[MaddMatt]

Nobody, or I should say no home user, but companies can and do;

I couldn’t afford to buy an Earthmover but earthmoving companies can because that’s one “tool” they use to make their “money making operation” more efficiently.
I couldn’t afford to buy an NewsPaper Press but publishing companies can because that’s one “tool” they use to make their “newspapers” more efficiently.
But I can afford a car and I can afford a USB Printer

I doubt that Meridian Data, then Quantum, then Snap Appliance and then Adaptec have ever planed to sell SnapServers to home users on mass; they seem to have only ever really thought that they can sell to Companies and all the marketing that I have seen is directed towards IT Managers and Companies showing how easy and stable they are to setup and use.


Home Users
No home users like you and I would buy one brand new, that’s what older inexpensive Snap 2200’s 4100’s and older models are for… older out of warranty units are for people who end up with these devices and see what else we can get out of them … if we did not know what a Snap was, or what we were doing we would do what 95% of home computer users do – buy more and bigger HDD’s… buy a USB attached HDD drive or buy a simple retail NAS.

Companies can afford them
Only a company would buy a brand new SnapServer. They have a great OS that has always delivered what companies need and they are supported. - IT guys need and have “insurance” with a new Snap Server, they have someone to blame if something goes wrong, they get warranties, options for onsite support because they do not want to be responsible to the director if it stuffs up and I haven’t got support or warranty?

If they want to be cheap they can build a Linux box with heaps of drives and a) they have to know how to set it up and b) if the motherboard doesn’t like the Storage HBA they have to deal with it… if they buy a snap 410 they plug it in turn it on and it is ready for setting up within minutes of getting it out of the box.

After the warranty is finished the “Old NAS” gets replaced by a new NAS, then it is used to house the IT guy’s MP3 collection and when the collection gets too big for that “Old NAS” he finds something bigger, then the “Old NAS” eventually finds its way, by whatever means, to people like you and me.


How they are used
I sell them to companies and they are purchased for;

Mass storage 3TB+ with the Snap 520’s – I have an organization that are going to convert every national news paper since 1900 to huge TIF files to archive digitally on a Snap520, they estimate that they need 40TB+, 520’s can manage 66TB’s with 750GB drives and 4x S50’s.

Specialized backup hosting/staging, Snap410 <2TB and for even smaller units like the 110, 210, ne 2200, 1100 for branch offices… I have a major utility who has a snap 2200 in each branch office they dump an image on the snap from their servers every A’ noon and the drawback backup images to head office’s datacenter every night, they have approximately 80-100 units ranging from the 80GB to the 250GB units.

Backing up from their servers to a SnapServer at network speeds over night and then from the Snap to a tape drive/library “off network” during the day, if they have a server failure they change out the server and draw the data back from the snap much faster than they could from a tape + they still get to take the tapes offsite and they would use them only in the instance of a complete disaster.

This is just a few examples of how companies uses these suckers, file serving what the snap was meant to replace is how my company uses its 4500 and we have an old 4400 that the tech’s use as a dump for all there gear and general scratchspace.

Snap Servers are definitly intended for companies I'm just glad to be able to get my hands on a few of the old ones