Buying advice for Guardian Units

[Phoenix32]

*Disclosure: I sometimes sell Guardian units on eBay, so this message may be seen as biased. But, I assure you, this is the same information I would give if I never sold a unit, and what I learned as I was buying a lot of other units for my own use.


Just like with the SNAP OS units, I have seen people get ripped off over and over on eBay with the Snap Guardian units. Given the expense of these units and nature of the way Adaptec handles these newer, more capable, and still supported units, it can be a very painful lesson. With this message, I will attempt to give people an idea of what to look for and what to avoid. There will be a short summary at the end of the message if you want to refer back to that now and then.


1) The first thing I am going to say is ASK QUESTIONS! Very few sellers of these units have a clue about anything to do with the units. They just get them in on liquidations and sell them off. Their adds are covered with tons of general fluff, but have very little real information about the actual unit they are selling you. And very little of the direct information is anything of real value. And to add salt to injury, a good portion of the sellers that do know something about the units will purposely leave out critical information. This is so important, I am going to say it again. ASK QUESTIONS! Get direct answers and with the add and your questions, look for the things I will pass on to you here.

2) NEVER ASSUME something/everything is there. Quite often these auction units are missing parts. In fact, I would have to say about 90% or more of the units you see with lower price tags are missing something critical. As Guardian OS owners here on this forum will confirm for you, getting some of the parts for these units is extremely difficult, and expensive. This comes back to asking questions. If you can't see something in the actual photo of the unit or it is not listed in the auction, do not assume it is there. If you do, over 90% of the time, you are going to be right back here on the forum begging people (probably me) to find you some rare and expensive part.

These difficult and expensive parts are not because the units are rare or something like that. It is all about how Adaptec, and truthfully how most companies doing this type equipment handle these type units. Parts are kept in house and controlled as much as possible. In Adaptec's case, most of the time you have to have a service contract to even talk to their tech support, which is how you have to order the parts (not customer service). Sometimes you get lucky, but don't bank on it. Also, they do not keep, or maybe I should say, not let you order some of the parts. Drive sleds (trays, caddies, hot swap units) are a good example. They don't sell the drive sleds. What they sell is a replacement hot swap unit which is a replacement drive mounted to a drive sled. Go price one, you will love it, $400 is a common price for a 250GB drive and sled for example. And a lot of the parts, like the front bezel, are not sold to end users, but rather kept in stock for their service contract units.

3) Now for one of my favorites, The Guardian OS. Just like with missing parts, NEVER ASSUME the Guardian OS is installed! It is not uncommon for companies who previously owned these units to remove the drives or to wipe them (OS and all) prior to releasing them from their posession. FACT! It is part of the IT Departments internal security plan for them to remove or wipe hard disks of any computer equipment before it can leave the company.

Here is where rub comes in for this. The Guardian OS is stored in hidden partitions of the hard disks, not on flashram or the like. If those drives are gone or are wiped, YOU HAVE NO GUARDIAN OS! Scan around here on the forum and see what that means for you. Or better yet, I will just tell you. Even if you have the Guardian OS GSU files(s), you cannot just fire the unit up and install the OS. The OS has to be pre-installed at the factory, installed from another unit that has the OS, or copied onto a drive with an image file from another unit. We already know (or should by now) what Adaptec is going to charge you for a pre-installed setup (real expensive). And I will tell you right up front, you are going to have a very hard time getting your hands on an image file from anyone, and if you do, they are not going to do it for free. This means, unless you already have another unit with the Guardian OS on it, you are going to be in for a lot of headaches, plenty of expense (probably more than you could have just bought a good unit for), or end up with an expensive door stop. For your safety and sanity I am going to say it again, NEVER ASSUME the Guardian OS is installed!

