Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
In a message dated: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 17:26:59 EDT [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Seeing how they are both made from the same commodity i386 parts (and same basic software), I don't know that means much. Cobalt's original product line (the Qube) was a LAN server appliance (NFS/CIFS/etc). As I understand it, the biggest change from LAN appliance to web appliance was the marketing literature. ;-) Oh, right, the Qube, I forgot about that one. I was thinking the RaQ series. Which in theory, could be connected via scsi2 to a RAID array if you wanted, but you won't get much performance that way :) The RaQ series was specifically targeted at the ISP/ASP/Web hosting market. The systems are really nice, AMD based units, which are !9x12x1u. They're small enough that you could realistically populate *both* sides of a 19 rack with them and have all the cabling go down the center of the rack. Definitely a design that maximizes floor space in a data center :) I forgot the Qube was meant as a LAN server. Sorry for the confusion. -- Seeya, Paul It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
Thought it was BSD, not Linux, myself. Regardless, we've been running one for close to 4 years and sharing Windows and Mac systems. Several of the Macs are connected via NFS connections and they have been fine. Ray At 2:29 PM -0400 7/22/02, Hewitt Tech wrote: Has anyone used any of the Quantum Snap Server products to add NAS storage for small office use? I remember them using Linux as the hidden OS. I was thinking of recommending one of these for use in a small office. So far the only deficiency I see in the small one I want to use (the Snap Server 2200) is that it doesn't respond to the UPS shutdown command in the event of commercial power failure. I'm not sure this would necessarily be a big problem since the rest of their office environment would likely already be down at this point and the Snap Server should be pretty much idle. I haven't seen too many problems with Linux systems from power failures when the system was quiescent. Thoughts? -Alex * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * -- - Raymond Cote, President Appropriate Solutions, Inc. www.AppropriateSolutions.com rgacote(at)AppropriateSolutions.com 603.924.6079(v) POB 458, Peterborough, NH 03458603.924.8668(f) * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
Quoting Hewitt Tech [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Has anyone used any of the Quantum Snap Server products to add NAS
storage
for small office use?
Yeppers. I have a 4000.
I remember them using Linux as the hidden OS.
Nope.. Currently, BSD. In April they purchased a company that would lead
to SnapOS being replaced with a Linux based kernel.
I
was
thinking of recommending one of these for use in a small office. So far
the
only deficiency I see in the small one I want to use (the Snap Server
2200)
is that it doesn't respond to the UPS shutdown command in the event of
commercial power failure.
Yes, it does, but it will do so via TCP/IP. So the USB has to be IP aware.
I'm not sure this would necessarily be a big
problem since the rest of their office environment would likely already
be
down at this point and the Snap Server should be pretty much idle. I
haven't
seen too many problems with Linux systems from power failures when the
system was quiescent.
I haven't had any issues during failures. It's a GREAT little box..
Thoughts?
The *ONLY* concern I've had with it is ease of subverting security.
Primarily, reseting the admin password is as easy as pushing a little button
with a pencil top, and pushing it again twice, then holding it down. This
resets the admin password.. No way to disable this 'feature'. Not to bad,
but it's a pet peive I guess..
--
Thomas Charron
-={ Is beadarrach an ni an onair }=-
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Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
In a message dated: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 14:30:18 CDT Thomas Charron said: The *ONLY* concern I've had with it is ease of subverting security. Primarily, reseting the admin password is as easy as pushing a little button with a pencil top, and pushing it again twice, then holding it down. This resets the admin password.. No way to disable this 'feature'. Not to bad, but it's a pet peive I guess.. You could, if you really wanted to, open up the box and disconnect this button, couldn't you? Or, better yet, get a good locking door on the room where this box is located :) -- Seeya, Paul * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Thomas Charron wrote: The *ONLY* concern I've had with it is ease of subverting security. Primarily, reseting the admin password is as easy as pushing a little button with a pencil top, and pushing it again twice, then holding it down. This resets the admin password.. No way to disable this 'feature'. Not to bad, but it's a pet peeve I guess.. Ken's (security) rule-of-thumb: if you don't have physical security, you don't have security. Period. Looked at a different way, I -like- being able to reset passwords easily through a button: makes it easy to re-configure those pesky generic network function boxen. I just make *sure* that it's under lock and key. Granted, if you're in a -really- small office, it's pretty much a non-issue, but if you're in a mid-sized one, you really should have restricted physical access to servers. And, heck, even in a small office, if it's out of the way, the cleaners won't run over ther power cord with a vacuum cleaner. -Ken * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, at 12:40pm, Ken Ambrose wrote: Ken's (security) rule-of-thumb: if you don't have physical security, you don't have security. Period. Looked at a different way, I -like- being able to reset passwords easily through a button ... Yeah, what he said. :) Even if said button was not present, I could always apply this tried-and-true security exploit: I could rip open the case, and install the hard drive as a secondary disk in my own system. -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, at 2:29pm, Hewitt Tech wrote: Has anyone used any of the Quantum Snap Server products to add NAS storage for small office use? The only caveats I hear of regularly are performance, management, and backup. Performance is pretty poor, especially for any kind of I/O intensive application (but you would expect that). Management is poor, compared to how integrated a homogeneous network usually is (but again, that is to be expected, and a non-issue on a small, ad-hoc network anyway). Backup is a combination of performance and simple existence: Don't forget to back up the Snap box, and remember that network backup performance (compared to a local drive) is going to be pretty poor. I remember them using Linux as the hidden OS. As others had said, I think it was a BSD. I also seem to remember that, after Maxtor bought Quantum, Maxtor decided to use an embedded version of a Redmond-based OS. But in an embedded situation, the OS really does not matter. It could be running Amiga Workbench, so long as it gets the job done. -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
Hewitt Tech [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Has anyone used any of the Quantum Snap Server products to add NAS storage for small office use? I remember them using Linux as the hidden OS. I was thinking of recommending one of these for use in a small office. So far the I have an older model at home that I picked up on eBay a couple months ago, after reading an article about upgrading the hard drives. After configuring and testing it, I couldn't find a shutdown command, and when I just flip the power switch it shuts down cleanly and then reboots fine when I turn it on. All I had to do was yank out the tiny drives (I think they were maybe 5 GB each) and drop in a 100 GB drive, and then tell it to reformat the drive through the web interface. I checked out a weblog discussing the upgrade before I bought mine; apparently the older model I went with (a SnapServer 2000) has Linux in flash rom, and the hard drives can just be swapped out with no extra effort. The newer models apparently store the OS on the hard drive, and nobody on the weblog had reported any success in upgrading them. I believe those were the 1000 and 1100 series. -- John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux Unix ICQ 28611923 / AIM abreauj / JABBER [EMAIL PROTECTED] / YAHOO abreauj Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9 PGP-Key-Fingerprint 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99 An idealist is just a farsighted pragmatist. -Anon msg15690/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
The *ONLY* concern I've had with it is ease of subverting security.
Primarily, reseting the admin password is as easy as pushing a little
button
with a pencil top, and pushing it again twice, then holding it down.
This
resets the admin password.. No way to disable this 'feature'. Not to
bad,
but it's a pet peive I guess..
You could, if you really wanted to, open up the box and disconnect
this button, couldn't you?
Or, better yet, get a good locking door on the room where this box is
located :)
Aye, true enough. It's the EASE of which one can do it. Resetting the
admin password to nothing is, quite literally, in this case, EASIER then
setting the time on a digital watch. And since the box can work with EXTERNAL
networks, such as NTFS mounts, Windows networks, etc, this could lead to a
compromise of your entire network, not just the little box.
Like I said, points is VERY valid. I'd just ensure people have as little
access to the physical box as possible.
As a second note I forgot about, it also has a built in FTP and web server,
as well as the ability to run Java servlets. Definatly a nice little box..
--
Thomas Charron
-={ Is beadarrach an ni an onair }=-
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Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, at 12:40pm, Ken Ambrose wrote:
Ken's (security) rule-of-thumb: if you don't have physical security,
you don't have security. Period. Looked at a different way, I
-like-
being able to reset passwords easily through a button ...
Even if said button was not present, I could always apply this
tried-and-true security exploit: I could rip open the case, and install
the
hard drive as a secondary disk in my own system.
Agreed. So long as you have something that can use their drives in the RAID
configuration they have..
