Maxtor MaxAttach 4100
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Strong protocol support, easy setup, easy to maintain, lots of storage for the money.
Sacrifices performance for storage density and price.
| Key Features | |
| Price: | $4,999 list, $3,800 street |
| Test configuration: | 566Mhz Celeron, 256MB RAM, 320GB RAID-5 disk, Ultra160 external SCSI, 2 10/100 Ethernet ports, single 1000BaseT Ethernet |
Maxtor Corp.
San Jose, CA
(800) 262-9867Network attached storage (NAS) devices like Linksys' Gigadrive, Cobalt's Qube 3, and Rebel.com's Netwinder are popular in small office environments that don't need a full-blown server for basic file sharing and server computing. These NAS devices offer e-mail and domain hosting, basic Web serving, and file and print services. The more advanced units, such as the Cobalt Qube 3, can also do Web caching, network address translation, and routing for broadband connection sharing. All of these "headless" units are easily managed via Web-based interfaces, and cost about the same as a typical low-end PC.
Many NAS devices, including all the ones mentioned above, run on Linux because of that operating system's lack of licensing costs and its broad protocol support. However, most Linux appliances do not offer any hardware redundancy features, which is the kiss of death in an enterprise environment.
Enter Maxtor's MaxAttach 4100—a headless Intel 566MHz Celeron-powered 1U rack-mountable NAS appliance that runs Windows 2000 Server Appliance Kit. While the MaxAttach runs Windows 2000 and has a fully functional IIS Web server, it is specifically intended for use as a NAS—the unit comes configured with either 160GB or 320GB of RAID-5 IDE ATA-100 storage, which is accessible via Windows Networking and Active Directory, Novell NDS, Unix NFS, or AppleShare.
While most of these networking protocols run on Linux (with the notable exception of Active Directory), none of the Linux-based appliances currently on the market can utilize all of these file sharing standards simultaneously. Unlike Linux-based solutions, the MaxAttach is also capable of running any Windows 2000 enterprise backup agent currently on the market, such as Computer Associates ArcServeIT, Veritas Backup Exec, Legato Networker, and Tivoli Storage Manager. It supports external tape devices via its built-in Ultra160 SCSI port, and supports uninterruptible power supply (UPS) connections as well.
Given these benefits, and the option of being able to use the familiar Windows 2000 interface to administer the device via Terminal Services, the value of this device in an enterprise environment should be obvious.
To set up our 320GB test unit, all we did was unpack it, connect one of its two Intel Pro 100 Fast Ethernet interfaces to the LAN, and power it up. (Also available on the 320GB model, but not on its 160GB sibling, is an additional 1000BaseT Gigabit Ethernet port.) We installed a small software utility, Maxtor Neighborhood, on a Windows-based management workstation on the same LAN, which immediately detected the presence of the MaxAttach on our network, and allowed us to connect to the unit via its built-in Web management interface. We could then tweak its network settings for our environment and turn on or off its built-in services.
You can manage the MaxAttach 4100 using either Web interface or via Windows 2000 Terminal Services. To create shares on the device, we used the Terminal Server interface and created them the same way we would on a regular Windows 2000 server. You can create local users internal to the device's workgroup network, or set it up to authenticate to a Windows NT 4.0 or an Active Directory domain, in exactly the same way as any Windows 2000 machine. The space on the four internal disks can function as independent volumes, or can be any combination of RAID 0,1,5 or as volume sets.
On file transfers using a single 10/100BaseT interface over switched Ethernet, performance was equal to or somewhat less than a comparable entry-level standalone server with a single large hard disk. The server definitely takes a performance hit by using Windows 2000's software RAID. However, the unit really shined when we connected it to our 8-port Asante Gigabit Ethernet switch. We were able to copy a single 640MB ISO CD-ROM image in approximately 60 seconds from another Gigabit-connected server on the LAN. That's throughput of approximately 85MB per second. To more accurately assess the performance of the unit, we used eTesting Labs's NetBench test suite with four Windows 2000 clients and using two load-balanced Ethernet connections from the unit connected to a 3Com Superstack II Switch 3000. By using software RAID-5, we were able to achieve approximately 20MB per second on the standard Disk Mix over 12 passes, which closely approximates Maxtor's own publicized test results.
At about 2 cents per megabyte, the MaxAttach is one of the most cost-effective ways of getting bulk disk storage onto an enterprise network, especially if you take advantage of its Gigabit Ethernet capabilities. MaxAttach servers are easy to maintain and cooperate nicely with other network operating systems, and scale nicely if you pool multiple units into large Windows 2000 DFS volumes. Of additional note: Iomega is licensing the MaxAttach under its own brand name, the DataSafe, which is bundled with Iomega's QuikSync 3 deskop backup software.
If you're looking to add network-attached storage to your environment but aren't ready to deal with Linux, the MaxAttach 4100 is a no-brainer.