Another 3 Minute Upgrade
As followers of our site know we have been running the Data Robotics DroboElite in production for quite some time now and it stores all of our web data as well as our Nasuni Filer which contains our production documents. Of course we still use the unit extensively to host much of our lab test data as well and as a result our capacity demands are growing rapidly so it came time recently to do a capacity upgrade. Now that we had TB’s of data, production data at that, would the upgrade go as smoothly? While this is not as exciting as the failed drive situation we had in our last review, it is just as important that it works well.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Test Drive
George Crump, Senior Analyst
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DroboElite Test Drive Part 4 - Multi-Platform
- Data Robotics DroboElite Test Drive
Data Robotics is a client of Storage Switzerland
First step was of course to go acquire another drive. For us this meant running down to our local CompUSA (nice to see those making a comeback). We were able to pick up a good quality 2TB drive for less than $100. As you can see from the video, next we took the drive out of its packaging and slid it into the available drive bay on the DroboElite. Within seconds we had access to the additional capacity. No down time, no reboot of servers, just capacity in minutes.
3TB Drive Next?
The next step for a capacity upgrade for us is to install a 3TB drive in the unit. This will require ejecting one of our 1TB drives and then inserting a 3TB drive. It will be interesting to watch BeyondRAID handle that and will give us an interesting new twist on system migration. Instead of replacing the whole unit, replace it a drive at a time but only as you need to and as prices come down.
WiFi iSCSI
Another area in which we have been experimenting, and one that we are going to report on in an upcoming test drive, is what I am calling WiFi iSCSI. The DroboElite iSCSI connection works surprisingly well on WiFi connected laptops. This opens up a whole new era of possibilities for the unit and how it is used within a business. More on that in a future update.
