Snap Appliance Snap Server 1100 NAS Device

~*77*~ writes "While taking up considerably less space than a shoebox, this little device seamlessly allows users to add additional storage to any network in less than five minutes. Today we review the Snap Appliance 80GB Snap Server 1100. This compact NAS (network attached storage) device has many great features including: 5 minute installation, a compact web and ftp server, or simply a network share. Most importantly it works in a network mixed with Windows, Netware, UNIX, Linux, and Macintosh machines... "

Not for the Adventurous

[calix]

The SnapServer is a pretty cool concept - we use several here at the office for NAS-only, and they work quite well and are a, well, snap to set up. For the home user? You might think so... or not. You can get an open-source server on a nice PC platform running Linux for under $200. Don't believe me? Check out Rob's column [computerpoweruser.com] in Computer Power User (CPU). No intentional karma whoring going on here. I'm getting underway in doing my own little X-Box/NAS/Media Server project [spacemakeovers.biz] as soon as the parts come in...

I have a stupid question...

[ErisCalmsme]

A NAS device like this is made to work with any type of network protocols... but how could it work with a network that has a windows, mac, netware, and linux stuff all happening at once? I mean is this even possible? Aside from acting as a web/ftp server? I don't know why anyone would ever want to have all those things mixed into one network anyway, but what if?

SNAP Experiences

[Chibi Merrow]

We've been using SNAP servers for a while now at work... Mostly pretty good experiences to report. The little boxes run some BSD derivative, support SMB/NFS/FTP/WWW/etc access to the files stored on them, and some can even run Java Servlets. They can even use a NetWare or Win NT/2K Domain to handle logins and security. We normally use them for small remote offices that don't justify a full server or for storing large rarely accessed files like aerials of the parish. Much better than storing them on a few hundred CDs that have to be tracked and stored properly.
My only real complaint is backup can be annoying due to a lack of tape drive or any real backup feature on the device itself. You'll have to write some scripts or make use of an external package on another machine to get some sort of backup procedure going.
They seem to use normal IDE drives, so they WILL eventually fail. However, Snap Appliance went ahead and replaced one of our 1100s free of charge when the drive developed errors and the software update applied incorrectly while trying to fix it. This was despite the fact that the server was no longer under warranty.
All in all, beautiful little boxen.

Re:I have a stupid question...

[Chibi Merrow]

Well Snap 2200s and 1100s (only ones I have experience with) support SMB network shares, which Linux/Mac/Windows can connect to, as well as exporting the filesystem as an NFS share (Linux/UNIX/Mac), as well as supporting the AppleTalk network protocol (God knows why) and the list goes on... Oh, it also can support NetWare clients by using a Novell server to handle security. Or an NT or Active Directory domain, for that matter.
And there still is that whole web/FTP server thing as well...

Re:80 GB

[k2dbk]

You're right, 80GB isn't that much, but this kind of device actually works pretty well for internal software distribution with corporations. The firm that I work for has around 30,000 employees, and we use a whole bucketload of these dispersed in various locations. Since the type of information we keep on them is primarily run-of-the-mill corporate applications (both commercially developed and internally developed), the size works out to be a non-issue, and they have the advantage that we can configure them centrally and just send them out. If one breaks, we swap it out and send another one overnight. (I think in some cases, we have on-site "hot spares", precisely because they are so cheap.)

Of course, YMMV, and this isn't exactly cost-effective if all you need to do is to add another 80 or 120 Gb to a small LAN.

Re:Cost is my question.

[bhima]

Exactly for that price I want a 4 or 5 place Raid enclosure with a 250 gig SATA drive intslled. Like someone else said "If I only wanted 80 gigs I just add another drive"

mine crashed in first week

[CranberryKing]

I loved the concept so I convinced my coworkers to get a 60MB number. It was cake to setup and worked well until a few days later the disk failed. Talking with tech support, they couldn't believe it but determined it was definately DEAD. No refund available, just a replacement unit. The new one has worked well since so it may have been a fluke but it doesn't matter now since nobody in the office will trust it for more than an mp3 server. Kind of dissapointing really.