Personally, I have it configured using RAID 5 accross 4 drives.. Just
something else to add in that wasnt mentioned. These puppies do raid..
--
Thomas Charron
-={ Is beadarrach an ni an onair }=-
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Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
In a message dated: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 14:55:21 CDT Thomas Charron said: As a second note I forgot about, it also has a built in FTP and web server, as well as the ability to run Java servlets. Definatly a nice little box.. Ahm, okay, so how is this different than a Cobalt then? A Cobalt can do all of this, and being a web-appliance is it's main function. It *can* do NFS/CIFS if you want it to, but if you have heavy duty NFS requirements, my personal opinion is: Don't use Linux! It's NFS performance as compared to Sun and True64 just plain stinks. (actually, I've heard that True64 even blows Sun's NFS performance out the door :) Linux is very good at doing a lot of things. It can do NFS, just not that well. So, other than these systems being better at NFS/CIFS, are they essentially just like the Cobalt, just with a BSD core over Linux? -- Seeya, Paul It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
The latest and greatest NFS code for the newer Linux kernels is supposed to be much improved. Kernels prior to 2.4 didn't have NFS V3 support (or at least you had to play with the 2.2 kernel series in order to get NFS V3 support). It's the NFS V3 protocol that improves performance noticeably. I don't know how reliable NFS V3 on Linux is nor what the performance numbers would show so I can't quantify this in a meaningful way. In the case of the customer I have in mind, NFS doesn't come into the picture. They're pretty much a Windows shop. Another point is that they only need a file server to park their files. They don't have applications that will be pounding the storage so performance shouldn't be an important consideration. What they don't have is in-house IT staffing. So some kind of network attached storage that requires very low maintenance/administration is a major plus for them. I'll look at the Cobalt systems though. I also saw positive comments on the MaxAttach systems put out by Maxtor. -Alex - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Thomas Charron [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Hewitt Tech [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 4:07 PM Subject: Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions? In a message dated: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 14:55:21 CDT Thomas Charron said: As a second note I forgot about, it also has a built in FTP and web server, as well as the ability to run Java servlets. Definatly a nice little box.. Ahm, okay, so how is this different than a Cobalt then? A Cobalt can do all of this, and being a web-appliance is it's main function. It *can* do NFS/CIFS if you want it to, but if you have heavy duty NFS requirements, my personal opinion is: Don't use Linux! It's NFS performance as compared to Sun and True64 just plain stinks. (actually, I've heard that True64 even blows Sun's NFS performance out the door :) Linux is very good at doing a lot of things. It can do NFS, just not that well. So, other than these systems being better at NFS/CIFS, are they essentially just like the Cobalt, just with a BSD core over Linux? -- Seeya, Paul It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. * * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
In a message dated: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 16:49:44 EDT Hewitt Tech said: I'll look at the Cobalt systems though. I also saw positive comments on the MaxAttach systems put out by Maxtor. Cobalt is now owned by Sun. Also, keep in mind, they're meant as a web appliance, not necessarilly an NFS/CIFS server. Yes, you *can* have act as a file server, however, it's not *meant* to do that. It's meant to be more of an http/ftp server than anything else. Storage is limited to the 1 internal hard drive. From what I've seen in this discussion, these other boxes are more meant to be fast/reliable file servers which also happen to do http/ ftp serving, as opposed to the inverse intentions behind the Cobalt systems. -- Seeya, Paul It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
Re: Quantum Snap Server - Opinions?
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, at 4:07pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a second note I forgot about, it also has a built in FTP and web server, as well as the ability to run Java servlets. Definatly a nice little box.. Ahm, okay, so how is this different than a Cobalt then? One is made by Sun, the other's made by Quantum. ;-) Cobalt is now owned by Sun. And, AFAIK, they have not yet shoehorned either Solaris or a SPARC into a Cobalt box yet. Amazing. :-) Also, keep in mind, [Cobalt boxes are] meant as a web appliance, not necessarilly an NFS/CIFS server. Seeing how they are both made from the same commodity i386 parts (and same basic software), I don't know that means much. Cobalt's original product line (the Qube) was a LAN server appliance (NFS/CIFS/etc). As I understand it, the biggest change from LAN appliance to web appliance was the marketing literature. ;-) -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | * To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *
