Simpatico, ZFS and EtherDrive storage, a perfect match.

Every now and then, the stars come into alignment, and two separate technologies, come together to become a perfect match.  The Zeta File System (ZFS) and EtherDrive SRX storage is just such a combination.   ZFS is becoming the filesystem of choice for many applications, and scaling is a big reason.  What ZFS needs is fast, scalable storage, but if the storage is simple, and economical, the combination becomes…"simpatico".

EtherDrive SRX is by far the fastest, simplest and least expensive network storage in the world, and when configured as Just-a-Bunch-Of-Disks (JBOD), the SRX perfectly matches the needs of a ZFS host.  With the free Solaris HBA driver, and HBA hardware priced at the same point as a standard GigE or 10GigE NIC, the ZFS advantage can be fully realized.

Many ZFS users are discovering how well EtherDrive meets their needs.  The next time you build a ZFS server, give EtherDrive a try and you will love it too.

Who needs 24/7 vendor support when your storage is EtherDrive smart.

Emergency situations in your data center happen, and they usually happen after everyone has gone home on Friday evening.   And when a company's data is at stake, vendor provided 24/7 emergency support can be easy to justify, even if it costs "an-arm-and-a-leg", and most storage vendors charge just that, "an-arm-and-a-leg".  But why not, isn't your data worth it?

Well I can't argue that your data isn't important, but I do think there is a better way to get piece of mind that you can handle any emergency situation, without being unnecessarily dependent on your storage vendor.

Just try EtherDrive storage.  It puts smart in storage.  Here's why I think EtherDrive is smart. EtherDrive storage is extremely flexible, and can be configured many ways to service any application.  Multiple LUNs of various sizes, RAID levels, global spare disks, mixed disk types, it can get pretty complex, and EtherDrive does it simply.  But here's where EtherDrive gets really smart, all this configuration data is stored on each of the disks in the appliance.

Why is this important?  Well, if the chassis fails (various hardware problems can happen with any platform) the disks contain all the information needed to survive the situation.  EtherDrive storage uses standard commodity hardware, and buying a complete spare chassis is good practice for any user.  EtherDrive disks can be quickly moved from a fail chassis to a spare chassis, without loosing any data or system configuration information.   In less than 15 minutes you can pull a chassis, replace it with a spare unit, and move the disks to the new chassis.  You can be back up and running without having to worry about configuration.  And its even foolproof, because it doesn't matter which disk slot the disks are put into in the new chassis.  You can scramble the disk locations, and it has no effect on the operation of the LUNs or RAID or spares, nothing changes.  You are just back up and in service without worry.

That's what I call EtherDrive smart storage, and why it makes sense for users to buy a spare chassis, at a fraction of the cost of 24/7 vendor support, and still have emergency response and recovery that is much faster than any vendor support program.