SANS DIGITAL AN6L+B RAID Seriouly interested but CANNOT Find a single review on it.

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Wyo

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After a horrible raid 5 + hot spare failure. (Lost a second drive during rebuild)
I have been looking for a Raid 6 Solution and have found this within a price I can touch, but I cannot find a single review other than the manufacturer description... No user reviews, nothing.
Here it is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111434

Due to costs, I was planning on wd red drives with hot spare.

from Sans Digital:

The AN6L+B is a performance tuned Windows/MAC/Linux files shareing NAS server dual Gigabit server for high capacity share data storage. Much more advanced than most 6-bay share + iSCSI towers on the market, the AN6L+B utilizes the power of Intel CPU and 4GB of DDR III memory, to provide exceptionally fast performance. With increased CPU processing power, the AN6L+B is capable of providing enterprise-level features such as iSCSI initiator and target support, snapshot with scheduling, and real-time folder-to-folder replication. Along with built-in RAID 5 and 6, the AN6L+B provides enterprise-class features that are normally not included in product of such price range.

Note: Sans Digital recommends the use of enterprise hard drives when in use with any RAID controller applications. Standard desktop or green desktop drive may not be supported and may compromise RAID system stability and performance. For more information on the difference between RAID and desktop hard drives, please see the Western Digital knowledge base. For a list of compatible RAID Edition SATA hard drives,


Dual Gigabit and RAID Hard Drives Protection
AN6L+B is designed with simple setup and easy maintenance features in mind. Features such as installation wizard for easy implementation out of the box, convenient web-based management for local or remote configuration, Dual 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports supporting teaming and fail-over redundancy plus RAID protection for your data storage making the AN6L+B a very robust yet easy to use Windows/MAC/Linux file sharing server system.

Feature Rich Data Storage - Built-in Snapshot, Folder Replication and iSCSI
In comparison to other products in the market, AN6L+B is bundled with many enterprise level advanced features without the additional cost. For example, iSCSI target support for iSCSI applications, iSCSI initiator support for future data storage expansion, folder to folder replication, scheduled or on-demand volume snapshot and local tape backup support just to name a few.

iSCSI Support for VMware
To take advantage of centralized storage for all virtual machines in VMware ESX or Vsphere, the AN6L+B can be uses as a focal storage point for the VMWare ESX or ESXi sever hosting multiple virtual machines. Utilizing the AN6L+B as an iSCSI target storage system for the VMware ESX/ESXi server, the AN6L+B is ready for your VMware storage virtualization needs.

Features

Operating system specifically design for Windows/MAC/Linux file sharing NAS and iSCSI application.
4GB DDR3 memory.
Supports up to a total of 24TB (Raw) SATA hard drive (4TB x 6 HDD)
RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5 and 6 with spare.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Convenient setup and easy maintenance.
IP discovery tools for easy deployment.
Web GUI configuration interface supporting Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.
Informational Event Log for diagnostics.
Supports local user account.
Supports Windows Active Directory Service or Primary Domain Server and Workgroup.
Supports HTTPS/SSL service.
Storage protection.
Designed with Linux based Journaling file system (XFS).
Folder to folder replication supporting scheduling with multiple versions or full replication with bandwidth control.
Supports scheduled or on-demand volume snapshot.
System configuration backup and restore.
Supports Local Tape backup, 3rd party backup agent.
Supports iSCSI.
Supports iSCSI target and initiator.
Supports VMware ESX Server 4.0/4.1 5.0/5.1 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server or Citrix XGen Server.


What do you folks think of this and does anyone have one?

Wyo
 
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W
I agree with everything you are saying, and I am fully aware of the inelegant situation I am in and I am trying to rectify
this solution with the addition of a Raid 6 Capable NAS. The current Raid 5 will then default to Backup role and the 6 on primary. The USB backups were a emergency stop gap as a instant solution at the time when I started with various issues and no budget, we obtained them for very low cost at the time and quite frankly have saved the bacon a couple of times so it has justified itself despite being less than ideal. I intend on using them to clone the existing drives on the host computers and putting them up for safe keeping.

Still hoping for some feedback on the actual unit as I hate being the guinea pig on new...
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TyrOd

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So you think because a RAID 5 solution failed during a rebuild that RAID6 and not a dedicate independent backup is the solution?

If I'm understanding this wrong and it's a matter of the lost uptime due to the failed rebuild and not data loss protection then of course this type of RAID 6 controller is a solid choice with enterprise drives in RAID6.
 
