Thursday, July 14, 2011

Intel SS4200-E Network Storage Server


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Network Storage Server - 1 x Intel Celeron 420 1.6GHz - Type A USB, eSATA

This review is from : Intel SS4200-E Network Storage Server
Excellent Windows Home Server Box -- For Geeks Only . The Intel SS4200 is a very high quality NAS server. It can also be an excellent value if you shop around. I carefully followed the WHS installation instructions at WeGotServed website to create an 8TB (4x WD20EADS) NAS. Installed on the first attempt. I'm able to get 40 to 60 MBS using a cheap gigabit network. That's very fast for an inexpensive setup. This is not a solution for someone looking for a plug and play WHS solution. However, I'm delighted that for the cost of a bit of study, I'm running an 8TB WHS pro server.

Update 31-Dec-2009: WHS multi-user performance is greatly improved by defragging if on a gigabit network. Defragging minimizes head contention. My two user benchmark showed disk reads jumping from 4MBs to 60MBs after defragging. I also increased memory from the stock 512MB to 2GB using a single DIMM from PNY Optima MD4096KD2-800 4GB 2x2GB Dual Channel Kit DDR2 800 MHz CL 5-5-5-15 PC2-6400 Desktop DIMM Memory Module. Surprisingly, the additional memory did not improve the two user benchmark speed. I put back the original 512MB module. Also note defragging isn't as significant a gain in a single user environment. A single user can get 40MBs from a fragmented disk whereas adding a second user pummels performance to 4MBs each.

Update 18-Jan-2010: SS4200-E and green drives are vindicated. I've been puzzled by the performance drop off when copying a large file on the server to two different clients simultaneously. Performance plunged from 45MB/s (excellent performance) for one client copying to 5-15MB/s for two client copying. I've now tried the same benchmark on a totally different configuration; a ReadyNAS NV+ with 4 Seagate 7200RPM drives. You would expect the NV+ and fast drives to outperform the cheaper SS4200-E configuration but this was not the case. The SS4200-E with 4 green drives was 20% faster than the ReadyNAS NV+ configuration when copying to a single client. They both had similar drop-offs for two client copying. This seems to be entirely due to loss of cache and head contention and little to do with server or drive speeds. This is particularly an issue when serving multiple 1080p streams.

Update 15-Mar-2010: I installed PerfectDisk 11 for WHS to defrag the disks. Appears to have done a pretty good job of making files more sequential. Performance increased from a sometimes 45MB/s to a more steady 58MB/s.
Intel SS4200-E Network Storage Server Reviews
Well-engineered great support price/performance cannot be beat . This is [potentially] a great home NAS solution. [Taking away two stars, see Edit to this review at bottom.] I've previously tried Cisco/Linksys NAS200 and the IOCell NetDisk. Both had significant software issues and very poor speed and stability. Since recent significant price reductions, the SS4200-E is now on a price par with these other units and with vastly superior hardware.

My primary use is as a photo/video archive (just one box to grab in a disaster!) and to serve video/movies to our HTPC. These are large files, and there is rarely more than one user at a time, so this is significantly different than say a small-business setting with multiple users accessing documents or databases.

In my use case, performance is manifold better than with other like-priced NAS units where you add your own disks. It is quiet, once an initial startup fan surge slows. Though quiet, the drive status lights on the front panel are bright. You may not want it right next to your home theater, but it doesn't have to be squirreled away in a "head end" closet. Fans are large and ventilation is more than adequate. I run it in the upright configuration, but it can also have its feet attached for a horizontal shelf config. It should be mentioned that construction is solid; the case is metal underneath the attractive "suitcase" plastic cladding, and features a toolless design for both opening the case and managing the drive mounts. Drives are isolated and mounted more securely and with more open air around them. It can use 70W with four drives, asleep, so consider that if you're only using it for minutes, versus hours each day. More recent "green" drives, not available during Intel's initial testing may lower that significantly. The system has a 250W power supply.

The unit will hold four drives internally, plus support for two more e-Sata external drives on a separate disk controller. So there's plenty of expansion room. It is important to speed-match the disks for best throughput, and to use the included rubber vibration isolators to allow the disk heads optimal function and minimize re-reads. Memory can be upgraded, but care should be used to review Intel's compatability list to get best performance.

If you'd like a full technical review, look to Tom's Hardware, search for the model number. The review was in Dec. of 2008. Know that from the surplus vendors you may not get any documentation. This is a common "EHW" (i.e. bare-bones) to "ESW" conversion. The software may come on an unlabled CD-R. That's fine as we all know the first thing we do is to go download the latest rev of the software from the vendor site.

This is where getting the SS4200-E really pays off. Though it may say "Fujitsu/Siemens" or another vendor on the case, it is built by Intel. Being an Intel product, support is excellent. Go to Intel's Support Home and search for the SS4200-E. There you'll find links to software, PDF documentation, tested disk and router combinations, and even a video showing how to set-up the server.

Installation is straightforward, but you have to understand RAID terminology and pick the configuration appropriate for your needs. Having a one-zero capability was a key decision point for me as I need the speed to stream video and the security of redundancy to protect my precious family photo/video memories. Home NAS products are still in their infancy. I've yet to see a truly consumer-friendly, plug and play system. But configuration is not far from setting up a home wireless network. It is easy to get it to "just work", but extracting the maximum still requires some deeper knowledge.

[Edit: 2 weeks of ownership] Sorry, have to take away a couple of stars. Turns out that my particular unit just doesn't work. Several go-rounds with Intel support (who are excellent) ended up with them recommending a Vendor RMA. So I've got to pull all the drives--which were not at fault--and pack it up and ship it back. This kind of thing happens, but it does make me wonder. I wonder if I'll ever get a home NAS solution working. Bad luck? I dunno.
Intel SS4200-E Network Storage Server Opinions
Great Product . For the money this is the best device you can buy.
Even though specs say up to 4x1TB, I'm running 4x2TB Hitachi drives w/o any problems. Total space in raid5 configuration is 5.5TB, but only 5.1TB usable. You can enable ssh and run tune2fs command to regain 5% reserved for root

# tune2fs -m 0 /dev/evms/md0vol1

Also I suggest connecting the box to a gigabit switch as your 100Mb(megabit) one will be easily overloaded since read/write speeds can reach upto 35MB(megaByte)

Share setup is easy but you cannot share folders underneath the main one. Also only 1 volume is allowed.

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UPDATE 1/27/2010

Sharing folders underneath the main one can be accomplished by editing /etc/samba/smb.conf and restarting samba /etc/init.d/S50samba restart
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Streaming 1080p to WDTV Live is great. WDTV finds the device easily


With 4 drives idling the box draws about 25w
EASY SETUP FREENAS BOX (includes how to) . I am writing this to help anyone trying to set this up in FREENAS. FREENAS offers a lot of features absent from the included management software including a bittorent client and it's all free. After much research I was able to set this up very easily with Freenas and 4 Seagate 1.5 terrabyte drives.

This unit comes with a 256mb DOM (disk on module) which holds the OS. Pull it out and put it into another computer and boot up from the FREENAS disk and install it (option 1) on the DOM. Then restart the computer and select Networking and allow DHCP and note down the address. Now your OS is on the DOM and not on your raid drives. Shut down the computer and pull the DOM and put it in the SS4200 as well as your drive(s).

To boot the system hold the reset button and push the power button on front and when the light turns orange release the reset button. This sets the boot order to the DOM first. Your all set to go. I used the ZFS file system - it's very easy to set up.
Getting it working took quite some time... (Hint for others who are stuck!) . I purchased this home server, and when I turned it on, the flashing blue light just blinked endlessly, and the device never appeared on my network. I thought it was the drives, as the compatibility list is quite short and outdated. The solution was to install the small 256MB flash card in the IDE slot on the motherboard. I thought that this piece of hardware was merely an IDE converter, but it finally dawned on me that it might hold the OS for the system. I installed it in the IDE slot, connected the power to the flash card, and it worked. What's frustrating to me is that the minimal documentation that came with the system mentioned that I needed to install a DOM - whatever that is - but it was only a few bulleted lines of text describing what was needed, with no pictures, and certainly no clear explanation to install that card. Perhaps it was supposed to have been installed before shipping? It came in a static protection bag - again with no installation instructions.
So, if you're like me, and focusing on that flashing blue light meaning drive incompatibility, check to see if you have the FLASH EPROM installed in teh IDE slot that's adjacent to where the SATA cables connect to the motherboard. It did the trick for me. Symptom was that it wouldn't even appear on the network, although the network lights showed connectivity.
Keep in mind, too, that with the default Mirror RAID configuration for 2 drives, the second drive does not add capacity, only redundancy. Adding more drives can add more capacity (make sure you fully understand RAID configurations).
Finally, the CD that came with my system was an unlabeled CDR. Needless to say, I'm quite disappointed in the end-user support. Certainly feels like an OEM implementation to me.
The unit sold by dealstop (Legend Micros) is a SS4200-EHW + DOM . so the SS4200-E is also available as bare bones hardware without the software or disk on module (DOM). This version retails for a lot less than the regular SS4200-E. This is the version that DealStop is selling, except that they open the box and add the Intel software on a CD plus a 3rd party DOM presumably with the recovery system on it. A writeup how to do this is at:
[...]

Although this is branded as the Fijitsu-Siemens Scaleo, it *DOESN'T* come with Windows Home Server, just the linux-based OS from Intel. To set this up, you'll need to run the install software from a windows box (or bootcamp/vmware/Paralells virtual machine). I installed the DOM device in the box (a little fiddly but do-able) and then used the install software via VMWare Fusion running on my mac. The install went perfectly and the box runs as described (it's a very good product). By default, if you install 2 drives they'll be set up as a raid 1 mirror, and 4 devices as raid5. Although you end up with more space in raid5, I would suggest also looking to use raid 10 (raid0+1) instead of raid5, since you can have 2 drives dropout without it destroying data (with raid5 if more than one dies your data is toast). Also raid10 has better performance than raid5 on this box.

You can upgrade the unit by adding up to 2gb RAM (e.g. Crucial CT25664AA667.M16FJ2 - note the intel software only recognizes 1gb max even if 2gb stick is installed, windows home server recognizes up to 2gb) and replace the CPU with up to an Intel dual core E4700 apparently using the existing heat sync.

There are writeups about installing WHS onto this box, for example at:
[...]
[...]

All in all, a very good buy at [...], but you need to spend some time setting up.
Ram upgrade a must for Vail . Bought this at another online retailer for a good price. I would recommend if planning to run Windows Vail, the next gen WHS, the minimum requirements are 1 gig of ram. That was painfully obvious when I installed Vail with the mere 512 stick it came with. All in all a good unit. I get the same performance with my Dlink DNS323 wireless (on an N network). But wired...look out. Very nice speeds and unit is impressively silent and upgradeable. This is most definitely a tech head's dream.
Works well but documentation is poor . I brought this unit with an 256mb DOM which contains emc software. I thought this unit is clunky, but built solid. It has 4 usb ports plus 2 external e-sata ports. I put in 3 new hard 1.5 samsung 5400rpm drives and one hard used 1.5 samsung drive. I had to boot up holding down the reset button and managed to boot up to the dom, and had to do a low level format to the existing 1.5 tb drive. Even after it booted up and everything worked fine, it will still initially boot up and it has a blinking blue power light. Afterwards, I realized the problem is with the 1.5tb drive which was used, and you have to wipe out the mbr. The easiest way is to put in the drive in your computer, boot up with a dos boot disk and type in fdisk /mbr which will remove the existing mbr. I wiped out the hard drive just in case and the Intel nas was able to let me to rebuild the hard drive from a raid 5 setting, but the hard drive is not hotpluggable.

The performance of this unit is very fast. I was able to copy a 700mb file into the unit in about 20 seconds. It also comes with emc's retrospect software which allows to take backups according to different times.
Intel SS4200-E NAS . Excellent product - everything I hoped/expected (I was in the "storage business" until I retired a few years ago.)

However, I did experience minor problems that were overcome after LL formatting the four Seagate drives which I installed in the SS4200-E. (Thanks Chuck!)

I use this NAS on my domestic 1Gb network to serve three active PCs. It offers a 2TB RAID 5 array that uses 4x Seagate 750GB Barracuda drives.

If there were more available, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat...

However, I should say that this product, with the LACK of support for it, is inappropriate for inexperienced users.

Cons Review
Avoid this NAS unit at all costs . I have two of these Intel NAS units, one at home and one at work. I have had them for several months and am running Western Digital 1.5 TB drives in both of them in a RAID5.

I just finished a week of trying to recover the RAID on my home unit, a 4TB [effective] array after i got what appears to be a common problem. After a power outage and an unclean shutdown it came up saying all four drives had erroneous data on them and needed to be overwritten. After restarting the unit several times, following the intel tech support recommendation of resetting the device back to factory standards, and finally taking the long shot chance of mounting the drives in a linux box and using mdadm to try and mount the array I have lost all my data. Unfortunately it has been a while since I backed this array up and I lost several months worth of photos, videos and other files that are not replaceable.

Intel has had this bug reported many times on their forums and this appears to be a known issue to them but it still has not been fixed. Unfortunately I trusted my data to this device and it failed, me, costing me greatly and causing the loss of irreplaceable photos and memories.

I would avoid this NAS unit at all costs and get something else instead. I am extremely disappointed in the unit and intel for having a data protection product that has had that many failures and has a known issue that is causing this many problems.

shame on intel.


Feature Intel SS4200-E Network Storage Server

  • Fujitsu Siemens SCALEO Barebone Home Server - Intel SS4200E (SS4200EHW upgraded to SS4200E, 256mb bootable DOM)
  • Intel® Celeron® 420 processor (1.6 GHz, 512 KB, L2 Cache), 512 MB DDR2 Memory
  • Compatible with 4 SATA Hard Drives (sold separately)
  • RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support, Gigabit Ethernet support
  • EMC Retrospect and Lifeline Software included




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Product Details

EAN : 0675900912489
UPC : 675900912489
MPN : 0675900912489
Brand : Intel
Weight : 20 pounds
Height : 10 inches
Length : 22 inches
Width : 18 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Manufacturer : Intel Corporation
Model : SS4200E
Publisher : Intel Corporation
SKU : 184464
Studio : Intel Corporation

Where To Buy


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