What's the point?

[streak]

I'm wondering what's the point of such a small drive as NAS? Is it when all your machines are filled up with HDs and you can't add any more? I mean, 80GB? There are firewire drives that are more than double that size.

Am I missing some crucial point here?
I understand that to add more storage you might have to take a server down, etc.. But I guess when I see how much my company uses disk space, a 80GB anything would be filled probably within a month - seems like you would have money better spent on bigger drives.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Empty NAS?

[Erwos]

I was wondering if anyone knew of any (relatively) cheap NAS solutions which came _without_ an IDE hard drive? That is to say, so I could install a hard drive of my choosing. No need for features except for SMB and NFS support, either.

My fiance and I are getting married in Feb, and I'm trying my best to hunt down print servers and network storage so we can combine our network in a sane fashion. The print server is already taken care of for the LaserJet 6L, but we have no decent network storage solution for my external hard drive. (also have no solution for her crappy HP color inkjet, but it'll probably break before we get hitched anyways *grabs a hammer*).

-DMZ

Oerfect for an open project ? NAS storage ?

[amix]

To me this seems like the ideal candidate for a community-built project. More and more of us utilize servers at home and sometimes it might be just better to attach external storage-subsystems than building newer and bigger computers.

When I built my HomeServer the first option I was investigating was to modularize everything. However I had to discover, that this is not a good position: The stuff on the market just did not fit my needs: To expensive. Too "smallish". Too "touch-the-market" of AOL users. So I ended up with a ATX VIA board and a C3 Nehemiah CPU with a 3ch ICP Vortex S-ATA controller, a 2nd NIC and WLAN card.

However, I wonder, why the community does not create some own inventions, custom-tailored for private users and, most importantly, not limited in possibilites, due to fear of support-problems with AOL users.

A community built NAS could consits of a small embedded computer, with onboard hardware RAID own cache (min. 4ch S-ATA) and come with a good case. Cases have been built by the community. Embedded systerms also. So, why not ? :-)

Best would be to offer the board and driver/software and let customers build their own beast. Maybe with syste-boards, that can be combined to offer more power.

Anyone ? :-D

Re:New slogan..

[crap_on_you]

In what situation would a Raid-0 drive failure be recoverable? Raid-0 isn't the only possible configuration. Why the hell would you bother with raid-0 over then network, anyway?
I bought one of these for a client that required push-button simplicity and data redundancy. Although expensive and a little slow on writes, this thing does the job well.

crap_on_you

Another market Sun missed

[MemoryDragon]

They had the base for appliances like these in their portfolio with the Cobalt line, but they dropped the ball a few years ago.

What about iSCSI?

[swb]

Where's that at, anyway? While anyone can "deploy" SMB servers (either canned, home-grown, or otherwise), it doesn't make any sense at all to just add a bunch of new shares willy-nilly, fragmenting your overall storage capacity.

What WOULD make these kinds of devices make more sense would be iSCSI and the ability to dynamically expand an existing volume to use the new space over the network. I know there are some expensive SAN systems that can do this now, but iSCSI would make it a lot less expensive, using an existing or dedicated IP network to connect the devices instead of expensive fiber channel fabric.

What about raid?

[phish_head]

This looks great but I need RAID protection for all my data. I would love to replace the Giant Proliant server I have with a tiny box that can store just as much data. Does anyone know if they have a device that does at least raid mirroring for the home / small office?

Live-CD distribution?

[Espen]

I've always wondered why there isn't a Live-CD/Knoppix type distribution for this kind of thing: ie. Something will boot an old PC taking up space and present whatever disks are in it as a file store on a network (w/user management, and RAID/LVM etc. if it wanted to be fancy).