’s interesting to note that this proves the case that we are not just dealing with a few files copied to a portable device in a hurry here – perhaps by an employee who is late for an off-site meeting. This is a failing in corporate security policies and their implementation.

    So what is the solution to the general apathy surrounding the use of portable devices, and especially Internet-connected devices such as tablet computers and smartphones?

    User education, whilst desirable, plainly isn’t working, as most corporate users of technology are probably aware of the security risks posed by their laptop computer.

    This understanding has been driven by years of discussion and education by all parts of the IT industry, not least by the resellers and systems integrators that supply this type of kit to most businesses.

    Unfortunately for corporate portable device users everywhere, only a handful of those same resellers and systems integrators sell tablet computers into the business environment, whilst most smartphones are sold to companies through cellcos or their dealers.

    And, as any mobile user will attest, security is rarely on agenda of the dealers and cellular networks that are busy promoting and selling their handsets plus mobile phone contracts. It’s a non-starter.

    It’s against this backdrop that we are left with the stark reality that it will probably take a series of major corporate blunders involving sensitive data lost as the result of a lapse of security in a tablet computer or smartphone, and for the affected company’s reputation and share price to take a consequential battering.

    There is nothing like a share price dip of 8 to 10 per cent to focus the attentions of a CEO and CFO, and so pressure the IT manager into deploying sound security solutions and practices to stop an incident from ever happening again.

    The irony of this situation will not go unnoticed amongst those IT professionals reading these words and whose experience dates back to the 1990s, when desktop and laptop security was in a similar evolutionary stage as mobile security is today, some two decades later.

    And whilst today we have regulatory influences such as the Data Protection Act and the PCI DSS rules applying to any business that stores personally identifying information card transactions, the fact that the Information Commissioner’s Office has only rarely prosecuted an organisation for a breach of the DPA, means that the stick approach will not work.

    So what about the carrot approach? That too, sadly, is also probably doomed to failure, so we are left with the need for governance and the tapping of hardware plus software resources to help enforce best practice in the mobile security arena.

    Supplemented by corporate policies that prohibit the user of mobile devices without encryption – and treating a breach of the rules as a disciplinary offence – it is possible to change the habits of UK PLC.

    The process will, however, take time. Changing portable device user security behaviour is a task similar to steering an giant oil tanker – all changes of course need to be planned some way in advance, but once executed can be relied up on to take effect over a period of time.

     

  • Origin Storage 14:10 on 15/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , Home NAS, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , PC Magazine, , , , , , , , , ,   

    The Thecus N4200PRO Shows Its Power in PC Mag 

    The Thecus N4200PRO beat competitors on several crucial parameters!

    A new review of several NAS systems by PC Magazine Russian Edition is now available. Of course, the Thecus N4200PRO got a lot of attention! According to the results of the testing, it not only catches up with the competitors, but overcomes them on several parameters such as the all important reading and writing speeds.

    “According to the SiSoftware Sandra Lite test, this NAS demonstrates up to 52 MB/sec reading and 72 MB/sec writing speed. At the same time, with the HD Playback and Recording test using Intel’s NAS Performance Toolkit the speed goes up to 79 MB/sec.”

    PC Magazine mentioned that in comparison with its predecessor the N4100PRO, which was tested last year, the N4200PRO is a more modern device showing outstanding results: “The N4200PRO is based on the Intel Atom D525 processor with 1 GB DDR-3 SDRAM. The performance of the processor and RAM are especially important in such small and medium NAS because they usually don’t come with high-performance RAID controllers. Therefore, all computing loading associated with dynamic location of data falls on the shoulders of the processor.”

    This model has several major differences which makes it special and are highlighted in the review: “We should point out such special features as a free PCI-e port, a special place for a small [included] back-up battery that either allows the NAS to survive temporary electricity blackouts without any damage to the data or shuts the system down when electricity does not return, and readiness to work with WiFi adapter.”

