Zetera SoIP vs Firewire/USB/NAS

[MacVault]

Since Apple has not yet offered us an Apple-branded home network server, I am wondering if anyone here knows if SoIP is really what it's cracked up to be by Zetera - who just announced they are bringing the Z-SAN SoIP to Mac OS X. Netgear is showing it's new Storage Central Turbo with Gigabit NIC. I wonder when it will be available and will it work with OS X?

What are all your thoughts on SoIP vs Firewire/USB/NAS? Has anyone here had experience with SoIP or Zetera technology?

 

[iW00t]

Best bang for buck:

Step 1. Linux
Step 2. Samba
Step 3. Free Samba server

 

[MacVault]

Best bang for buck:

Step 1. Linux
Step 2. Samba
Step 3. Free Samba server

Ah! NOOOOOO! That sounds like one big cLuStErF^(k just waiting to happen. Samba has always given me problems.... errors on filenames with weird characters or long file names, stipping out metadata, etc. Thanks for the suggestion, but NO THANKS!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Ah! NOOOOOO! That sounds like one big cLuStErF^(k just waiting to happen. Samba has always given me problems.... errors on filenames with weird characters or long file names, stipping out metadata, etc. Thanks for the suggestion, but NO THANKS!

Hmm... that's weird. Mac OS X uses a version of Samba to handle Windows networking, and it works perfectly for me.

Anyway, as for your storage question, would Mac OS X Server + XServe RAID be of any use to you? I must admit, I'm not familiar with the products in question, so I don't know exactly which market you're looking for a product in.

 

[MacVault]

Hmm... that's weird. Mac OS X uses a version of Samba to handle Windows networking, and it works perfectly for me.

Yea, I built a FreeBSD server with Samba about a year ago to run as my NAS. After trying to copy folders with many files in them only to find that somewhere during the copy process there is an error due to permissions, filename length, special characters, etc, and that OS X is too STUPID to display the file path & file name and give you the chance to skip that file - rather than abort the copy process.... well, it was then I said NEVER again would I waste my time with FRICKIN Samba! That kind of crap is just unacceptable! Oh, and all my metadata was strippied off or stored in stupid .dstore files on the FreeBSD server. What a pain in the a$$! This is where, compared to OS X, Windows "just works"!

Anyway, as for your storage question, would Mac OS X Server + XServe RAID be of any use to you? I must admit, I'm not familiar with the products in question, so I don't know exactly which market you're looking for a product in.

Yea, an xServe RAID and OS X would be great - WHEN the total price tag comes down to ~$500.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Yea, I built a FreeBSD server with Samba about a year ago to run as my NAS. After trying to copy folders with many files in them only to find that somewhere during the copy process there is an error due to permissions, filename length, special characters, etc, and that OS X is too STUPID to display the file path & file name and give you the chance to skip that file - rather than abort the copy process.... well, it was then I said NEVER again would I waste my time with FRICKIN Samba! That kind of crap is just unacceptable! Oh, and all my metadata was strippied off or stored in stupid .dstore files on the FreeBSD server. What a pain in the a$$! This is where, compared to OS X, Windows "just works"!



Yea, an xServe RAID and OS X would be great - WHEN the total price tag comes down to ~$500.

I know what you mean about the .DS_Store files. Highly annoying. At least Mac OS X is smart enough not to burn these things to data CDs and DVDs.

As for the permissions/special characters issues you mention, that falls squarely into the category of Mac OS X bugs/feature requests, and is something you could report to Apple.

I agree about the price - though I hope you realize that Apple is one of the cheaper providers of server software and hardware. Their user licensing system blows Microsoft's and that of most other providers out of the water

 

[ryanm]

Zetera vs. Firewire/USB

Since Apple has not yet offered us an Apple-branded home network server, I am wondering if anyone here knows if SoIP is really what it's cracked up to be by Zetera - who just announced they are bringing the Z-SAN SoIP to Mac OS X. Netgear is showing it's new Storage Central Turbo with Gigabit NIC. I wonder when it will be available and will it work with OS X?

What are all your thoughts on SoIP vs Firewire/USB/NAS? Has anyone here had experience with SoIP or Zetera technology?

Disclaimer - I work for Zetera. The announcement of SC101T by Netgear provides a very unique product. Historically, when users want sharing, they have to sacrifice the performance they are used to from their USB or FW disks. SC101T will provide performance exceeding USB 2.0 (30-50 MB/s) and offer sharing and RAID 1. Zetera's technology also enabled RAID protection across devices, so you could buy two units and create a RAID 1 volume across the boxes, regardless of where they are located on your network.

For the Mac community, the performance enables you to enjoy much of the media centric stuff like video and raw audio editing that you couldn't do with a NAS. The SC101T is essentially a SAN - it is a block-based networked storage devices, rather than the NAS you are all used to.

I encourage you all to keep up with the reviews as Netgear rolls this technology out.

 

[MacVault]

Storage Central - Bad User Reviews...

Disclaimer - I work for Zetera. The announcement of SC101T by Netgear provides a very unique product. Historically, when users want sharing, they have to sacrifice the performance they are used to from their USB or FW disks. SC101T will provide performance exceeding USB 2.0 (30-50 MB/s) and offer sharing and RAID 1. Zetera's technology also enabled RAID protection across devices, so you could buy two units and create a RAID 1 volume across the boxes, regardless of where they are located on your network.

For the Mac community, the performance enables you to enjoy much of the media centric stuff like video and raw audio editing that you couldn't do with a NAS. The SC101T is essentially a SAN - it is a block-based networked storage devices, rather than the NAS you are all used to.

I encourage you all to keep up with the reviews as Netgear rolls this technology out.

Hi Ryan... Thanks for the info. It's great to have a Zetera employee on the forum. I am very interested in the Zetera technology for my home network. However, after reading posts from users of the Storage Central on Gizmodo and on Engadget saying how slowwwwww and how this was their "worst purchase ever" I am very reluctant to shell out any money for this thing. Can you shed any positive light on this? Will the the Storage Central Turbo work on Mac OS X - even if Netgear does not officially support it? Also, when will this product be available? Thanks!

 

[MacVault]

Earth To Ryan Malone @ Zetera....

Hi Ryan... I'm still wondering what the "real story" is with the Zetera tech and Storage Central.... I've read many posts (engadget/gimodo) from users saying how totally SLOW the Storage Central is for them.

So, what's the deal??? Will the Storage Central Turbo meet up to Zetera's many claims of HIGH PERFORMANCE network storage?

 

[MacVault]

Hey RyanM... Are you really unable to comment on the new Storage Central Turbo? After readig the very negative reviews on Amazon, Engadget and Gizmodo about the first Storage Central, it would be great to hear from you why there would be such negative reviews when Zetera touts their technology and it's performance so much.