[PLUG] A not-quite-usable $20 SAN disk enclosure at Frys (2)

[Keith Lofstrom]

> On 11/3/08, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
> >
> > My second impulse buy today at Frys was a Netgear/Zetera SC101
...
> > Sadly, it will only configure and partition with Windoze software
> > (why not a web interface?  twits!) I can load the Netgear
> > configuration software onto the Win2K VMware image on my laptop,
> > but the software will only find storage on the same LAN segment.
...
> > If we can get the SC101 configured, we can use this software:
> >
> > http://code.google.com/p/sc101-nbd/


On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 11:16:07PM -0800, drew wymore wrote:
> I have this exact enclosure Keith. If you upgrade the firmware to gain
> Vista support you won't be able to use the open source driver anymore
> as it was firmware dependent.
> 
> FWIW the transfer rate is not very good for large files. Smaller files
> it doesn't have so much trouble with.

More about the SC101 -

I was able to configure VMWare/Win2K to use "bridged networking" so
the drive was on the same local segment as the Windoze configuration
software.  Note, I turned off iptables on my laptop (on the internal
network!) so the software could use whatever ports the network
interface uses.  

The enclosure only works with ATA-6 parallel drives.  Nothing older
than about 2004 will work.

Drew is right, the enclosure is  slow.  7.14MB/sec or about 26GB
per hour with a 7200rpm 250GB Hitachi drive.  In comparison, an
7200rpm drive directly on an ATA-133 controller runs around
31MB/sec, and that drive on an external USB2 controller may run
as fast as 19 MB/sec .

I appreciate Drew's warning about firmware - the enclosure came with
4.22.13 firmware, the same as sc101-nbd works with.  The Windoze
configuration app wants to upgrade the firmware to the latest version,
and needs to be configured NOT to.  

All in all, an interesting toy to play with, but not very suitable
for use at the Clinic as I had hoped.  Too many things will need
changing on most machines to access it.  Moving John's USB drive
around will be easier.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs