NAS or SAM-SD?
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@coliver said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@DustinB3403 said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@wirestyle22 said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
Is a SAM-SD a Software Defined Network that is Scott Alan Miller compliant?
All an enterprise NAS is is a SAM-SD that someone built as a black box for you
If someone were to build a white box, or maybe a green box, would that still be compliant?
A white box device cannot be a NAS. Blackbox is part of the definition of a NAS.
White boxes cannot be enterprise (no support) so doesn't qualify as SAM-SD. That would just be a hobby class file server.
SAM-SD still requires enterprise hardware and support, but does not allow for black boxing as that is what it replaces.
So I'm 100% clear (my post was sarcasm if you didn't pick up on that, but there was a good point about white boxes I'll take note of), black boxes have parts that individually have enterprise support? Your RAID controller has support from one vendor, the main board has support from another vendor, and so on. Whereas a white box has zero support whatsoever?
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@wirestyle22 said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
Is a SAM-SD a Software Defined Network that is Scott Alan Miller compliant?
All an enterprise NAS is is a SAM-SD that someone built as a black box for you
If someone were to build a white box, or maybe a green box, would that still be compliant?
A white box device cannot be a NAS. Blackbox is part of the definition of a NAS.
White boxes cannot be enterprise (no support) so doesn't qualify as SAM-SD. That would just be a hobby class file server.
SAM-SD still requires enterprise hardware and support, but does not allow for black boxing as that is what it replaces.
So I'm 100% clear (my post was sarcasm if you didn't pick up on that, but there was a good point about white boxes I'll take note of), black boxes have parts that individually have enterprise support? Your RAID controller has support from one vendor, the main board has support from another vendor, and so on. Whereas a white box has zero support whatsoever?
Black box by definition has to have a single point of support because you don't know what components it has - hence black box. You can't support a black box, what's under the hood is abstracted from you.
When you buy a black box you commit 100% to relying on external support to tell you everything. That's the benefit, and the caveat, of appliances (aka black boxes.)
You can basically use the terms appliance or black box interchangeably.
Oh haha, I read that completely backwards... You were saying a black box is something that someone built FOR you, not that you built yourself. So if everything is abstract to you in a black box, how does a white box not fit into SAM-SD? You build it yourself for better performance and maybe less money, you have support on individual parts should they fail...
I understand that since each part has it's own vendor, and not a single point, that is not SAM-SD compliant... but if a Synology is a black box, and SAM-SD is a counter part (white box) then how do you get what is essentially a white box with a single point of contact for support?
Because you design the system with HP or Dell or whoever building it / testing it with you. You actively participate in the design of the system.
So like a build-to-buy?
Or by actually talking to a sales rep. xByte would be included in this as well.
How is that any different then just going to your business portal and picking out what you want? I'm failing to see the difference between different black boxes by definition... I know Synology isn't an enterprise class storage vendor, so is this essentially SAM-SD vs. Synology/etc? Since SAM-SD is more of a concept than an actual device...
SAM-SD is essentially a concept but one for which specific specifications have been made for reference implementations.
The SAM-SD Zero and the SAM-SD 1 were both very real, very spec'd devices. But SAM-SD on its own is a concept to provide the enterprise standard alternative to NAS blackboxing.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@coliver said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@DustinB3403 said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@wirestyle22 said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
Is a SAM-SD a Software Defined Network that is Scott Alan Miller compliant?
All an enterprise NAS is is a SAM-SD that someone built as a black box for you
If someone were to build a white box, or maybe a green box, would that still be compliant?
A white box device cannot be a NAS. Blackbox is part of the definition of a NAS.
White boxes cannot be enterprise (no support) so doesn't qualify as SAM-SD. That would just be a hobby class file server.
SAM-SD still requires enterprise hardware and support, but does not allow for black boxing as that is what it replaces.
So I'm 100% clear (my post was sarcasm if you didn't pick up on that, but there was a good point about white boxes I'll take note of), black boxes have parts that individually have enterprise support? Your RAID controller has support from one vendor, the main board has support from another vendor, and so on. Whereas a white box has zero support whatsoever?
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@wirestyle22 said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
Is a SAM-SD a Software Defined Network that is Scott Alan Miller compliant?
All an enterprise NAS is is a SAM-SD that someone built as a black box for you
If someone were to build a white box, or maybe a green box, would that still be compliant?
A white box device cannot be a NAS. Blackbox is part of the definition of a NAS.
White boxes cannot be enterprise (no support) so doesn't qualify as SAM-SD. That would just be a hobby class file server.
SAM-SD still requires enterprise hardware and support, but does not allow for black boxing as that is what it replaces.