4) While I am talking about missing parts, drives, and Guardian OS, let's talk about those hard disk sleds. I am going to make this one short and sweet. If you don't listen, you can bank on the fact you will be looking me up later. Without hard disk sleds (the hot swap trays), the unit is useless. Missing hard disks you can replace. A missing OS, while a pain in the arse and expensive, you can do. But hard disk sleds are a different matter. They are very rare and almost impossible to get (unless you know someone like me). -IF- you can get them, and that is a very very huge and important -IF-, they won't be cheap. Don't buy a unit without hard disk sleds unless you have a source for them prior to buying the unit. Again, don't buy a unit without hard disk sleds unless you have a source for them prior to buying the unit. Don't come back and say I didn't warn you!

5) Now back to the OS. Okay, so you got drives, drive sleds, and the OS is installed. But, what version is it? This is a much more important aspect than most people give it and where I see people get screwed the most. Right up front, I am going to tell you that you want Guardian OS version 4.2.054 or newer. PERIOD!

The Guardian OS is by far the best NAS OS out there in my opinion, and that opinion is shared by many many experts on the subject. But, as with a lot of software and particularly Operating Systems, they need to be kept up to date with newest security features, options, and protocols. David (blue68f100) is the Software/IT guy around here (among others), so I will refrain from going into all the details. I will just give you the general idea and you are going to just have to trust it, or get more details from David and others (David, please feel free to add to this if you would like).

Unless you have 4.2.054 or newer, sooner or later YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE ISSUES with newer protocols, operating systems (including XP), security, MAC OSx, etc etc etc etc etc. You are also going to be missing a lot of the newer and much better options, wizards, menus, and general upgrade additions. If you plan to get serious with Windows 2K03, or to work with Windows Vista, Windows 2K08, or newer versions of MAC OSx, then you better plan on needing Guardian OS version 4.4.045 or better. The kicker is, even if you "think" you don't need these compatabilities, you might find yourself very surprised, sooner rather than later. My advice, and I bet would be the same advice from most of the other Snap Guardian users here on the forum is, get Guardian OS 4.4.045 as a minimum and Guardian OS 4.4.049 SP2 if at all possible!

Once again, I am going to say, "Don't come back and say I didn't warn you." And before you blow this off and think to yourself you can upgrade later, let me also add this in. If/when you need to get the upgraded Guardian OS, you are going to come back here and say, "Where can I get a newer version of the Guardian OS?" Look around this forum and you will see it. And guess what answer you are going to get? Yup, you will get the standard, "Call Adaptec and pay them $600 for the upgrade" answer. Yes! To get an updated OS from Adaptec is $600. Kind of makes that other unit that was a few hundred dollars more expensive look more attractive doesn't it? You can try Bit Torrent and things like that, but mark my words, you won't find it. You might find another owner who will illegaly transfer the upgrade file to you, but you can also bank on the fact that he or she is going to want several hundred dollars for it. Bottom line, it's going to cost you one way or another. Simple.

6) Guardian Snap Server numbers do not go in order of their technical capabilities or newness. An examples includes the 4200 and 4400. The 4400 is a Pentium 3 unit using ECC Reg PC133 SDRAM. The 4200 is a Pentium 4 unit using ECC Reg DDR PC2700. See what I mean? The 4200 is a newer more advanced unit than the 4400 even though it's number is lower. The 4500 is in fact more powerful than the 4200 due to coming with a faster CPU and more memory (stock) as well as often including options like the External SCSI card etc, but the 4200 was discontinued later than the 4500 was. Not to mention the fact that if you know what to get, you can upgrade the 4200 to be a 4500. LOL, in fact, if you upgrade the unit to be a 4500, it will even read as a 4500 in the Guardian OS menus. Just know that the numbers don't go in order of the capabilites of the units.

7) Memory. Like with most NAS units or Servers, the more memory the better. And keep in mind, that unlike the SNAP OS units that used standard memory, the Guardian OS Snap Servers use ECC Registered Server type memory. You are not going to go down to your average store and just buy memory for it, and it won't be as cheap. If a unit has upgraded memory, that is a plus. They also don't list how much memory is in their units when being sold a lot of times. If not, ASK!

It varies here and there, but as a general rule, the stock memory for some of the Snap Guardian units is as follows; 4400 - 256MB (to 512MB on a few units). 4200 - 256MB most often, but a few had 512MB. 4500 - 512MB but had only 256MB on a few of them. 15000 - 2GB.

