Midrange Windows-powered NAS devices

Microsoft's release of its Windows 2002 Server Appliance Kit two years ago let traditional server vendors such as Dell, HP and IBM enter the network-attached storage appliance market, which had been dominated by Auspex, EMC and Network Appliance. Today, Windows-powered NAS devices have about a 25% share of this market, according to IDC.

We invited all vendors with Windows SAK-based products to participate in a comparative review - including Dell, IBM and Iomega  - only HP and Inline were game to play. The Network World Blue Ribbon Award goes to HP's StorageWorks NAS b2000 primarily on the strength of its performance. Inline, with its FileStorm 4550, sported some innovative features but came up short when otherwise compared. We evaluated the appliances in four categories: ease of installation and management, hardware configuration, features, and performance.

Setup

StorageWorks NAS b2000 uses a ProLiant DL380 server platform, which builds on HP's experience as a server manufacturer. Take, for example, HP's RapidLaunch utility. It provided prompt-driven installation that resulted in quick deployment and management access to the box.

RapidLaunch requires no Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server access to set up the NAS. It discovered all network-attached elements and assigned an appropriate IP address to the NAS. Our only complaint was that the default administrative username and password were nowhere to be found on "Quick Start Guide" documentation, an annoyance that HP promised to fix in its next release note.

Conversely, installing the Inline device was a journey of discovery. There was no utility offered for initial installation, and the "Quick Install Guide" was insufficient for the task. We were eventually successful, only with heavy reliance on the main user manual.

NAS-SAN integration

Two configuration characteristics that separated these two systems both favored Inline. An Inline FileStorm 4550 can contain up to 8G bytes of system memory, as opposed to HP's 6G bytes. Also, Inline supports up to a maximum of four processors, while HP supports only two.

But perhaps the most important difference between the two products lies in their architectures. HP's device is an off-the-shelf ProLiant DL380 server running Windows SAK. It is a self-contained storage unit with SCSI connectivity for expansion cabinets that can accommodate up to 27 terabytes.

The FileStorm 4550, however, is essentially a head-end device with no internal storage resources, except for what is required for storing the operating system. The device contains the intelligence to provide connectivity and file services to users, but storage resources are external only. This could be in the form of a SCSI-based expansion cabinet or a Fibre Channel storage-area network (SAN).

Serving as a NAS head for a SAN, the FileStorm 4550 can present the storage resources of a back-end SAN as if they were local on the NAS appliance. As tested, the Inline system is a two-chassis solution. Along with the FileStorm 4550 NAS head, storage was situated on an Inline TruFibre expansion cabinet, which was accessed via a Fibre Channel link.