Supermicro, one of the world’s best known server manufacturers with an unrivalled established reputation for service and reliability, has created a storage solutions that are ready for installation straight out of the box.   Supermicro have been supplying out these items for many years now, though with the call for more "green goodness" the demand for their finely constructed boxes which save many end-users a substantial amount annually have came leaping forward with demand.

In todays growing market storage demands are high and for this reason simplicity is key. Powered by industry leading storage applications Supermicro are able to offer the flexibility of having iSCSI and NAS via a range of solutions -  one example being the Supermicro SSS-2120-ID-OE  that we are going to look at today.  One thing that Supermicro has carefully listened to is the needs of the many; to which they have now become one of the worlds leading suppliers now of servers and mass storage units found in many a data centre.

With storage and performance a key factor, this solution presents the highest density in a 2U platform, comprising of 12 X SATA hot-swap hard drives for NAS storage. Some of the key applications for this storage server are SQL, File and Print Server.

Key benefits:

1.   Easy to use GUI based management provides performance and security
2.   Reliable disk based backup and recovery, with snapshot capability enable fast, reliable backup and restores
3.   IP based storage management combines NAS and iSCSI functionality for centralised consolidated storage
4.   Easy to implement remote replication, at block or volume level, enables cost-effective disaster recovery.

NAS functionality:

1.   Windows Active Directory / Primary Domain Controller
2.   Support for Network Information Service (NIS)
3.   Internal and external LDAP
4.   ADS and NIS User / group ID synchronization
5.   File System with journaling support
6.   User and group quota control
7.   Backup-agent support.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Introduction Continued
Page 3 - open-e Introduction
Page 4 - open-e Introduction Continued
Page 5 - Raw Pictures (The Goliath in the Flesh)
Page 6 - Results
Page 7 - Conclusions and Awards