So I'm 100% clear (my post was sarcasm if you didn't pick up on that, but there was a good point about white boxes I'll take note of), black boxes have parts that individually have enterprise support? Your RAID controller has support from one vendor, the main board has support from another vendor, and so on. Whereas a white box has zero support whatsoever?
Black box by definition has to have a single point of support because you don't know what components it has - hence black box. You can't support a black box, what's under the hood is abstracted from you.
When you buy a black box you commit 100% to relying on external support to tell you everything. That's the benefit, and the caveat, of appliances (aka black boxes.)
You can basically use the terms appliance or black box interchangeably.
Oh haha, I read that completely backwards... You were saying a black box is something that someone built FOR you, not that you built yourself. So if everything is abstract to you in a black box, how does a white box not fit into SAM-SD? You build it yourself for better performance and maybe less money, you have support on individual parts should they fail...
I understand that since each part has it's own vendor, and not a single point, that is not SAM-SD compliant... but if a Synology is a black box, and SAM-SD is a counter part (white box) then how do you get what is essentially a white box with a single point of contact for support?
Because you design the system with HP or Dell or whoever building it / testing it with you. You actively participate in the design of the system.
So like a build-to-buy?
Or by actually talking to a sales rep. xByte would be included in this as well.
How is that any different then just going to your business portal and picking out what you want? I'm failing to see the difference between different black boxes by definition... I know Synology isn't an enterprise class storage vendor, so is this essentially SAM-SD vs. Synology/etc? Since SAM-SD is more of a concept than an actual device...
It's not. Picking to purchase and talking to a sales rep are essentially the same thing. The sales rep has the added expertise of knowing their product and what will and won't work, to an extent, with it.
Think of appliance (black boxes) vs commodity servers. The appliance comes with the hardware and software tied together and you have no actual control of the underlying system outside of what the management interface allows. With a commodity server, from an enterprise vendor, you choose the underlying hardware, the operating system, and the software that is running on that operating system. Everything is in your control and accessible to you.
The big difference between a white-box and a commodity server is that the commodity server has a single point of support. For instance purchasing from Dell will allow you to contact Dell if any single piece goes bad, from a hard drive to a CPU you contact Dell for literally everything. Not only that but Dell can get you parts in a fraction of the time.
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@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
I understand that since each part has it's own vendor, and not a single point, that is not SAM-SD compliant... but if a Synology is a black box, and SAM-SD is a counter part (white box) then how do you get what is essentially a white box with a single point of contact for support?
I think you are misusing white box. Black boxes and white boxes are both niche. Neither is the standard case that a business would normally use. Enterprises either buy from an enterprise vendor like HPE, Dell, IBM, Oracle, Fujitsu or SuperMicro or they get into the building business, become and enterprise OEM and do it themselves (Facebook and Google.)
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
I understand that since each part has it's own vendor, and not a single point, that is not SAM-SD compliant... but if a Synology is a black box, and SAM-SD is a counter part (white box) then how do you get what is essentially a white box with a single point of contact for support?
I think you are misusing white box. Black boxes and white boxes are both niche. Neither is the standard case that a business would normally use. Enterprises either buy from an enterprise vendor like HPE, Dell, IBM, Oracle, Fujitsu or SuperMicro or they get into the building business, become and enterprise OEM and do it themselves (Facebook and Google.)
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Nope, that's an enterprise server.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@dafyre said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
For ~$3k, I can get a SAM-SD with 36TB (12 x 3TB drives) and get 18TB of usable space... that should tide us over for a while.
What are you looking at specifically, from xByte? I'm curious myself as we're going to be looking into the same thing about 6 months from now.
R510, and 12 x 3TB NL-SAS drives, Front Bezel, Rail Kit, and 3 Year NBD Parts Warranty... Comes out to ~$2,750 -- that's list price on their site.
Also, I am going to take a moment to tell @BradfromxByte : Be sure to pass 1,000 Thank Yous and Well Wishes to the Web Developers and whoever it was that makes the pricing information so easy to find on your site!
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@dafyre said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
Doing a 4-Bay in RAID 10 gives us 12 TB usable... That's an extra 2TB of growth, but I'm not sure what the growth rate is, and we have a new person in the position that does things differently than the last person, so we don't really know what the growth rate will be... I don't want to have to come back next year and go "Oops".
Then just don't say "oops." That's the only problem there that I see. If you buy more than this and you DON'T grow too much in a year, will you go to management and say "oops, we bought too much last year?" If not, you are forcing a bad decision based on a weird way to respond to management.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/10/you-arent-gonna-need-it/
Storage especially is something you don't buy proactively unless you really, really know what your growth rate is. This example already builds in 20% cushion more than your original stated spec. That's huge. If you are growing faster than that can accommodate, then any planning you do now is going to be reckless or wrong and you need time to figure out what you need. If you are not growing faster, then this is the right decision anyway.