From my testing, 1GB of memory seems to be the sweet spot (512MB a minimum). I try to put 2GB in most of my units that I use, but 1GB is sufficient for most uses. Also keep in mind, as a general rule, the larger the storage capacity, the more memory will have an effect on it's use (more storage wants more memory).

8) Expansion cards are a plus. External SCSI, SATA, and Fibre HBA cards that are used for expansion units (like the Snap Disk 10 and 30) and tape drives etc etc etc etc can be expensive. I have seen the external SCSI/SATA cards on eBay for $100 once in a while, but most of the time they are more near $200. And the Fibre HBA card, that is required for the Snap Disk 30 and many other serious expansions, is very expensive. The lowest price I have ever seen that card on eBay for is $798.

9) Shipping. Snap Guardian OS units are not light. They are also fragile with aluminum chassis. When it comes to shipping, expect it to cost a little for good shipping. If the shipping is too cheap, I would be worried about how well it is going to be shipped and what knd of shape it is going to be in when it gets to you. And ALWAYS ASK FOR SHIPPING INSURANCE!!! Again, these units are fragile.


There is so much more, but if you follow what I have written here, you should end up with a good usefull unit that will serve you well. Snap Guardian units are excellent units and just flat out blow away the Snap OS Snap units, but don't expect them to be cheap. If it's cheap, yu can probably bank you are going to have problems.

SUMMARY:

1. ASK QUESTIONS!
2. Never assume everything is there (parts). ASK!
3. Never assume the OS is installed. ASK!
4. If the drive sleds are missing (ASK), don't buy unless you have a source.
5. Get Guardian OS 4.2.054 as a min, 4.4.049SP2 if possible (ASK).
6. Snap Server model numbers do not go in order of tech capabilities or age.
7. The memory is Server memory. You want 512MB min or 1GB as a sweet spot.
8. Expansion cards can be a plus.
9. Pay for good shipping and shipping insurance.


As with most things, but for sure Guardian Snap Servers, Caveat Emptor! The biggest thing I can tell you is, ASK QUESTIONS BEFORE BUYING. You have been warned!

[blue68f100]

And I thought I was long winded, you over did your self this time.

What can I add....

What Mr Phoenix has said can apply to anything you buy on eBay. Assume nothing.

The one thing he did not hit on is the noise these Guardian Units creat. These are server room class equipment, not designed to be quiet. So you do not want them in the living room for a media server. Where most equipment has fans, these have blowers. High cfm in a small package. The 4500 on startup sounds like a jet winding up to take off, till the firmware takes control of the blowers. These are still louder (at idle) than any of the SnapOS units under full load.

The Guardian OS is highly pollished.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by blue68f100

And I thought I was long winded, you over did your self this time.

Well, yeah, but I did do a summary, and I was saddled with the problem of so much information that had to be given. I thought I did pretty well on the length considering the subject matter.

Originally Posted by blue68f100

What Mr Phoenix has said can apply to anything you buy on eBay. Assume nothing.

Very true, but I must have missed one of the marks I was trying to aquire. While true of anything you buy on eBay (David is right), the Snap Guardian units require special attention due to the difficulty of getting and expense of some of the parts, and the difficulties of getting and expense of the OS if it is not up to date. Missing parts, missing OS, or out of date OS drops the value of a Guardian Snap unit dramatically.

Originally Posted by blue68f100

The Guardian OS is highly pollished.

Yes, yes it is... Credit where credit is due...

[Phoenix32]

I do not mean to pick on any particular person/seller, but I decided to give some examples of what I was talking about. These examples will obviously be dated after a short amount of time, but they give a good example for right now. So here we go.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...:WNARL:US:1123

Okay, seems like a decent add/auction, safe seller, some details provided, and a decent price even, right?. Might be worth considering right? Okay, let's look at this from the point of view from my advice post. BTW, I spoke with this seller and can tell you facts, not speculations. In other words, I ASKED!

What OS version is it? Is the OS even installed? What CPU? How much Memory? You can't tell from this add, but I am about to tell you. The OS is NOT installed, it has a Celron 2GHz, and it has 256MB of memory. Does it still sound like a bargain to you? I should hope not.

