I'm dubious at best about this, though I'll listen to anyone who tries it!

@Rob-Dunn sweet hack!

Initial impressions;

• nice build quality
• half rack units
• they stack nicely with little feet
• rackmounts works a treat but fit in our racks was pretty tight, had to do a bit of jiggling (our racks suck, YMMV)
• drive bay doors are plastic, which should be fine if you're careful ($0.02 - for the $$$ some metal would have been nice, and more durable; we expect these to last 5 years and have multiple drive upgrades over time)
• drive lights do not indicate drive activity, only a populated bay (possibly also failed drive)
• came with all hardware required for rack or stack (unsure if this is standard)
• very nicely packaged, I would expect these to survive severe shipping
• LCD screen is useful (see pic on next post)

@Reid-Cooper Aye, just 4 drives each - if they work out we have a buttload of video to dump on them which may mean more drives. There's a catch to that and I'll explain more later.

Correct, just two "oneblox"

Each unit is setup on a separate subnet but remain local to each other for the testing - we can not afford to abuse our really lousy internet connection between sites.

For the initial data load we decided to go with what we know intimately - a complete dump of our existing user data. This amounts to about 2TB, with really intricate folder permissions. Initial load of the data was done through our network, 100mbit.

Initial setup of the two units was done by my manager, here's the details:

• 4x4TB 5900RPM drives (IIRC Hitachi's? will check if anyone is curious)

• Created two "rings" which were then "meshed" to form a single file system, duplicated to the other unit

• Initial setup was as easy as claimed, stuff in drives, go to website, click a few buttons, done.

A place for me to spill my thoughts on working with these things. Feel free to chip in if you have a thought, suggestion or test you'd like to see done.

Morning Joy!

It's actually doing a right proper job of crippling our internal 100mbit down to a more realistic WAN speed. I'm impressed!

Edit: I just discovered the port numbering on the front of it.... ugh

Currently setting up a SUPER HIGH PERFORMANCE networking environment to better simulate our terrible connection to our office in Vancouver.

This is my concern with "autoupdate" software - it has it's perks, don't get me wrong.

Hanging my head in shame after realizing I screwed up and it'll take some effort to fix. Blargh.

If MS wanted to make serious cash, they'd update AD and make it relevant to other OS's somehow. When managing a fleet of hardware it's a serious PITA to have non-compliant stuff around. I've got AD for MS, and then it dissolves into a morass of generic accounts, specific accounts, user accounts and all sorts of other junk to cover iPads, OSX, linux.... what a mess & headache.

@scottalanmiller I was going to fill it full of the wonders of RAID5 and how it's clearly the most superior choice for large enterprises but I thought that this forum might be searchable and I didn't want to put that out there even if it was funny heheh

Looks good on desktop for me!

Dr.Evil grin

All I can think of is an application where you want a good quantity of data to sit and churn undisturbed for a long time. Data storage for remote sites like the north pole? I don't know.
Edit: Nuke' subs? Remote drilling rigs? I can't think of anything where you'd put this and NO ONE would have the chance to swap a drive. It does not take a rocket scientist to spot a bright red LED on an array.

Forty-five disk drives, ten parity drives, and 33 spare disks: that's the optimum array size to protect data for four years with no service visits, according to a study published at Arxiv.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/28/how_much_spinning_rust_is_enough_to_protect_your_data/

Seems a tad silly to go through all that to get 45:43 disk to spares when RAID10 will give you 1:1 (slightly less efficient) but far more IO. I suppose if you REALLY want to not touch something for 4 years and know it will work....