I read Dave Hitz's autobiography earlier this year; if you haven't, I can recommend it! Well worth reading and especially about the early days of NetApp as they are now called. Over twenty-five years ago, the founders of NetApp identified that they could build a networked storage device out of 'commodity' components, this device would be so simple and easy to manage that it would be almost appliance like!
The appliance would be targeted at the lower end of the market where there was little to no competition. This strategy worked and NetApp grew into a major player in the storage market. However interestingly enough, NetApp have almost completely vacated the low-end of the market and are pretty much focused in the mid range market and above; whether they play or want to play in the very high-end of the market i.e DMX, USP and DS8K country varies from which NetApp representative you talk too. Understandable I suppose, the margins in the high-end are much higher than the low-end and it's probably a much cooler market to be in.
But this has left a hole in the market; EMC identified this and bought Iomega; EMC's ix range are very creditable NAS boxes; in fact supporting both iSCSI and NAS protocols and certified against VMWare, these are very attractive boxes for both small businesses, development houses and anyone who wants to build a home lab.
Then there is Data Robotics with their Drobo Range. Data Robotics with their BeyondRAID technology are a company worth watching especially with the Drobo Pro range which is aimed fairly and squarely at the SMB market and has aspirations far above this. I really like the look of the Drobo range and if I was a storage company with money to spend; they might make an interesting acquisition.
And yet I bought neither of these? I've just bought the Synology DS409 with 4 Tbytes of disk. Why? I'd heard a lot of good things word of mouth and the new firmware will support iSCSI. I wanted iSCSI for my VMWare lab and unfortunately only the Drobo Pro supports this and much more expensive. The Iomega range is very attractive but the Synology box feels a lot more open and hack-friendly; it's also a little cheaper but I dare say I would have been very happy with the EMC-Iomega range.
But I couldn't buy an Network Storage Appliance from the original creators of the product range and that makes me kind of sad!
I will do a review of the Synology at some point in the next couple of weeks; it's only been under my desk for 36 hours and it is already running beta firmware allowing it to do iSCSI and also TimeMachine for my Mac. It's a very impressive and attractive little box, security model is a little weak and it could do with a way to integrate easily into the cloud-storage providers.
Yeah Netapp used to have the S Series. Too bad it didn’t make it.
Indeed, I think that NetApp are missing a trick! We know that OnTap will run in a fairly small PC…it should not take a genius to be able to produce a very low-end filer for SMB/home use but I suppose there is then the risk of cannibalising the higher-end revenues.
It’s rather disappointing re NetApp in that they have the OS to reach-down into this market, and they had the tin – hell I’ve even asked if they would released a ‘paid for unlimited’ software only version (given they already provide a VSA) for VSA/home use – but no they seem to be ignoring the vast growth in the SoHo market… Rather odd given their history and ease of use.
Re Synology – yup been a user for over 18mths and very impressed, only gripe so far has been 1) lack of TwonkyMedia pre-built package and 2) lack of backup/recovery to cloud object storage.
The media server bit improves in DSM 2.2, and chasing re the object storage bit. Some of the object store stuff has been started here (http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_backup_the_Synology_Server_to_Amazon_S3) but needs to be expanded into add-on package (or built in) and to include encryption and restore…
And yes many large storage companies could learn a lot from ease of use and customer focus.
Synology makes solid home NAS & iSCSI systems. I’m a long time customer.
Indeed they do Vaughn but why doesn’t NetApp want a piece of the pie? NetApp could produce a low-end enduser/SoHo product fairly easily and then could have a true unified, single product set for storage; no-one else can do this (at the moment).
Didn’t NetApp try to create an SMB Filer with their “StoreVault” line? They even had a tiny 4-drive mini tower looking product. Perhaps everyone is trying to forget that line? I never used one but I remember hearing interesting things about them.
Yes they did and that was withdrawn this year with vague promises of something better. I think it was fairly expensive for what it was but it leaves them with a hole at the low-end.
I was sad to see the S series go, and they did discount the 2020, but I do think there’s still a hole left.
We’ll just have to wait and see how this sad saga plays out.