Vanilla Hardware, Cherry Garcia Software
NSS' hardware is pretty standard stuff: an Intel-manufactured motherboard with an Intel chipset sporting an Intel Pentium III processor at 800 Mhtz and dual Intel 10/100 NICs. One of the disappointing things about this machine is that you cannot use both of the onboard NICs at once, so dual-homing, adaptive load balancing, failover and the like are not all available. You also can get a gigabit NIC in either the Intel or the Alteon/3COM variety. The hardware supports either fiber or copper. Adaptec makes the SCSI RAID controller and Seagate manufactures the hard drives. The box comes with two hot-swappable power supplies with a single source cord -- nice, if unexciting hardware.
The real intriguing part is NSS' operating system, SpanStor. SpanStor fits onto a single, bootable floppy disk. The version we looked at was 3.1.16. This tiny operating system is not just another Linux or FreeBSD cut down to floppy size. NSS actually developed and continues to develop the kernel itself. The kernel is written entirely in C, as is most of the operating system. It even has a special version of Apache to run the Web functions. This small, fast OS only uses 24 MB of hard disk space during operation and provides all of the features found on the ProStor180. The only thing that disappointed us was the lack of support for the dual 10/100 NICs. Currently, SpanStor only supports the use of one port, which eliminates the possibility of dual homing or adaptive load balancing. SpanStor can be loaded with the bootable floppy disk or installed directly on the array. SpanStor supports sharing for Microsoft Windows and NFS (Network File System). The sharing for Microsoft Windows is handled by drivers written specifically for SpanStor and is not a Samba implementation. You also can tie in American Power Conversion UPS units to the device for automatic clean shutdown in the event of power failure.
Initial setup of the ProStor180 begins by attaching a serial cable to the console or hooking a monitor and keyboard directly to the unit and booting up with the SpanStor disk. After a few minutes, the on-screen console pops up, showing you vital statistics of the system. Begin initial configuration by following the prompts and entering the default password. You then are taken to the main menu section where you can configure the box using text menus. About all you have to do right away is set the IP address or set the unit to DHCP. After restarting the system you can go to one of your workstations, fire up the browser and point it at the ProStor180's IP address. You will get a nicely organized Web page where you can configure the NAS.
You also can import user names from your Windows NT primary domain controller. Passwords, however, are not imported. From your browser you can configure your SMB (Server Message Block) options and NFS security options, add shares and users, and administer the server. Security options on the ProStor are made on a per-user level; you also may authenticate with a Windows NT/2000 server. The system, however, does not support SNMP or integrate into central management systems such as Tivoli or Hewlett-Packard's OpenView. On the trouble notification front, the ProStor180 can send mail to up to five e-mail addresses. Triggers can be set for disk errors, network errors, system hardware problems, reboots, backup errors, low disk space and power supply/general supply failures. A nice feature of the low disk space messages is a slider bar to indicate how many days between repeated notifications.
For backups, the ProStor180 supports a directly attached SCSI tape. The SpanStor operating system's internal backup software supports all kinds of tape drives, and certification of the new LTO (Linear Tape Open) and SuperDLT (Super Digital Linear Tape) should be completed by the time you read this. The embedded backup software is full featured. You can plan scheduled or immediate back ups, perform directory listings and restore individual files, directories or entire volumes. If you choose to use another software, the SpanStor operating system supports almost any third-party backup software with NDMP (Network Data Management Protocol) Level 3.
This machine can currently hold 360 GB, but when the new one-inch high, 73 GB version comes out, the unit will support up to 730 GB of storage. Another interesting feature of the ProStor180 is the adjustable read-ahead cache. This cache can be changed on the fly, based on whether you are accessing sequential or random data. The system also contains an impressive array of reports on such diverse items as NFS calls, CPU idle, packets received and packets transmitted via the Web interface. There also are raw number statistics for NFS lock, SMB, RPC (remote procedure call), amount of ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) and IP packets ignored. You can access full event logging for the purpose of change tracking and connection logs for IP with time/date and port information. The ProStor180 also has usage logs for disk, system and call count (SMB, NFS and so on). Overall, you can get almost any information you might need out of the system.
The ProStor180 has a three-year return to factory warranty, with upgrades available. Upgrades to on-site service are performed by Hitachi Data Systems. Overall, it's a solid piece of equipment: Its hardware is the very model of standard; the embedded SpanStor OS is solid; and the only downside is the need for continued development of SpanStor. NSS plans to continue to add features and hardware support.
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