    Besides great features in the internal design of the N4200PRO, its external design stands out as well: “The N4200PRO is reminiscent of its predecessor in the way it looks, but there are not many other similarities in the current technical solution. The N4100PRO’s LCD display is replaced by a 2.8’’ OLED display, and instead of LED indicators on the left side we now see an LCD display showing the NAS’s network activity and disk operation status.”

    Finally, PC Magazine loved the way the N4200PRO looks: “The design of this NAS is impeccable. Its professional looking housing, large and quiet 120 mm fan, two eSATA and four USB 2.0 ports are quite enough for even medium enterprises.”

    PC Magazine concluded that the N4200PRO together with the modules is a great solution at a modest price: “The N4200PRO coupled with modules downloadable from the Thecus website and a great price can be considered a good choice as a centralized storage solution for home and office use.”

    To explore the Thecus N4200PRO further, click here.

    To explore the complete range of Thecus products, click here.

     

  • Origin Storage 14:23 on 09/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Back up data, Backup data, Corporates, Corporation, Data Back Up, , , , Magnetic Hard Drive, Operating System, , Portable Storage, , , , , System   

    Origin Storage welcomes news that 512 GB SSDs prices are falling below $1000 

    News that a 512 gigabyte SSD (solid state drive) has fallen in price to under a thousand dollars in the US has been welcomed by Andy Cordial, managing director of Origin Storage.

    According to Cordial – who heads up the secure storage systems specialist – pricing has always been perceived as something of an obstacle to the adoption of SSDs and – whilst solid state drives attract a premium over magnetic hard drives – the advantages are significant.

    “We are now starting to see corporates adopting SSDs for the operating system, basic programs and critical systems data, alongside a larger magnetic hard drive for data storage. This gives companies the advantage of rapid boot up times and, interestingly enough, by moving the SSD to a read-only setting, higher levels of security against system problems,” he said.

    “By storing the customised set-up files for a PC on the magnetic main drive, even if the worst happens and the main drive is trashed by malware, the IT department can simply swap the magnetic drive out and, with no appreciable configuration changes, the SSD will boot the PC up as normal,” he added.

    The Origin Storage MD went on to say that the real advantage of SSDs to a company with several hundred PCs is the time saving in terms of bootup time.

    If, for example, a company uses a 32 or 64GB SSD on employee’s office PC for the operating system plus program data, and only stores data on the magnetic drive – securely backing up that data into the cloud every evening – the machine’s bootup time each morning is a lot faster than if a single magnetic drive were to be used, he explained.

    There are also good energy savings to be had, says Cordial – by powering down each employee’s computer each evening, rather than leaving them running through the night and at weekends, as many companies do to save on maintenance costs.

    With SSDs, he adds, there are no problems with stop-start cycles that you get with magnetic drives. And with the latest cloud technology, it also becomes possible to use just a 32 or 64 GB SSD drive on an office PC for the OS and programs, and then store the rest of the data wholly in the cloud.

    “This is what Google’s upcoming Chrome OS is all about – better speed and efficiency, and a reduced need for processor power on the local desktop or notebook PC. The days of magnetic drives are far from being numbered, but the price breakthrough now being seen with 512 GB SSDs is also starting to push the prices of smaller capacity SSDs in the right direction,” he said.

    “The price depression effect is slow but steady, but I think that we will see more and more corporates moving on up to the benefits that SSDs now offer. We have already seen an increase in demand for SSD products from Dell for notebooks and netbooks. And that’s no bad thing on several fronts, not least in terms of the energy saving possibilities,” he added.

    For more Origin Storage: http://www.originstorage.com

    For more on the 512 GB SSD price breakthough: http://bit.ly/mdcrmB

    For further information or to speak with Andy Cordial, please contact:

    Regine Hartmann
    Eskenzi PR for Origin Storage
    020 7183 2834
    regine@eskenzipr.com

     

  • Origin Storage 14:41 on 07/06/2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Interview with Andy Cordial @ Infosec 2011 

     

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