Okay, let's see what you would have to do with this unit. First, upgrade those hard disks! 4 x 80 GB drives in a Snap Guardian unit? Are you kidding me? Who pays that kind of money for a used Snap Server just to have around 200 or so GB of RAID 5 protected storage? In my opinion, anything less than 1TB (around 690 or so GB in RAID 5) is useless in a Snap Server of this class. You are looking at least $250 (regular drives) to $320 (for Raid Edition type drives) at 1TB total. Then you are going to put in $40 to $80 worth of memory (512MB to 1GB). Then you are going to pay Adaptec $600 for an OS or beg someone to slip you the OS under the table for a couple hundred bucks or more. All in all, you are going to spend $500 to $1000 (or even more) to get this unit from where it is to a Working Snap 4200 with 1TB, 512MB memory or more, and an Updated OS (depending on what you get and who you get it from). Add in the original costs and this "bargain" is no longer a bargin.


This same seller also has these two units.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...:WNARL:US:1123

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...:WNARL:US:1123

I won't go into as much detail on these, but will just make a couple comments. First and foremost, neither of these have the OS installed either. The 4200 is just like the other unit I just went through except it has 160 Gb drives instead of 80 GB drives (still not enough for a Guardian unit). I might also note, I find it real interesting that BOTH 4200 auctions have the EXACT SAME PICTURE but say it is "the actual server". Amazing isn't it? And the 4400? Are you kidding me? He wants $750 for a Pentium 3 unit with VERY OLD hard disks and no OS? I bet those drives are close to being on their last legs, being probably 4 or 5 years old or more and we have already beat the OS subject to death.

Trust me, there are no bargins there in those three auctions. In fact, the best price they are worth (and I mean best for the seller), is LESS THAN HALF what they are asking for those units. And that is being generous.

I spoke with this seller and told him he was crazy and what I have said here. His response? He essentially said he would get that for them sooner or later. Sadly, he is probably right, and someone is going to get screwed royaly. Then guess what? We will have a new user here on the forum begging for help and crying at their very bad deal. Hopefully, it won't be one of you already on this forum. If so, then you deserve what you get for not paying attention here.


Another side note, I saw another Snap 4400 sell today on eBay for $430. Was it a good deal? Nope. The unit has no front bezel. Good luck to the buyer to find a new one (not going to happen). It had very very old hard disks in it (on their last legs) and a very old OS version. You can bet pretty safely that the buyer of that unit will have well over $1000 invested in that unit before it is up to snuff, and this is WITHOUT the front bezel.


Once again, I do not mean to pick on any particular seller (or buyer) out there. I am just trying to give some current examples of how to not get screwed when trying to buy one of these type units. Since I already disclosed I do sell units on eBay once in a while and I picked on a seller here, I feel it only be fair to say I am open to being critisized on my adds/units also. The goal is not to sell something, but rather try and be in the spirit of this forum and help people with my knowledge and experience.

[Phoenix32]

Now I am going to add hard drives to this novel. This can be a place to get screwed or not, but it is still important information when looking at Guardian Snap Servers. Many people do not consider the value and cost of the drives when looking at buying a Snap Server, but I assure you, it is a large factor.


Time and again, David and I often hear people asking about what hard drives to get or asking for help because they have failed drives. We also hear about how much storage they need and so forth. Here is some general guidance, based on my opinion (and backed by David and others who know this type information).

For starters, don't buy junk quality drives. These are enterprise class servers and should have enterprise class drives, but at least don't stick junk in them. Remember, these units will not only be running 24/7 maybe, can have heavy loads at times, need long term reliability, and also will be running in RAID arrarys than can be picky about little things like timing, heat, and drive matching.

While the Guardian Snap Server are probably the very best NAS unit one can buy, it is embarrassing some of the junk drives Adaptec stuck into these units. A good example is Maxtor drives. A lot of Snap units came with Maxtor drives. While many people may like them and swear by them, I will tell you that I know very few real hardware technicians who will say anything nice about them. They are cheap drives and you get what you pay for in this case. If you buy a unit, and it has Maxtor drives in it (ask), then devalue the price of the drives accordingly.

