Netgear SC101
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The SC101 is a home networked storage product manufactured and distributed by Netgear using networking storage technology (ZSAN) licensed from Zetera Corporation . The device is capable of sharing data stored on 1 or 2 internal disks (either IDE PATA or SATA depending on model) via Ethernet links. The SC101 has been poorly received by the public in general due to poor advertising and misinformation by retail outlets selling the device as a NAS. The inherent file system in the device is quite fragile when used as a full-function file server, limiting the device's effective uses. It has also been known to suffer from overheating issues. Its successor, the SC101T, solves many of the problems brought up by its critics and incorporates gigabit support, but still utilizes the same ZSAN format for its disks and all of the drawbacks that entails.
The SC101 comes in two models:
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[edit] SAN not NAS
The SC101 is a block level device, hence a storage area network (SAN) device, as opposed to a file-level device, aka network-attached storage (NAS). Thus, like any SAN device, specific drivers and software must be installed on any client PC wishing to access the device. Also, due to the proprietary file system, when used as a constant use file server (such as with streaming media or database hosting) the SC101 can suffer from data corruption. Because of this, Netgear has recommended[citation needed] that the device, which is solely for data storage, not be used exclusively for storage of important data.
[edit] Linux drivers
There has been lots of talk of a driver for Linux[3] but Netgear have failed to deliver. There is an open source driver for Linux on Google Code[4], but because this is a block level device, the OS is responsible for creating a filesystem. Consequently, a filesystem created by Linux will not be compatible with one created by Windows.
However, a post[5] on kerneltrap.org suggests that it may be possible to use NTFS-3g on Linux. If possible this would allow access from both Windows and Linux machines, at the expense of losing features that the proprietary file system offers such as sharing the device access across multiple machines, as well as mirroring support.
Note that none of the drivers under discussion will allow access to existing crashed SC101 systems. Recovery from the bare hard drives from crashed SC101s is only possible with reverse engineered parsing. NETGEAR does not offer a file-mounter for recovery, nor are there any third-party commercial tools for recovery.
[edit] References
- ^ "Netgear SC101". http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/NetworkStorage/SC101.aspx. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
- ^ "Netgear SC101T". http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/NetworkStorage/SC101t.aspx. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
- ^ "SC101 Mount Partition in Linux - NETGEAR Forums". http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=29788. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
- ^ "sc101-nbd - Google Code". http://code.google.com/p/sc101-nbd/. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
- ^ "Zetera Z-San Filesystem and Devices - Any Linux Interest? - KernelTrap". http://kerneltrap.org/node/6800. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
- Jacobi, Jon (2005). "Netgear SC101 Storage Central Review | NAS | ZDNet UK". zdnet.co.uk. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/nas/2005/10/19/netgear-sc101-storage-central-39231611/. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- "Review: NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central : Introduction". tomshardware.co.uk. 2005. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/review-sc101,review-1470.html. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- "Netgear SC101 - PC Advisor". pcadvisor.co.uk. 2005. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/network-wifi/224/netgear-sc101/. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- Stapley, Will (2005). "Netgear SC101 Storage Central - Computeractive - product reviews you can trust". computeractive.co.uk. http://www.computeractive.co.uk/pcw/review/1921177/netgear-sc101-storage-central. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- Wellman, Dan (7 February 2007). "Netgear SC101 Network Attached Storage for the Home". devhardware.com. http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Storage-Devices/Netgear-SC101-Network-Attached-Storage-for-the-Home/. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- Tan, Andrew (2006), "Digital Piggy Bank", HWM, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DOsDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84, retrieved 17 September 2011
- PC World 23: pp. 152, 2005
- "Zetera's Z-SAN technology receives acclaim as it comes to market in NETGEAR product". SAN/LAN 23 (9). 2005. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BmOJbAxz4pgC&pg=PA11. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
