Mobile RAID 1 2.5" Disks

Why would you want mobile RAID 1 2.5" disks (or portable mirror array of notebook drives in same language of different type)? For me, I just like to make a backup of my data at home and at work to the same location and know that the backup is mirrored for safety. It's also nice to know the data your transporting has an extra bit of safety in case of something going wrong with one of the drives.

NOTE: A vast majority of this posting is about early attempts at RAID and notebook drives. Skip to the bolded update sections towards the end for more updated info.

Some shopping around revealed a few RAID 0 options for purchase but I couldn't find a single RAID 1 option using notebook drives. There are a few options out there for RAID 1 3.5" drives. One 3.5" drive is about the limit of portability for me so I wasn't looking to exceed that form factor. I happened across this company that makes RAID controllers for 3.5" form factor solutions (meaning the controller and disks should fit in a 3.5" slot). It's mainly targeted for use in a desktop/tower configuration as the complete length is about 9". But I thought maybe I could find a somewhat spacious enclosure that would hold it and the two notebook drives. For those interested, the company URL is: http://www.ezd2d.com/ . (The specific product I used is "MicroRAID").

Looking at enclosures online, I found a few with the exterior dimensions exceeding 9" and using an IDE interface (a requirement of the MicroRAID controller). I researched a few that seemed to allow for some extra length inside the enclosure and chose the SilverStone NS312. Company URL is: http://www.silverstonetek.com/ . This unit also has the added advantage of fulfilling NAS functions. Reviews seemed positive but somewhat lacking of detail.

For drives, I chose two Toshiba 100GB 7,200 RPM drives. They where cheap and just about the largest notebook IDE drives I could find with a 7,200 RPM spindle speed. I didn't choose SATA because the MicroRAID controller for SATA drives is not available as of this writing. In addition, I know these notebook drives aren't going to come close to exhausting the IDE bandwidth anyhow so there's no real advantage to SATA in this particular case. I know some people might have concerns over the Toshiba notebook drives due to past reliability issues but I figured I'd give them a try hoping for improvement from lessons learned kind of thing. In addition, I haven't been hearing anything terrible about the current models.

The setup of the MicroRAID drives and controller was pretty straight forward. The only hitch I encountered was during the initial format of the drive. I did the initial format with just one drive in and then inserted the second to test the rebuild procedure. I was expecting it to automatically start the rebuild process on boot up but it did not. It turns out the rebuild must be initiated through the software provided with the MicroRAID. This isn't a huge deal, but there are things to consider for our use here. This means if one drive fails in the enclosure, the MicroRAID controller must be removed and attached to a computer with the software installed to perform a rebuild. So, no hot swap (to be expected with IDE interface), but no cold swap either. It would have been icing on the cake.

With the MicroRAID controller tested and working, I went about examining the fit to the NS312 enclosure. With the tray out, it looked like it would fit. Fitting it to the tray proved to be impossible without alteration. The lip at the "front" of the tray had to be flattened so the holes on the side would align to the tray. A pair of pliers did the trick. The rubber mounting holes are a good idea for shock absorption. Everything "fits" although the tray holes do not align. This turns out to not be an issue as the horizontal movement of the tray is just about completely impossible due to the tightness of fit on both ends plus the pressure exerted once the cover is screwed down over the tray. The following pictures document the fit.

Tray before and after the front lip is flattened.
Tray holding the MicroRAID controller with drives.
Tray in enclosure with minimal clearance.

The NS312 ended up being the most difficult part to work with, and not for its physical capacity limitations. The first model I was shipped did not have working power to the drive so was completely unusable. The second model I was shipped was missing the software disc. This I was able to work around but these two things seemed completely uncharacteristic for SilverStone who seems to enjoy a "high end" reputation for excellent parts. Issues I experienced do not end there.

For whatever reason, certain things do not work as expected on a more complex network. The office where I work is a 10.1.x.x network with VLANs for voice and data. For whatever reason, it would not work through my switch in the office on this network. I didn't waste time troubleshooting why (maybe a switch issue, maybe a VLAN issue, maybe a 10.1.x.x issue) and resorted to a direct connection to the device via secondary network connection on PC to device. Fortunately, crossover cable was not required.

As of this writing, the manual has some fairly serious errors (both the one shipped with product and the one online). The name of the device is stated to be "DSTNAS" on one page, "DST-NAS" on another, "SSTNAS" on the online manual. Leaving names aside, using the IP listed in the shipped manual and the online manual were also incorrect. In practice it was NONE of these names nor IP addresses! Some educated guessing led me to try 192.168.1.1. Low and behold, that worked and I got an login screen for the device. I also discovered the default name being used by the device was actually "STORNAS". That none of this is listed in any documentation is blot on SilverStone's reputation (how hard is it to update your online documentation!?).

The difficulty did not end there. Using the setup wizard on the administrative web page led to some problems. The password part of the setup states that you can just click next if you do not want to change the password. I have no idea what the password was changed to but it was NOT the default. To make matters worse, the "reset" button on the device was undocumented. I tried some intuitive guesses like holding it down till it rebooted, and holding it down during reboot for at least 15 seconds. None of these reset the password. Thinking that it might be stored on the drives I hooked it to the computer via USB and wiped the three partitions listed for the device. Note the USB was not detected if plugged in while already powered up. You must have it already connected and then power the device on. So, with all partitions removed and a quick format performed, I rebooted the device and found the login and password were the default values again.

This time around, I skipped the wizard portion of the setup and did manual configuration. Weird things occurred like being unable to change the hostname more than once, and inability to disable DHCP. It turns out there are some undocumented automatic actions occurring here. If you have your device set to automatically assign an IP and it fails to find one, it appears to turn on the DHCP services. (Yet another thing that would have been nice to know). You can see how this could be a bad thing in an office to have other computers suddenly getting their leased IPs from THIS device instead of the domain controller!

After discovering all kinds of little oddities, including total loss of NAS functionality, I figured this is a device best left to minimal configuration changes. Another reformat was done and, at that point, I'm through with being beta tester.

On the simple home network, more issues occurred. I use a basic DLink router. It uses the IP range 192.168.0.x and a net mask of 255.255.255.0. To accommodate the device being 192.168.1.100 (static setting from work), I changed the mask to 255.255.0.0 and performed a "repair" on the PC LAN connection which grabs an IP and begins using a net mask of 255.255.0.0 as well. For whatever reason, I still could not find the device. I resorted to direct network wiring on second network port (statically configured) and found it sitting at 192.168.1.100. Made a change to automatically assign IP, shut down, attach to router, power on, and find it is working with an automatically assigned IP.

The network issues might prove to be a real pain if I can not find a quick and reliable method for attaching the NS312 in various locations. So far, I'm thinking USB might be the only reliable method. This would be a sad degradation of service since the nice thing about NAS functionality is being able to access the device from other computers on the network.

I should note here the device will only work as a USB drive if you use the FAT32 format option. This is not advertised but is documented in the manual. Other formats offered are Ext2, and Ext3. Network connection is as advertised to be 10/100 (1000 would be nice).

The dating for the material in this post is Feb 1st, 2008. The issues I experienced on the NS312 occurred while using firmware labeled as: Hardware Name PLN6800 Platform Firmware Version 2.3.2.SS.1 (Oct. 23,2006) Hardware Version Rev. B

Considering there is not updated documentation, nor new firmware available for download off the website, and it is now 2008, and this product still has some issues... I thinking it is an EOL (end of life) type product.

Gripes aside concerning the NS312, the physical construction is quite nice. The all aluminum construction seems fairly precise and well done. The size is appropriately mobile. It has holes on the short sides to allow for ventilation. No excessive heat build up was noticed in my use. The basic form factor and saving grace of USB connection will allow this to fulfill my intended purpose of mobile RAID 1 notebook drive configuration.

Some after thoughts: Googling "STORNAS NS312" reveals other people who have actually set this product up... only one other review: http://www.reviewdesk.com/silverstone-ns312-network-attached-storage-device/3/ .

02/19/2008 Update: Press release a few days ago caught my eye: http://www.i-newswire.com/pr151424.html. It would appear SansDigital has also been thinking along the same lines and developed a similar product that could be used in a similar fashion as I'm using above. Notable difference is their claim to full fill the exact same dimensions as a normal 3.5" hard drive. I will be trying their combo out to see if it works. InstaRAID IR12TB $185 from their site. MobileSTOR MS1UT $65 from their site.

03/11/2008 Update: I received the IR12TB but found it is probably broken. The HD's work fine individually, and in RAID0, but not in RAID1 configuration. Unit consistently indicates drive failure when in RAID1 mode. Currently in process of getting an RMA. Emailing tech support from their web page did not seem to yield a response (unless spam filtered?). Phone call did the trick (they appear to be 9-5 PST... no call center message indicated what it was). Tech support was smart and unscripted type. Hard drives used are two Western Digital Scorpio 320GB 5,400RPM SATA 2.5" drives (WD3200BEVT).

06/01/2008 Update: I received the fixed equipment a while back. It took longer than usual to get it back. They attributed this to moving offices. After much tinkering, it does not appear that one can get the IR12TB to work in the MS1UT. My best guess at this point is it appears there is a boot up time required by the IR12TB that does not work well with the MS1UT. Each part works independently well on their own. Put them together and they just do not play well. Sometimes it will work, sometimes not (not changing ANY settings; just powering it up and watching). Needless to say, the whole point of RAID is reliability so the "sometimes not" potential screams for them not to be used as such. I like the storage volume (320GB), RAID 1, and form factor of the IR12TB so I will continue to use it. However, continuous transportation, and plugging in/out of connections was probably not what it was designed for. In addition, no USB and eSATA means it is only going to work on computers with cables hanging out. It is not a big deal for my home and work computers but not good enough for use at other's computers.

Also, from the SansDigital press release department, they've release a device for RAID 1 compact flash devices in a 2.5 form factor. They've named it CompactSTOR CR2T. It is very interesting, but compact flash has not yet achieved a storage capacity suitable for my uses. (Note that they also include spanning option to help with capacity demands.) I imagine this product would be useful in some extremely ruggedized laptops. RAID 1 compact flash is about as rugged as you can get in a laptop.

02/14/2009 Update: A few months ago, I purchased a portable dual drive RAID enclosure from addonics. You can view it on their website, model AE25RDESU. On paper this device meets the requirements. In practice it has faced a few problems.

The number one problem has been heat dissipation. In my case, I'm using the two Western Digital Scorpio 320GB 5,400RPM SATA 2.5" drives (WD3200BEVT) from previous project. These will work reliably for about 20-30 minutes before they get so hot that something malfunctions. Either the drives or addonics device becomes too hot to function. At this point, the AE25RDESU is almost too hot to hold. The only way I could get the RAID to finish building the first time was by putting a glass of ice water on the thing (and some paper towl wrapped around the glass to absorb condensation).

The number two problem has been a very touchy power connector. Slight bumps to where the power plugs into the back of the AE25RDESU can trip the power off. If this happens at a bad time or during boot up of the device, it seems to corrupt the RAID. After this, the device has to rebuild the mirror (and its another trip to fridge of ice water).

These problems still leave the marketplace without much of a real solution for portable RAID enclosures for the 2.5" form factor. Amazingly, I found what appears to be the exact same product sold under a different company http://www.cooldrives.com/2usb2alrahdd.html.

More searching around on the Internet revealed a similar device of different construction. The Sonnet Fusion F2 has similar features and a few more. It also costs significantly more at $460-600 for the FUS-F2-1000M5 model depending upon vendor as of this date. That cost is far more than I am willing to pay. Especially when 500GB drives are going for $100! The product does seem targeted towards the Mac user with its slim construction and aluminum shell. They might be thinking the Mac user is also flush with cash?

In a similar form factor with vastly reduced features and vastly reduced cost is a product from ACard model ACP-2212P. Their website has a comical translation attempt that is both funny and painful to read at the same time. Definitely Engrish quality material. Unfortunately, no eSata port. But, might still be a good enough product for the original purposes.

03/12/2009 Update: I've been using the ACard model for a solid month now with out issue. Zero overheating issues. I've run it through the paces with a mirror rebuild and thrown about 300 gigs onto it in a single copy operation without any issues. The form factor isn't too bad with dimensions a little smaller than your average mouse pad. The required power supply hurts the portability factor a bit. It'd be really nice if the entire operation could be powered off two USB ports (like some other devices have done when they require a little extra juice). I might give it a try with this device or something similar.

Also ran across another portable RAID model that appears to use stacking instead of the side by side configuration. It is the G-Technology G-RAID mini2. Yes, I was surprised it wasn't named G-Technology G-RAID G-mini G-2, as well. It does seem to have a few more features than the Sonnet F2. Funny enough, this model appears to also be fairly expensive at $700 for the 1TB model and is mostly targeted at Mac users. Nothing says "money to burn" like owning a Mac apparently?

Power Over eSATA will definitely make a mark on items discussed here. (Ars Technica article)

04/18/2009 Update: Attempted the power the ACard unit using the "extra port" usb cord mention in above update. Did not work. Did not even turn on. I think it will only turn on from USB power if only one drive is installed. Will have to carry power supply.