The old Hitachi 185GB drives you see in most of the 720GB Snap Servers, were decent drives for their time (although pretty slow). Now for the bad news. Most of those drives are very old in those units (4 and 5 years old) and are not anywhere near something I would trust for long term reliability as such. Also, those drives are old enough now (and not that popular when they were around), getting a replacement if a drive fails on you will not be tough, but not be real easy either. Your choices, and thus prices, will be limited.

The two above are very common cases, so I covered them, but rather than go drive by drive, I will just let you know what is good and I recommend from here.

For long term reliability, I recommend Western Digital or Seagate drives. I have far less faith in most Seagate drives over Western Digital, but a good portion of them have 5 year warrantees, thus giving you an out if you do have problems. Watch out though with Seagate, many many many of the Seagate OEM drives have ZERO WARRANTY! Again, ASK!

For storage capacity, I say 250 GB drives or larger for these units. For their expense, I see no reason for or use for drives smaller than that. Just simple logic. Due to prices and availability, as well as initial investment involved (most of us here do not have a money tree), the 250 GB drives are a good place to go and most cost effective. 4 x 250 GB (1TB) gives you about 690 GB of good reliabile RAID 5 storage. Plenty for most uses.

Get enterprise class drives if at all possible. They cost more, but are worth it in the end. Example, you can buy WD 250 GB drives for about $65, but WD RAID Edition 250 GB drives will cost you about $90. It may not seem to be worth it for $100 more for the drives (4 drives) for the same storage, but when you consider the other factors, it pays dividends in the end. Those drives have 5 year warrantees normally, last much long, run cooler, etc etc etc etc. And fact is, they are just plain better and far more reliable drives. You can bank on the fact that David and other hardware technicians with experience will tell you the same exact thing. You get what you pay for. Considering the cost of drives in the first place, buy right the first time.


So in general, I recommend Wester Digital or Seagate drives with Western Digital being the preference. I recommend drives of 250 GB or larger, with the 250 GB drives being the sweet spot due to initial investments and bang for the buck. I recommend enterprise class drives over standard drives every single time for the Snap Servers. And for a general overall, I say get Western Digital RAID Edition 250 GB drives for your Guardian SNAP Server (unless of course you have money to burn).


I truly hope this message thread is educatng the buying public out there and lending some help to some. If not, I will just shut up.


So David, what have I missed for buying advice on the Guardian Snap Servers?

[blue68f100]

If you shop online for HD's, you need to know if your buying OEM or retail. OEM drives only have a 1 yr warranty. If the online seller is not a licensed reseller for the MFG, the 1 yr may not apply, so NO Warranty.

Example: If a company went out of bussiness and a company bought there stock, that had cases of drives where the mfg date is over 1 yr old. You will not have any warranty.

If your buying retail, make sure you get a recipt, may need it for the warranty. Without it the mfg goes by mfg date on the drive. WD interprise drives comes with a 5 yr warranty, even though the the drive is packaged like OEM.

I was able to get WD 2500SE 250gig RE drives for around $70/drive. So the difference at the time was ~$10/drive. Money well spent.

There is a siginificant weight (heavier) difference between enterprise drives and retail. So yes their is a significant difference between drives. There is a performace difference too. As andy said. With the difference being the RE drives have a min seek time. Meaning that they must respond within a set time. All other drives do not have this requirement. Meaning that they will not be in sync with the other drives in the raid. Causing slower responce and data flow.

The bottom line is if you want speed and longlife buy interprise drives.

[Phoenix32]

Well, I guess that covers the main items. Now what to do when you don't listen to this advice, or bought before you saw this advice? Contact me via e-mail at phoenix32x@hotmail.com and I will see if we can get you fixed up. Is this a blatent advertisement? No! I am just capable of helping out with many of the above problems and letting you know help is available. But, depending on what it is, don't expect it for nothing. Parts and stuff are not cheap, even for me.

There you have it. I hope it helps someone.