I have been running two Drobo v2s (4 bay w/FW800) for storage and have, generally, been extremely happy with them. The only complaints I have are, (1) they are relatively expensive and (2) they are kind of slow, especially when upgrading drives and they have to rebuild. I found myself wanting another Drobo and lusted after the new Drobo Ses, Drobo Pros, and Drobo Elites, but, alas, I was too poor to afford any of them. I also know that Netgear's ReadyNAS devices with X-RAID2 provided the same ability to upgrade drives dynamically without data loss but they are just as or even more expensive than the Drobos. Another Drobo v2 was within my budget, but I began searching for even less expensive alternatives. I saw the Intel SS4200-E on sale for $135 and couldn't resist and bought myself a Christmas gift.
After placing the order, I did more reading about it and found that many owners had been installing Window Home Server on it and that under the hood was, essentially, a computer without a video card. This intrigued me. If it's essentially a computer, theres a good possibility that I could run unRAID on it! unRaid is shareware. It is a Linux (Slackware) based software RAID-like (more akin to JBOD with parity) server. The thing that makes unRAID special is its ability to allow users to upgrade and/or add drives to an existing array without fear of data loss and it provides parity in the event a hard drive fails, they have parity to allow for data recovery (Drobo like features). I read a bit about FreeNAS with ZFS, but read that mixing different hard drives didn't work well.
When it arrived, I immediately tried booting in to unRAID. I connected a video card to the PCI-e 1x port on the SS4200-e's motherboard using a PCI-e 1x riser that I picked up from Ebay and USB keyboard. It booted from the USB flash drive where the unRAID software resided without any problems once the necessary settings were made to the BIOS. The free version of unRAID allows up to 3 hard drives to be used and that's what I did. It was straight forward and quite easy.
Once the drives for properly formatted and the parity drive set, I began using it. Of course, since I had to connect to the SS4200-e via SMB, I encountered some filename issues from my Mac. I searched for and found that some users had managed to install Netatalk, an open source implementation of AFP. I attempted to do the same, but wasn't able to get it to work. As a workaround, I used Disk Utility to set up disk images with read and write enabled and write to those. I will attempt to get Netatalk working again when I have more time.
Once I was satisfied that unRAID works as advertised, I purchased a Plus key for $70 which allows usage of up to 6 hard drives. I also tested the parity by replacing one of the original three drives to see if it would rebuild itself. It all worked as advertised. Overall, I'm very pleased with the SS4200-e/unRAID solution. If/when I get Netatalk working properly, its value with increase further. But even without, it offers me an array to store my video library without any problems. The best thing is that it's noticeably faster than the Drobos which helped with stuttering when FF/REW HD content from my Asus O!Play (another very nice little device). I will post again if/when I manage to get Netatalk working properly.
Drobo advantages:
1. Smaller, prettier enclosure.
2. Easier to install/remove hard drives.
3. Built-in support for HFS+.
4. Easier setup.
SS4200-e/unRAID advantages:
1. Gigabit NAS (accessible by multiple computers).
2. Noticeably faster than the Drobos.
3. Failure of more than one drive does not mean total data loss.
4. Ability to use up to 6 hard drives (the SS4200-e only has 4 internal bays, but also has two eSATA ports in the back).
5. Potential to run other services (i.e. Bit Torrent).
6. Cheaper.
After placing the order, I did more reading about it and found that many owners had been installing Window Home Server on it and that under the hood was, essentially, a computer without a video card. This intrigued me. If it's essentially a computer, theres a good possibility that I could run unRAID on it! unRaid is shareware. It is a Linux (Slackware) based software RAID-like (more akin to JBOD with parity) server. The thing that makes unRAID special is its ability to allow users to upgrade and/or add drives to an existing array without fear of data loss and it provides parity in the event a hard drive fails, they have parity to allow for data recovery (Drobo like features). I read a bit about FreeNAS with ZFS, but read that mixing different hard drives didn't work well.
When it arrived, I immediately tried booting in to unRAID. I connected a video card to the PCI-e 1x port on the SS4200-e's motherboard using a PCI-e 1x riser that I picked up from Ebay and USB keyboard. It booted from the USB flash drive where the unRAID software resided without any problems once the necessary settings were made to the BIOS. The free version of unRAID allows up to 3 hard drives to be used and that's what I did. It was straight forward and quite easy.
Once the drives for properly formatted and the parity drive set, I began using it. Of course, since I had to connect to the SS4200-e via SMB, I encountered some filename issues from my Mac. I searched for and found that some users had managed to install Netatalk, an open source implementation of AFP. I attempted to do the same, but wasn't able to get it to work. As a workaround, I used Disk Utility to set up disk images with read and write enabled and write to those. I will attempt to get Netatalk working again when I have more time.
Once I was satisfied that unRAID works as advertised, I purchased a Plus key for $70 which allows usage of up to 6 hard drives. I also tested the parity by replacing one of the original three drives to see if it would rebuild itself. It all worked as advertised. Overall, I'm very pleased with the SS4200-e/unRAID solution. If/when I get Netatalk working properly, its value with increase further. But even without, it offers me an array to store my video library without any problems. The best thing is that it's noticeably faster than the Drobos which helped with stuttering when FF/REW HD content from my Asus O!Play (another very nice little device). I will post again if/when I manage to get Netatalk working properly.
Drobo advantages:
1. Smaller, prettier enclosure.
2. Easier to install/remove hard drives.
3. Built-in support for HFS+.
4. Easier setup.
SS4200-e/unRAID advantages:
1. Gigabit NAS (accessible by multiple computers).
2. Noticeably faster than the Drobos.
3. Failure of more than one drive does not mean total data loss.
4. Ability to use up to 6 hard drives (the SS4200-e only has 4 internal bays, but also has two eSATA ports in the back).
5. Potential to run other services (i.e. Bit Torrent).
6. Cheaper.
