Custom Computer Consulting External Drive, NAS and SAN Drives

External Drives

External drives are becoming more important for many reasons.  They provide an alternative to backing up important files, such as documentation, pictures, and videos. They are as well beginning to be used    store for longer period times all this valuable data along with off-site backup sites. An external drive is a hard drive which sits outside the computer.  It has its own enclosure and is larger than the hard drive itself.  It is connected to the computer via an interface cable which allows the external drive to communicate with the computer.

External drives can serve many purposes. There primary purpose is to serve has a form of backup in the event of a primary drive failure. It further can allow you to move data between computers ether at home or your office without the need of a network. There is an array of type of external drives. Depending on your specific need will determine what best will suit your computing needs. It is important when choosing a backup drive to have one that is reliable and offers more flexibility in its features.

The first and perhaps the most familiar type of external drive are the ones that are attached to a computer by way of an external cable.  They are normally connected by way of a USB port.  Some may use a fire wire port and the newer protocol known as thunderbolt.   They range in different drive size, lightweight, and are portable.  These drives tend to be considered consumer level grade hard drives.  There external enclosures lack many features and due to their size they are prone to overheating.    There enclosures are made of plastic, preventing proper heat absorption from occurring and have very little, if any, proper ventilation to release the heat.  Over a short period of time this can affect the drives reliability and longevity.

To compensate for this it is better to build your own external drive.  Custom Computer Consulting can build an external drive system that accommodates your needs.  One that offers different interface connects, uses metal (steel or aluminum) enclosure for proper heat absorption, and uses fan(s) to properly ventilate the enclosure.  If you are still interested in something smaller in size, offering more portable, we recommend an SSD, a solid state drive as it does not generate the heat and provides the miniaturization you require.  It also provides a more shock resistance that can effect a standard hard disk that has moving parts. An alternative to a Solid State Drive is a SSHD. It offers the larger capacity that you may need and does not cost as much. Custom Computer Consulting will discuss with you the many options available in having us build an external drive and the benefits as it relates to your specific needs.

FACTS - Factors Association out-of-the-box External Drives

The factors effecting the overheating of retail external drives

  • Size of the drive (the smaller, the metal to absorb the heat)
  • The drive’s rpm speed.  (The Faster the speed the more heat it will generate it)
  • In proper cooling
    • Many of plastic enclosures with no way of absorbing the access heat.
    • Lack of ventilation such as openings and fans to exhaust the access heat from the drive.

 Why have us build you an External (HDD/SDD) DRIVE?

Components & Configuration

  • We use aluminum alloy enclosure that offers both help in the cooling of the drive as well as protection.
  • All enclosures have proper ventilation and use fans to help with the access heat the drive builds up.
  • You can choose any size and speed of drive that is available on the market
  • Drive Interface Type (SATA, SSD, IDE, etc.)
  • More than one hard drive bay available to an enclosure (1,2,4,6,8).
  • Multiple bays allow drive removal
  • A choice of one or more interfaces is available. (USB2.0, USB3.0, ESATA, FIREWIRE, Wi-Fi AP, etc.)
  • The support of different configuration on 2 or more drives either or individual, JBOD, and RAID 0, 1.
  • One Button backup feature on some enclosures.

They include but not limited to the following configurations

Standard Types of External Interfaces

  • eSATA average transfer rate of 3Gbps (System must support Multiplier specifications)
  • USB 2.0 – 480 Mbps.
  • USB 3.0 – 5Gbps
  • Firewire – 400-3200 Mbit/s (50-400 MB/s)
  • Thunderbolt  v1/v2 – 10Gbit/s per channel / 20Gbit/s in total

If more than ONE DRIVE is needed

Optional Configurations are available

  • JBOD, simply runs both hard drives independently so you will have two storage partitions.
  • RAID 0, mode is called FAST and provides the total capacity of the total number of drives installed.  Works GREAT for fast, temporary work storage such as video files.
  • RAID 1, mode is called SAFE100 which means all 100% of information is stored on one drive and is mirrored to a second drive.

Other Types of External Drives

Direct Attached Storage (DAS)

A DAS system is made of a data storage devices an example enclosures involving a number of hard disk drives connected directly to a computer through a host bus adapter (HBA). Between those two points there is no network device (like hub, switch, or router), and this is the main characteristic of DAS. The main protocols used for DAS connections are ATA, SATA, eSATA, SCSI, SAS, and Fiber Channel.  Support of Non-RAID Drive architectures,

JBOD (just a bunch of disks).  Has neither redundancy nor performance improvements.  Hard Drives may be handed as separate logic volumes or they may be combined into a single logic volume using a volume manager like LVM (called spanned).

SPAN or BIG – Concatenation or spanning where you combine multiple physical disk drives into a single logical disk.  It provides no data redundancy.  Drives are concatenated together so as it appears to be a single large drive.

MAID (massive array of idle drives).  Massive array of idle drives.

External Docking Stations

External Docking Station as well available which supports both the 2.5” & 3.5” drives.  These are not enclosure but are docking station.  They do use internal fans to cool the drives.   The hard drives slip into a slot locating on top of the docking station.  They are then connected to your computer using the standard interface connections.

Advantages:

  • They support both 2.5” & 3.5” drives.
  • Allows easy accessibility and remove of the drives.
  • You are not limited to the number of drives you can use
  • Drives can be stored in a safe and secure location within a plastic enclosure
  • You can choose a 1-bay, 2-bay 3-bay, and 4-bay
  • IDE adapters can be used to interface with the docking station
  • Different types interface connections are available (USB2.0,USB3.0,eSATA, FireWire, and etc.) to fit your needs.
  • Cost is cheaper has it does not require you to buy additional enclosures.
  • Easier to store in a safe and secure location.
  • Can be used to backup important data
  • Devices are available to offer one step back solutions without the need of software.

Disadvantages:

  • Drives are not protected. You must handle with care to avoid touching the circuit components
  • Drives require a storage case

For true reliability and radiances features other more elaborate drives and configurations are available.  They are specially design for the purpose in sharing files within a network environment. They are a self-contain system with their own operating system which is design specifically for file sharing.

Network Storage Drives (NAS)

An alternative to an external drive is a Network Attached Storage it can serve has a hub for storing data on a network.  It does not run a full server operating system but a basic operating system stripped down to provide speed and reliability for network data storage.  It is soup up version of external drive which contains its own internal processor and is network ready.  It design to support simultaneous users and is ideal for desktop storage and is used as a media server solution.  It usually multiple drives 4, 6, 8 and higher in enterprise versions.  They can be configured to support SATA, SCSI, SAS, and IDE drives.  The number of drives can be varied depending on the needs. Depending on your needs they can configure to accommodate home, small, medium, and large enterprise business.  The storage capacity depends on the size and number of drive bays available on the NAS.  An average of 4 to 16 TB on smaller version with 4 bays while the larger storage arrays support several drives in larger capacity.

To access files (to read and write), the user accesses the NAS-SERVER/Folder Name (ReadyNAS/Network Storage).

Advantages:

  • Supports for multiple OS platforms across a network (MAC, Linux, Windows, and etc.)
  • Dedicated File Server for optimal performance.
  • Share data across a network
  • Less Porn to Virus Infiltration
  • Lower cost in storage
  • No need for complex servers
  • Support for multiple levels of data backup (RAID, Redundant Array of Independent Disks)
  • Additional NAS can be added expanded your storage capabilities across a network
  • Off-Site access via the internet to your NAS
  • Support of Standard Transfer Protocols (i.e. FTP, SNB, CSS, Apple, and etc.) Copy & Paste
  • Hot Swappable

Dedicated FILE SERVER

A dedicated file server is a computer optimized for the sole purpose of storing and sharing files across a network. These computers can be bought off-the-shelf already built for a NAS server, or custom built (built from scratch), or a   modified computer.  In some cases, this is a good options, as it allows other computer system that may no longer be in use to be utilized as a dedicated NAS system. Custom Computer Consulting will assist our clients in the feasibility should they choose this option.

CCC suggest the minimum requirements.  However, it will depend factors such as how many users and what type of service will the computer serve.

  • x64 architecture
  • 8gb of RAM (4gb will do but performance may suffer.
  • SATA or SAS
  • Hard Drive (1 to 4 TB to store the data) Multiple drive in the event backup is required.
  • Hard Drive or Flash Drive to hold the file server OS. (20GB or less)
  • Ethernet Cable
  • Video Card / Monitor – Standard, NA as it is ONLY a FILESERVER
  • NAS CD containing the software (FreeNAS)

To improve performance and overall output is required a 4-port gigabit Ethernet card can be implemented.  It is cheaper than going to a 10gb network.  However, adding this card will require additional set-up involving installing teaming software and having to install a managed switch, as it is consider enterprise classifications.

Custom Computer Consulting can assist you in determine the appropriate type of system that will fit your needs and price range.

NAS Software

  • FREENAS – MOST Popular, Open Source NAS project.
  • unRAID OS - Network-Attached Stoarge, Application Server, Virtualization Host (used by CCC).
  • CryptoNAS  - (formally CryptoBox) concentrates on disk encryption.
  • Openfiler – (Full-fledged NAS Server (w/Virtual Machine capabilities) Similar to FREENAS
  • NASLite-M2 – (Linux based) NOT FREE
  • NanoNAS – (Linux-based)

CCC - Service Time
These services vary in time allocations. It will depend on what type of device is being installed, (installation and set-up) and whether or not it will be built.

CCC - To Schedule a Service (Select the appropriate ICON from the sidebar)

Last Updated: 01/31/2016 1:24