Infrant ReadyNAS X6

Reviews: Networking

Infrant ReadyNAS X6

Author:
Editor:
Sponsor:
Published:

Richard Poelling
Brian
Infrant
Dec. 7, 2005

<< Previous

Next >>

Installation

The installation of the X6 was very easy for how much storage I was implementing. My X6 was shipped as a barebones unit with no hard disks installed. I received three 400GB NL35 SATA hard disks from Seagate for use in this review. To begin installation you must remove the front panel and case enclosure from the X6. Normally the thought of trying to open a new case is horrifying, but the X6 was by no means hard. The X6 comes equipped with some nice thumb screws for both the front and rear of the device. After the front panel and enclosure are removed, you will be presented with a small drive cage that holds four drives. Included with the X6 are drive rails which you will need to install onto each drive properly. Instructions with nice diagrams accompanied the X6 and the drive rails were also labeled. Believe it or not, it took longer to bolt on the drive rails than to actually get the whole device up and running. I found it easier to install the drives by removing the entire drive cage which gave me lots more room to actually plug in the power and data cables. For starters, I only connected a single drive. This will be to see the effects of Infrant's X-RAID implementation.

Many people have heard the term RAID. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it means Redundant Array of Independent Disks. I have also seen it written as Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Either way, if you want to protect data, you need RAID. The most common RAID levels you will see are RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5. Many other levels exist, but these seem to be the three most common. RAID 0 really isn't used for data redundancy. Many times people will install multiple drives and use a RAID 0 configuration since it uses stripping to increase the I/O throughput of the drives. This increase in performance comes at the cost of redundancy. If any drive should fail in the array, the entire array fails and all data is lost. You have essentially doubled your chances of losing all your data!

This brings us to the next level which is RAID 1. RAID 1 is usually referred to as Mirroring. This is because the array can be made up with as little as 2 disks of the same size. The data is mirrored on both. Should one fail, the other is there to take its place. When the failed drive is replaced, the data is just copied back to the new disk. This is a very simple way to protect your data from disk failures, but not have to spend a small fortune to do it. Unfortunately, it also has the highest disk overhead, at 100%, since it takes a complete second drive to make the array. This means that if you need 120GB of RAID 1 Storage, you will be buying 2 120GB hard drives, or 240GB or total storage.

Finally, there is RAID 5. This type of array is used most often since it allows for data redundancy, but does not have the extreme overhead of the RAID 1 implementation. To determine the amount of disk space which a RAID 5 array will have, the standard equation is (n-1)/n multiplied by the total drive capacity, where n is the total number of drives in the array. For example 3 x 400GB hard drives should give (2/3) x 1200GB = 800GB array. For this reason RAID 5 requires a minimum of 3 disks. The overhead for this RAID example would be 33% since you are only able to use 800 GB of the total capacity. This may seem like a lot, but it is far less than the 100% from RAID 1. The data is redundant such that any failure of a hard drive will not cause the loss of data, although more than one failure will render the data lost.. Some RAID 5 arrays allow the designation of a hot spare which will take over in the event of a disk failure thereby avoiding the possibility of a second drive failure and data loss.. This type of array is usually the most attractive in terms of redundancy and drive overhead, but that comes at the cost of price. RAID 5 disk controllers require more drive calculations and therefore a better controller (better=$). The minimum number of drives for a RAID 5 array is 3 so there is an additional cost there also.

Now that I have given you a short crash course in RAID levels, what does all this have to do with the X6? The answer is everything and also nothing. (Ed. - Oh, well that makes everything clear now doesn't it?) The X6 uses a proprietary technology that allows it to use RAID 1 and RAID 5, but it does not implement them in the standard fashion. Anyone who has ever had to deal with RAID arrays will probably know that going from a RAID 1 to a RAID 5 configuration requires you to remove all your data and delete the RAID 1 array, then rebuild it to a RAID 5 array. What the X6 does is quite remarkable in that it does this step for you, but does it in such a way that data is still secure. This might not mean much if you have a few gigabytes of information to move, but a few hundred gigabytes can become a problem. Infrant has dubbed this X-RAID for expandable RAID. This device will go from a single drive to a mirror (data redundancy) when a second disk is added. Adding a third drive will double the capacity, yet still maintain redundancy. A fourth drive will give the user triple the storage with the same redundancy as before.

All this new technology does have a downside. If you want to specify multiple volumes or design the array yourself, you will be out of luck with the X6. One such option that some people will use is called the JBOD or Just a Big "Ol Disk. In my example that would yield 1.2 TB of storage by joining all the disks together. If having the ability to specify how your disks are arrayed is important to you, then the X6 is not for you. That is not to say you are out of luck either, the standard RAID functionality is still found on their other product, the ReadyNAS600. The 600 is the same size and shape as the X6, but lacks some of the newer features of it (including X-RAID).

<< Previous

Page 3 of 10

Next >>

Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks
Page 3: Installation
Page 4: Hard Drives
Page 5: Services
Page 6: Testing
Page 7: Testing: DiskBench
Page 8: Testing: Iometer
Page 9: Quality, Security & Error Reporting
Page 10: Conclusion

Subscribe to Storage [more info]

Add Comment

0 User Comments

Add Comment

To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields.