Intel pushes Atom-fueled storage for homes, SMB
Hot-swappable RAID for home, sweet home
Intel is pushing its Cedar Trail Atom D2550 and D2500 processors as the power behind a range of network-attached storage (NAS) systems aimed at small business and power home users.
"The amount of data being created in the home and by small businesses is bloating," said David Tuhy, GM of Intel's storage division at a Thursday event in San Francisco to launch three of the systems. "Backing up that data is vital and it needs to be done safely and securely."
QNAP, Asustor, and Thecus have all started producing two, four, and five disk systems retailing for between $300 and 500, using the Intel platform. They come with 4GB of main memory, Ethernet capability or the ability to shift data via Wi-Fi, along with USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, HDMI and/or VDI output, and a software-based RAID to make sure that data is safely backed up.
Intel's Thunderbolt high-speed data transmission system isn't being built into the designs, however, since this hasn't yet been integrated into Atom systems. Adding it in now would require a separate discrete module to cope, Tuhy said.
The idea is that you'd have one of these boxes in your house or office where they would be configured to take automatic backups of connected devices. The NAS could then either be accessed online via a password-protected IP address, or files could be simply downloaded directly.
They can run in either Windows or Linux environments, with security from McAfee's AV SDK for the former and VirusScan Enterprise for open source users. Disks are hot-swappable in the event of failure.
The base spec D2500 Atom systems are designed to handle everyday backup, but Tuhy said that the D2550, with its hardware acceleration support and better graphics capability, would allow the units to be hooked up to dual monitors and handle more graphics-intensive workloads. One demonstration system linked the storage systems up to a video camera for an office or home CCTV recording system.
Higher-end storage systems, for 12 disks and above, are currently using Xeon processors, Tuhy said, but the Atom chips are powerful enough for home systems for at least the next five years. They also have the advantage of running a lot cooler than Xeon systems and consuming less power. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Minimum IT knowledge for El'Reg?
Not to mention this gem;
"and a software-based RAID to make sure that data is safely backed up"
Anybody who thinks that RAID (let alone "software RAID" <spit>) is a "backup" needs to get a job that does not involve IT.
HP N40L Micrososervers
...are the dogs doodahs for a home/small office NAS - £120 after £100 cashback. There really is little point (and certainly no money to be saved) from building your own unless you're not happy with the compute power of the AMD dual-core processor which is more than capable of saturating a GigE network connection.
Upgrade the RAM to 8GB (about £30 these days), slap on FreeNAS or NAS4Free (both utilise ZFS which is a very cool file system), pop in a bunch of hard disks, boot from a 2GB memory stick and Bob is your uncle, Fanny your aunt...
Minimum IT knowledge for El'Reg?
"The NAS could then either be accessed online via a password-protected HTML IP address"
What's an HTML IP address exactly? And here I was sure that elreg had writers that at least had a basic grasp of IT.
Field of dreams
Build it yourself, and they will surely come... Get a case with Hotswap drives, 6TB (4x1.5TB), 16Gb RAM, i3 CPU.. for the marvellous price of £300-£350. Take your pick of OS, personally I went for ESX then slapped on a couple of VMs, but you could just as easily go for FreeNAS etc.
If you don't want to get your hands dirty, buy yourself a HP MicroServer for £150..
Wow...
This is the most technically inept article I've seen in years (maybe a decade). Anywhere. Nothing personal, but Iain Thomson clearly needs to either find a new gig or apologize for slapping his/her name on an article his/her grandmother threw together after reading an Intel press release. I'm fairly certain you could find Amish who could do a better job. At least that would be forgivable. For shame El Reg, for shame.
