Netgear ReadyNAS: low-cost RAID storage for the consumer

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A few months back I was looking into how to solve my home data storage issue (huge photo collection, huge iTunes library, increasing use of digital file storage, big disaster waiting to happen) and I thought about buying a Drobo. At least, I did until my friend Garry Martin said something to the effect of “that looks expensive for what it is… what about a Windows Home Server?”

Although I was initially a fan of WHS, meeting some of the guys who produce it last November left me with more uncertainty than confidence – and what confidence remained was shattered when I realised that they had managed to take a perfectly stable Windows Server with NTFS and produce a data corruption issue when accessing files directly across the network (the issue may be obscure – and it’s been patched now – but the fact that it was produced by messing around with an otherwise stable file system to allow it to do things that it shouldn’t be able to makes it no less alarming).

Whilst the Drobo is undoubtedly a really neat solution, it’s also more than I need and my real requirements are: RAID; at a low price point; preferably with a decent (Gigabit Ethernet) network connection (the Drobo is just storage – for network attachment an additional DroboShare device is required); running independently of my server (i.e. an appliance); solidly built; looks good on the desk. What I found at BroadbandBuyer.co.uk was a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo – basically a 2-disk RAID 1, or RAID-X NAS box (Netgear bought Infrant Technologies last year and it’s actually their technology, rebadged as a Netgear device). Whilst the RND2150 I bought had just a single 500GB (Seagate Barracuda) disk, it was less expensive for me to reallocate that disk elsewhere and to buy two more 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 disks (ST31000340AS) than to buy a larger ReadyNAS (go figure), but the ReadyNAS was about £230 (with a mail-in offer for an iPod Shuffle – received just a few days later), the disks were about £90 each (or they were last week – now they’re down to £78 as larger disks start to come on stream), and the 500GB will match the others in my server if I want to add some internal RAID there sometime. At just under £400 all-in it wasn’t cheap but the TrustedReviews and Practically Networked writeups were positive and I decided to go for it (there’s also a “definitive guide” to the ReadyNAS Duo on the ReadyNAS community site, which is great for a rundown of the features but is probably not a particularly objective review).

Netgear ReadyNAS DuoOnce I got the ReadyNAS home, I realised how solidly built it is, and how much value it includes. In addition to all the usual file protocols (CIFS, NFS, AFP, FTP, HTTP(S) and rsync), the ReadyNAS has a variety of additional server functionality (streaming media and discovery services, BitTorrent client, photo-sharing, etc. – which can be extended by accessing it directly as a Linux box), a thriving community and excellent Mac support (even providing a Widget for MacOS X to monitor the box). In fact, the only downside I’ve found so far is the lack of Active Directory support in the low-end ReadyNAS Duo (higher-specification devices can join a domain and one version of firmware I had on my RND2150 let me do so, but promptly left the web management interface inaccessible, resulting in the need for me to back up the data, perform a factory reset, and then copy the data back on again).

For small and medium businesses, there are higher-end ReadyNAS devices with more drive space and additional functionality but the ReadyNAS Duo is the one with the low price point.

Having expanded my ReadyNAS to 2x1TB disks (I was initially sceptical of the expansion process but, having done it, now I’m pretty impressed and will write a separate post on the subject), my new storage regime will use the ReadyNAS for all onsite storage, periodically backed up to separate USB disk for offsite storage. In addition, I’ll continue to back up my entire MacBook hard disk to a Western Digital Passport drive (which I can use to boot the system if when the primary disk goes belly-up), with an additional copy of the iTunes Library and photos on the ReadyNAS and Mozy to provide backup in the cloud for work in progress (at least until Live Mesh has a Mac client and increased storage capabilities). In the meantime, my server will continue to primarily be used for virtual machines and any essential data from the VMs will be copied to the ReadyNAS.

For many people, a single disk backup (e.g. USB hard disk) may suffice (even if it does represent a risk in terms of disaster recovery) and I’ll admit that this solution is not for everyone – but, for anyone with a lot of data hanging around at home and who doesn’t want the hassle of maintaining a full Windows or Linux server, the ReadyNAS appliance is worth considering, with expandable RAID providing expansion capabilities as well as peace of mind.

Why the UK’s National Rail website is an IT disaster

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In a few weeks’ time, my wife is taking the kids to her parents’ house by the seaside for a week. I’ve got the week off work too but I’ve got a huge list of outstanding jobs to do at home, so I’m only spending part of the week with them. It’s daft to take two cars (especially as we will be travelling together in one direction), so I thought I’d try public transport…

Problem number one is that I live in a rural area so public transport is not exactly plentiful – even though I’m just 12 miles from the thriving new “city” of Milton Keynes we have just one or two buses an hour, which run infrequently (and unreliably) and take at least 40 minutes for an indirect route to a location that is still just over a mile from the station. Not exactly convenient – and, at £3 (single fare), not exactly inexpensive either!

Then, after a brisk mile-long walk from the shopping centre to the railway station, I’ll be catching a train to London, tube across London, and then another train to sunny Dorset. The rail journey will take just over 3 and a half hours – which is not bad really (it would take me about 2 and a half to drive using a much more direct route – or around 5 hours by National Express coach) but Cheapest available fare - £56.60 (or is it?)the National Rail Journey Planner tells me that the cheapest available fare is £56.60 with no advance fares available (at which price taking the car is suddenly sounding more economical). (RailEasy and The Trainline also reckon that the lowest cost single fare is £56.50, despite the latter site The Trainline claims to save travellers 39% on average compared with buying a ticket at the station on the dayclaiming to save travellers 39% on average compared with buying a ticket at the station on the day!

Luckily, I spoke to my father, who knows far more about UK railways than would generally be considered healthy – and his advice came up trumps – instead of buying a single ticket for the entire journey, it seems the thing to do is to use the journey planner to work out which trains to catch, and then try again for each leg of the journey.

Using this method, I found I can get the Milton Keynes-London leg for £14.50 (off peak return… not using the return portion), then cross London on the tube for £4 cash or £1.50 with an Oyster card and I can currently buy an advance single from London to my eventual destination in Dorset for £9 or £17 (depending on the time of day I travel). Using this method, £56.60 becomes £25 – and that is not really bad value at all (especially when compared with £41.50 for the significantly slower coach journey).

Why is this relevant on a technology weblog? Well, if a travel website that is incapable of accurately calculating the lowest available fare is not bad enough, the next stage of the process is an IT disaster – the sticking plaster that bonds together the various websites used to provide this “service”. The National Rail website has the ability to hand off to third parties for ticket purchase, which sounds great – web services in action – except that I got more than my fair share of failed fare lookups (retrying seemed to result in success) and when I was passed across to the two train operating companies that I used (London Midland and South West Trains), I had to register with each website individually – despite the underlying infrastructure being hosted under the oddly-named trainsfares.co.uk domain by The Trainline (where I also have an account) and an error page after my session timed out referring to yet another train operating company (with which I do not)! I could almost excuse the National Rail website for being aesthetically dull (I find its basic colour scheme and busy layout presents a navigational nightmare – in web terms rather than its intended purpose as a travel aid!) but the results it produces are not even consistent – the train that I’ll be using for the Milton Keynes to London leg of the journey disappears from the list if I use the earlier and later links to navigate back and forth through the available journey options!

Is it too much to ask that, now that train fares in the UK have (finally) been simplified, the systems should be able: to calculate the the various legs of the journey and find me the absolute lowest fare; reliably integrate to provide consistent results; and, where several train operating companies use the same service provider, for a single online account to be able to buy tickets for the entire rail network?

Maybe I just want too much…

Some more useful Hyper-V links

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Regular readers will have realised by now that the frequency of posts on this blog is almost inversely proportional to the amount of my spare time that the day job eats up and, after a period of intense blogging when I had a fairly light workload, the last couple of weeks have left little time for writing (although James Bannan and I did finally record the pilot episode of our new podcast last night… watch this space for more information).

In the absence of my planned post continuing the series on Microsoft Virtualization and looking at application virtualisation (which will make an appearance, just maybe not until next week), here are a few Hyper-V links that might come in useful (supplementing the original list of Hyper-V links I published back in July):

Recording ringtones for the Apple iPhone

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In the western world (well, certainly in the UK), mobile phone ringtones represent a highly profitable market but, as I understand it, no additional revenue is passed to the recording artists – and on that basis I’m not going to line the pockets of music industry executives when I’ve already paid for music once.

One of the advantages of being an iPhone user and having a Mac at my disposal is the ability to record my own Ringtones. Whilst there are commercial products that can do this too (like iToner from Ambrosia Software), if you have Apple GarageBand 4.1.1 or later, you can record your own ringtones (40 seconds or less) and transfer them to iTunes to sync with the phone (as described in Apple support article HT1358 or with screenshots on LifeHacker). If you need to fade the ringtone in/out then adjusting the track volume is described in an AppleInsider forum post.

This capability is not new, and is pretty well documented, but I’ve spent far too much time playing around with it and now I need to go to sleep!

Using psexec to make registry changes on a remote computer

Posted on By Mark Wilson

So, here’s the problem. I’m in the UK and I want to send a 15MB file to someone in Australia. My Windows Live SkyDrive and Mesh accounts have 5MB limits (and there is no Mac client for Mesh for a point to point connection). I have an FTP server I can use but I need to create a new user account and I’m many miles away from the server. Of course, being Internet-facing, the FTP server is in a DMZ, so I’m careful about which services it is running but I can use a Remote Desktop Connection to connect to another computer and then use a second remote desktop session to access the FTP server from inside the firewall. At least, I should have been able to, if I’d enabled remote desktop… and I hadn’t.

I tried to connect to the registry remotely and enable Remote Desktop using the method that Daniel Petri describes but that failed:

Error connecting network registry
Unable to connect to ipaddress. Make sure you have permission to administer this computer.

I wasn’t sure what was preventing access to the remote registry (the target is a fully patched Windows Server 2003 R2 computer) but I needed another method of access. That method was a Microsoft SysInternals tool called psexec which allowed me to bypass whatever security I was having trouble with and run commands on the remote server. First I edited the registry to allow Remote Desktop:

psexec \\ipaddress -u username -p password reg add "hklm\system\currentcontrolset\control\terminal server" /f /v fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 0

and was pleased to see that:

reg exited on ipaddress with error code 0.

Next I checked the value I’d just set:

psexec \\ipaddress -u username -p password reg query "hklm\system\currentcontrolset\control\terminal server"

Before I restarted the server:

psexec \\ipaddress -u username -p password shutdown -f -r -t 0

After this, I could RDP onto the console and make the changes that I needed.

If all the command line exercise is a little daunting, then it looks as though Phil Morgan’s RD Enable XP will also optionally call psexec to do the same thing…

Microsoft Virtualization: part 3 (desktop virtualisation)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Before the weekend, I started a series of posts on the various technologies that are collectively known as Microsoft Virtualization. So far, I’ve looked at host/server virtualisation and in this post, I’ll look at the various forms of desktop virtualisation that Microsoft offers.

Whilst VMware have a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution built around Virtual Infrastructure (VI), Microsoft’s options for virtualising the desktop are more varied – although it should be noted that they do not yet have a desktop broker and recommend partner products such as Citrix Xen Desktop or Quest vWorkspace (formerly Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite). With Hyper-V providing the virtualisation platform, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Configuration Manager and Operations Manager for management of virtualised Vista clients, this is what some people at Microsoft have referred to as Microsoft VDI (although that’s not yet an official marketing concept).

Licensed by access device (PC or thin client) with the ability to run up to four virtual operating system instances per license, the Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) is actually platform agnostic (i.e. VECD can be used with VMware, Xen or other third-party virtualisation solutions). VECD is part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and so requires a Software Assurance (SA) subscription.

With a broker to provide granular authentication and support for the Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol (for better multimedia support than the Remote Desktop Protocol), users can connect to a Windows Vista desktop from any suitable access device.

To access this virtualised infrastructure there are a number of options – from thin-client terminal devices to Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP) – an operating system based on Windows XP Embedded and intended for use on older hardware. WinFLP is not a full general purpose operating system, but provides suitable capabilities for security, management, dcument-viewing and the Microsoft .NET framework, together with RDP client support and the ability to install other clients (e.g. Citrix ICA). Running on old, or low-specification hardware, WinFLP is an ideal endpoint for a VDI but it is a software assurance benefit – without SA then the closest alternative is to strip down/lock down Windows XP.

VDI is just one part of the desktop virtualisation solution though – since Microsoft’s purchase of Connectix in 2003, Virtual PC has been available for running virtualised operating system instances on the desktop. With the purchase of Kidaro in March 2008, Microsoft gained an enterprise desktop virtualisation solution, which has now become known as Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation (MED-V) and is expected to become part of MDOP in the first half of 2009.

Effectively, MED-V provides a managed workspace, with automatic installation, image delivery and update; centralised management and reporting; usage policies and data transfer controls; and complete end use transparency (i.e. users do not need to know that part of their desktop is virtualised).

The best way I can describe MED-V is something like VMware ACE (for a locked-down virtual desktop) combined with the Unity feature from VMware Fusion/Coherence from Parallels Desktop for Mac, whereby the guest application instances appear to be running natively on the host operating system desktop.

MED-V runs within Virtual PC but integration with the host operating system is seamless (although MED-V applications can optionally be distinguished with a coloured border) – even down to the system tray level and providing simulated task manager entries.

A centralised repository is provided for virtual machine images with a variety of distribution methods possible – even a USB flash drive – and a management console is provided in order to control the user experience. Authentication is via Active Directory permissions, with MED-V icons published to the host desktop.

MED-V can be used to run applications with compatibility issues on a virtual Windows XP desktop running on Windows Vista until application compatibility fixes can be provided (e.g. using Application Compatibility Toolkit shims, or third party solutions such as those from ChangeBASE). Furthermore, whereas using application virtualisation to run two versions of Internet Explorer side-by-side involves breaching the end user licensing agreement (EULA), the MED-V solution (or any operating system-level virtualisation solution) provides a workaround, even allowing the use of lists to spawn an alternative browser for those applications that require it (e.g. Internet Explorer 7 on the desktop, with Internet Explorer 6 launched for certain legacy web applications).

Using technologies such as MED-V for desktop virtualisation allows a corporate desktop to be run on a “dirty” host (although network administrators will almost certainly have kittens). From a security standpoint, MED-V uses a key exchange mechanism to ensure security of client-server communications and the virtual hard disk (.VHD) image itself is encrypted, with the ability to set an expiry date after which the virtual machine is inoperable. Restrictions over access to clipboard controls (copy, paste, print screen, etc.) may be applied to limit interaction between guest and host machines – even to the point that it may be possible to copy data in one direction but not the other.

At this time, MED-V is 32-bit only, although future releases will have support for 64-bit host operating system releases (and I expect to see hypervisor-based virtualisation in a future Windows client release – although I’ve not seen anything from Microsoft to substantiate this, it is a logical progression to replace Virtual PC in the way that Hyper-V has replaced Virtual Server)

Desktop virtualisation has a lot of potential to aid organisations in the move to Windows Vista but, unlike VMware, who see VDI as a replacement for the desktop, Microsoft’s desktop virtualisation solutions are far more holistic, integrating with application and presentation virtualisation to provide a variety of options for application delivery.

In the next post in this series, I’ll take a closer look at application virtualisation.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V vs. Hyper-V Server 2008

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Last summer, I wrote a post to help people understand the various versions of Hyper-V and now that Hyper-V Server has been launched, it’s got even more confusing.

The following table is lifted from the Microsoft website and should help to clear up which version of Hyper-V Server or Windows Server with the Hyper-V role enabled will allow various functionality:

Requirement Hyper-V Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition
Server consolidation Yes Yes Yes Yes
Test and development Yes Yes Yes Yes
Mixed operating system virtualisation (Windows and Linux) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Local Graphical User Interface Yes Yes Yes
High availability clustering Yes Yes
Quick migration Yes Yes
Large memory support (host >32GB RAM) Yes Yes
Support for >4 processors (host) Yes Yes
Ability to add further server roles Yes Yes Yes
Virtualisation rights (per assigned server license) Each guest should be licensed independently of the host 1 physical and 1 virtual 1 physical and 4 virtual 1 physical and unlimited virtual

MVP = Mark’s Very Pleased

Posted on By Mark Wilson

MVPI’ve just heard that my Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award nomination for 2009 was successful and I can now say I’m an MVP for Virtual Machine technology.

Thank you to everyone who reads, links to and comments on this blog as, without your support, I wouldn’t write this stuff and therefore wouldn’t be getting the recognition from Microsoft that I have.

For those of you who skip over the Microsoft-focused content, don’t worry – it doesn’t mean that it will all be Microsoft from now on – I’ll still continue to write about whatever flavour of technology I find interesting at any given time, and I’ll still be trying to remain objective!

Hyper-V Server has RTMed – SCVMM due by the end of the month

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I’ve just heard that Microsoft Hyper-V Server – the free version of Hyper-V with no reliance on Windows has shipped. Hyper-V Server will be available for download later today from the Microsoft website.

For more information about Hyper-V Server, check out the blog post I wrote a few days ago on host virtualisation using Microsoft Virtualization technologies.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 has not been released yet but Microsoft do say that it will be ready by the end of October (they had previously indicated that it would ship within 30 days of the Microsoft Virtualization launch last month).

Useful links: September 2008

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A list of items I’ve come across this month that I found potentially useful, interesting, or just plain funny:

I’ve been running these “useful links” posts for a few months now but it really would make sense for me to use a service like Delicious instead. I’ve been trying to work out a way to get Delicious to publish links on a weekly or monthly basis but that might not work out. Just keep watching this space.