The highest risk, biggest mistake decision is spending a lot today for growth you do not expect tomorrow. That's the biggest "oops." If you grow slowly, you lose. If you grow quickly, you lose. You only win with a tiny, nearly impossible to hit growth number and even then, given the time value of money and the time cost reduction of storage you might lose regardless.
All you do is go to management and say "we need to grow", don't say oops. Don't suggest oops. In fact, point out what a great decision it was now that leads to needing more storage later. The only oops is not having to buy more down the road.
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@dafyre said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@dafyre said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
For ~$3k, I can get a SAM-SD with 36TB (12 x 3TB drives) and get 18TB of usable space... that should tide us over for a while.
What are you looking at specifically, from xByte? I'm curious myself as we're going to be looking into the same thing about 6 months from now.
R510, and 12 x 3TB NL-SAS drives, Front Bezel, Rail Kit, and 3 Year NBD Parts Warranty... Comes out to ~$2,750 -- that's list price on their site.
Also, I am going to take a moment to tell @BradfromxByte : Be sure to pass 1,000 Thank Yous and Well Wishes to the Web Developers and whoever it was that makes the pricing information so easy to find on your site!
That's 30TB usabel. 300% above what you were looking for. The cost is great, but that feels like overkill.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
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@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs.
*It has a single point of contact for support.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help. -
@coliver said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
The big difference between a white-box and a commodity server is that the commodity server has a single point of support. For instance purchasing from Dell will allow you to contact Dell if any single piece goes bad, from a hard drive to a CPU you contact Dell for literally everything. Not only that but Dell can get you parts in a fraction of the time.
It's more than that. There are single point of contact vendors for non-enterprise servers, too. Enterprise servers need to be engineered as an enterprise product, have specific types and scope of support, be of a certain quality level, etc. Anyone can provide single point of contact for anything, that's not enough to even get considered.
The easy guide for day to day enterprise servers is...
- Comes from one of the enterprise vendors: HPE, Dell, IBM (real IBM, not Lenovo confused with IBM), Oracle, Fujitsu, Hitachi, SuperMicro and, reluctantly, Cisco (although personally I put them below enterprise level at an SMB level).
- AND that vendor considers it to be an enterprise server (Dell PowerEdge R counts, C does not. HPE Proliant 3xx counts, 1xx does not, etc.)
- AND it is purchases with an enterprise level of support (NBD is fine if the situation calls for it.)
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@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@dafyre said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@dafyre said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
For ~$3k, I can get a SAM-SD with 36TB (12 x 3TB drives) and get 18TB of usable space... that should tide us over for a while.
What are you looking at specifically, from xByte? I'm curious myself as we're going to be looking into the same thing about 6 months from now.
R510, and 12 x 3TB NL-SAS drives, Front Bezel, Rail Kit, and 3 Year NBD Parts Warranty... Comes out to ~$2,750 -- that's list price on their site.
Also, I am going to take a moment to tell @BradfromxByte : Be sure to pass 1,000 Thank Yous and Well Wishes to the Web Developers and whoever it was that makes the pricing information so easy to find on your site!
That's 30TB usabel. 300% above what you were looking for. The cost is great, but that feels like overkill.
36TB RAW... RAID10 it and it becomes 18 Usable...
And still, this build is LESS than the cost of a similar Similar 12-Bay Synology with the same drives, while providing 80% more space.
Edit: Still Considering a 4-Bay + 6TB drive system... or maybe 8TB drives... That would give us 16TB usable.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs.
*It has a single point of contact for support.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help.The software and parts are fully accessible. You select the operating system and software you run on the server. The parts are generally easily replaced by the user and can be shipped in a few hours, or minutes if you're @scottalanmiller. On top of that you aren't locked down to the pre-configured system. You can add hardware and software at anytime as your needs change.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs. <-- this alone makes it not a black box
*It has a single point of contact for support. <-- this isn't clear, why would it be a single point of contact? I don't see that as an option.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help. <-- this is not the case with this unit, so doesn't qualify -
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs. <-- this alone makes it not a black box
*It has a single point of contact for support. <-- this isn't clear, why would it be a single point of contact? I don't see that as an option.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help. <-- this is not the case with this unit, so doesn't qualifyI've completely lost sense what a black box vs. enterprise server is then. White box I understand, you build it from whatever parts vendors you choose and load up whatever OS you want.
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In no way is a Dell PowerEdge R830 a black box appliance.
- It is just a server, the OS and the applications are not part of the system. They are user defined.
- The server itself is not an appliance even at the hardware level, it is a collection of user serviceable parts that can be openly modified at any time.
- Defined usage of the device is for the end user to set it up themselves. Any OEM setup is purely for testing (RAID, OS install, etc.)
- It is not an appliance, all needed or possible configurations are not included by the manufacturer.)
- It lacks a single point of contact. Your options for OS, applications, extra parts, etc. all define their own support agreements as you see fit.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs. <-- this alone makes it not a black box
*It has a single point of contact for support. <-- this isn't clear, why would it be a single point of contact? I don't see that as an option.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help. <-- this is not the case with this unit, so doesn't qualifyI've completely lost sense what a black box vs. enterprise server is then. White box I understand, you build it from whatever parts vendors you choose and load up whatever OS you want.
Do you consider a desktop purchased from CyberPC, Dell, or HP a blackbox?
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@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
In no way is a Dell PowerEdge R830 a black box appliance.
- It is just a server, the OS and the applications are not part of the system. They are user defined.
- The server itself is not an appliance even at the hardware level, it is a collection of user serviceable parts that can be openly modified at any time.
- Defined usage of the device is for the end user to set it up themselves. Any OEM setup is purely for testing (RAID, OS install, etc.)
- It is not an appliance, all needed or possible configurations are not included by the manufacturer.)
- It lacks a single point of contact. Your options for OS, applications, extra parts, etc. all define their own support agreements as you see fit.
I thought a black box had to be an enterprise appliance, not something like Synology/QNAP/ReadyNAS/etc that you'd find in much smaller environments like SMB.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs. <-- this alone makes it not a black box
*It has a single point of contact for support. <-- this isn't clear, why would it be a single point of contact? I don't see that as an option.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help. <-- this is not the case with this unit, so doesn't qualifyI've completely lost sense what a black box vs. enterprise server is then. White box I understand, you build it from whatever parts vendors you choose and load up whatever OS you want.
And a black box is 100% unknown, unsupported and unserviceable to you. A black box means you don't know anything about it, and don't care. Your Synology... you don't care HOW they do what they do, none of that is of concern to you. You can't modify it or tune it, Synology does that. You don't install apps (without breaking support and the appliance nature) or anything like that. It's nothing like a server.
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@coliver said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
White box is not the counter to black box.
So then this falls into the category of a black box? By simply spec'ing it out myself and having a single point of contact... http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_r830_1190&model_id=poweredge-r830&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Not in the least. Since you know that black box and white box are not each other's counterpoints AND that all normal servers are not black box or white box, why would you assume that this became one or the other?
Because I thought it fit the bill for what is defined as a "black box"...
*One that is not necessarily pre-built. You talk to sales or go online and spec it out specifically to fit your needs. <-- this alone makes it not a black box
*It has a single point of contact for support. <-- this isn't clear, why would it be a single point of contact? I don't see that as an option.
*The parts, while spec'd by you, are not accessible, or the software, so you rely on support to help. <-- this is not the case with this unit, so doesn't qualifyI've completely lost sense what a black box vs. enterprise server is then. White box I understand, you build it from whatever parts vendors you choose and load up whatever OS you want.
Do you consider a desktop purchased from CyberPC, Dell, or HP a blackbox?
Haha now I'm not even sure, since I've completely lost sense of what the term black box really means.
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@BBigford said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
@scottalanmiller said in NAS or SAM-SD?:
In no way is a Dell PowerEdge R830 a black box appliance.
- It is just a server, the OS and the applications are not part of the system. They are user defined.
- The server itself is not an appliance even at the hardware level, it is a collection of user serviceable parts that can be openly modified at any time.
- Defined usage of the device is for the end user to set it up themselves. Any OEM setup is purely for testing (RAID, OS install, etc.)
- It is not an appliance, all needed or possible configurations are not included by the manufacturer.)
- It lacks a single point of contact. Your options for OS, applications, extra parts, etc. all define their own support agreements as you see fit.
I thought a black box had to be an enterprise appliance, not something like Synology/QNAP/ReadyNAS/etc that you'd find in much smaller environments like SMB.
No, black box or white box have nothing to do with the enterprise nature. No enterprise white box parts or processes exist on the market so white boxing cannot be enterprise, but that in no way implies that black boxes are enterprise. Black boxes include things like.. airplane black boxes (hence the name), your cable company's DVR, a normal home router, ANYTHING labeled as an appliance, etc.
Black box = appliance. NAS are by definition appliances / black boxes.