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Wyo

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I WAS able to recover the vast % and rebuild the raid but it was a huge time suck getting together all the data from dist independent backups and re collating to coherent NAS. but as it does not support Raid 6 I am still just where I was and it makes me very suspicious of the whole system integrity. I plan on using the current Raid 5 as a dedicated Backup but right now each computer has a USB Drive for backup and that is what I used to rebuild from. The reality is we are barely solvent and unless I do this as cheap as possible it will not happen at all. That and the difficulty of getting folks to back up consistently. Yes Enterprise drives would be be better but at this time then it would NOT happen at all as I exceed any funds I can access to do so. The hard cold truth is Raid 6 is beyond the budget as it is until I found this unit. My real question is, has anybody heard of this unit and does anyone know anything about it... Is it good to go or will I blow limited resources on a unreliable solution? Enterprise drives fail too, as both the failed drives bear testament to.

(I am embarrassed I typo-ed *Seriously* in the Title)

Wyo

 
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TyrOd

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Well in terms of the failure rates, the difference between Enterprise and NAS class drives is minimal, but in terms of rebuilds it is significant. however, with RAID6 even if the first rebuild attempt fails, you have a second attempt without data loss effectively doubling the rebuild reliability.

I would say you'll be fine with NAS drives in this case, but for actual figures for comparison, this is a really good calculator.
http://www.servethehome.com/raid-calculator/raid-reliability-calculator-simple-mttdl-model/

In terms of the reliability of the iSCSI SAN enclosure itself, that's hard to gauge. personally I'm not experienced with sans digital hardware, so I can't give you a good impression anecdotally either. the feature set itself is solid, though.

To be honest, though. In terms of eliminating downtime having a centralized file storage and another dedicated backup for that file server will go a long way to reducing time spent in recovery.

Having several local backups probably isn't necessary.

2 RAID5 systems(1 as backup) with NAS drives is by itself going to be a big improvement over what you're doing currently as long as all data is stored and backed up to central storage properly instead of just on local machines.

However, if you're going to get into the 10+TB space 2+TB drives, I would suggest RAID6 or enterprise drives at least on the primary system to avoid additional downtime.
 
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W

Wyo

Reputable
Jun 3, 2014
3
0
4,520
I agree with everything you are saying, and I am fully aware of the inelegant situation I am in and I am trying to rectify
this solution with the addition of a Raid 6 Capable NAS. The current Raid 5 will then default to Backup role and the 6 on primary. The USB backups were a emergency stop gap as a instant solution at the time when I started with various issues and no budget, we obtained them for very low cost at the time and quite frankly have saved the bacon a couple of times so it has justified itself despite being less than ideal. I intend on using them to clone the existing drives on the host computers and putting them up for safe keeping.

Still hoping for some feedback on the actual unit as I hate being the guinea pig on new hardware but the price point
is such that I may have to pull the trigger and hope for the best.

I don't consider myself to be the brightest bulb on this kind of thing but I am doing my best to provide as much as I can on little resources. The general maintenance and IT end of this Co. is regarded as the bastard stepchild that just takes
resources from the production and profit end until there is a problem then all hell comes down the chute.

[/quotemsg]

Well in terms of the failure rates, the difference between Enterprise and NAS class drives is minimal, but in terms of rebuilds it is significant. however, with RAID6 even if the first rebuild attempt fails, you have a second attempt without data loss effectively doubling the rebuild reliability.

I would say you'll be fine with NAS drives in this case, but for actual figures for comparison, this is a really good calculator.
http://www.servethehome.com/raid-calculator/raid-reliability-calculator-simple-mttdl-model

In terms of the reliability of the iSCSI SAN enclosure itself, that's hard to gauge. personally I'm not experienced with sans digital hardware, so I can't give you a good impression anecdotally either. the feature set itself is solid, though.

To be honest, though. In terms of eliminating downtime having a centralized file storage and another dedicated backup for that file server will go a long way to reducing time spent in recovery.

Having several local backups probably isn't necessary.

2 RAID5 systems(1 as backup) with NAS drives is by itself going to be a big improvement over what you're doing currently as long as all data is stored and backed up to central storage properly instead of just on local machines.

However, if you're going to get into the 10+TB space 2+TB drives, I would suggest RAID6 or enterprise drives at least on the primary system to avoid additional downtime.
[/quotemsg]

 
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