4400 vs 4200 vs 4500 vs 15000

[Phoenix32]

I have seen a lot of, "what about my Guardian Snap Server 4X00" type questions lately when the answers were recently provided for one of that 4X00 units cousins. So, I guess it is time for a little hardware comparison of these units.

For starters, and a lot of people do not know this, the Guardian Snap 4200, 4500, and 15000 are the same base unit. Yes, you heard me right, same base unit. Parts are interchangable and the only real difference in these units is the CPU, Memory, Drive sizes, and Interfaces installed. That's it...

CPU: The 4200's I have seen come with a 2 Ghz Celron, 2 Ghz Pentium 4, or on some occasions, a 2.4Ghz Celron. The 4500 comes with a 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4. The 15000 comes with a 3 Ghz Pentium 4. These are socket 478 Celron/Pentium 4 units with 400 Mhz or 533 Mhz FSB. One small caveat here, the 15000 has an extra plastic piece that diverts some blower fan air for extra cooling.

Memory: The 4200 comes with 256 MB or 512 MB. The 4500 comes with 512 MB. The 15000 comes with 2 GB. These units use Registered ECC DDR memory, and it aint cheap like desktop DDR is. It can get expensive. I have put up to 3 GB total in all three of these units with no problems, but I have never had any 2 GB Reg ECC DDR sticks to test.

Drives: As with all Snap Servers, there are different flavors as to brands and sizes of hard disks used. Maxtors are used most often (cheap JUNK!), but some have other brand drives as well. As for limits, I know 750 GB drives can be used, but above that, if they become available, I cannot say for sure, but I would guess they would work also (due to what I can see from the interface/chipset). The OS has a limit something like 21 TB, so I doubt it will ever be an issue with these units, depending on power requirements.

Interfaces (HBA cards): I have seen 3 factory installed types of cards for these units, SCSI, SATA, and Fibre Optic. The SCSI cards come in two brands, Adaptec and LSI Logic, LSI Logic being the most common by far, which I have always wondered about since Snap is owned by Adaptec. The 4200 most often does not have an external HBA installed, but on rare occasions may have a SCSI or SATA installed. The 4500 are about 50/50 on having a card installed, and may be either SCSI or SATA, but by far most often, SCSI. The 15000 comes with a Fibre Optic card installed, and may or may not have a SCSI or SATA also. Why an External HBA card? Simple. Tape backups, expansion units (like Snap 10 or Snap 30 etc), and those type things. These are very valuable options, do not overlook or underestimate their usefulness. Why Fibre Optic? Even more simple. Snap Disk 30! These cards are also not dirt cheap. Do not overlook them. And the Fibre Optic card is worth it's weight in gold almost. I have yet to see one of those for less than $800 (on eBay) and they are required for a Snap Disk 30 for example.


Now for the 4400. It is not the same base unit as the 4200, 4500, and 15000 and the parts (including the drive sleds) are not interchangable. The 4400 is an older Pentium 3 unit. Now with that said, a drive can be taken from a 4400 and put in one of the others and vice versa, so long as you have the drive sled for it. The OS is interchangable.

I will say this once. The Quantum 4400 and the Snap Appliance 4400 are the same unit! 100%!!!

The 4400 does have 2 gigabit ethernet ports and 2 USB ports like the 4200/4500/15000, but does not have video and keyboard/mouse ports like they do. Being a Pentium 3 and SDRAM based unit versus a Pentium 4 and DDR based unit as the 4200/4500/15000 are, it is obviously going to be a bit slower unit (albeit will blow any Snap OS unit away). IMO, it is not bad compared, and is a very useful unit.

The 4400 is not a superior unit to the 4200, reguardless of the numbering. However, the 4400 does have one thing some would consider over the others mentioned here. The 4400 is slightly smaller, and with the CPU being much less wattage, the blower runs less often and much slower making it a very much quieter unit. This can be an advantage in home use.

CPU: The 4400 comes with 1 Ghz to 1.4 Ghz Pentium 3 coppermine or tulatin processors. There is some speed gain (not a lot) with a 1.4 Ghz Tulatin, but a cost of noise (the blower will run higher at speed and more often due to heat). I myself use 1.2 Ghz and 1 Ghz processors in my 4400 units and got rid of the 1.4 Ghz processors for noise reasons (my living room).

Memory: The units I have seen all came with 256 MB (most often) and 512 MB. They can be expanded to at least 2 GB (I have never tried higher). They use Registered ECC SDRAM.

Drives: As with all Snap Servers, there are different flavors as to brands and sizes of hard disks used. As for limits, I know 750 GB drives can be used, but above that, if they become available, I cannot say for sure.

Interfaces (HBA cards): I have only seen SCSI cards factory installed for these units. The SCSI cards come in two brands, Adaptec and LSI Logic, LSI Logic being the most common by far, which again, I have always wondered about since Snap is owned by Adaptec. The 4400 are about 25/75 on having a SCSI card installed (25% on having one) and are a half height PCI card for these units.


This should clear up some common questions with these units I hope. The bottom line is, a 4200 and 4500 are pretty much the same unit, just different CPU and Memory for the most part, with the 15000 being a bigger brother to these units with much better options installed. In the end, they are the same unit and can be upgraded/downgraded to be each other with the one small caveat of the 15000 has an extra plastic piece that diverts some blower fan air for extra cooling. The 4400 is an older, slightly smaller, slightly slower, but quieter model, and contrary to the numbering system, is NOT better than the 4200, with the 4200 being a superior Pentium 4 and DDR model. Drive limits and the OS are the same at this point and are interchangable.


I mentioned the Interface (HBA) cards above. In another message later, I will clue you in on a few minor details for this as well.

[blue68f100]

Good break down Andy.

It looks like this forum has made the jump to the Guardian OS vs Snap OS. I was thinking its about time to put a FAQ together. And this would be a good start.

[Phoenix32]

Thank you David. I could not help myself. There is way too much misinformation about the hardware out there and hardware guys like me seem to be in very short supply (probably due to a lot of IT guys convincing themselves they are hardware people, but I digress).

In any case, this was just a very basic gloss over, but addressed many of the misconceptions I have encountered from people. With most of these revolving around the 4200 it seems, as well as the HBA cards. I provided this as public information, so use it as you wish with my desire to continue to help.

[Phoenix32]

Okay, well with that, I guess I better give the very basic gloss over on the Interface cards. This is NOT in depth or all encompassing for the IT pros, just a very basic primer for the non IT types and/or home users. I will aslo tell you here, I have not had a Snap Expansion unit to test with myself, this information mostly comes from documentation, not personal experience, at least in the case of the expansion units. Keep that in mind please, and correct me if you see a mistake, but if you do, be sure the info you put out is 100% correct please.

As I mentioned before, there are 3 different type cards I have seen factory installed in the Guardian Snap Server 4400, 4200, 4500, and 15000. These are SCSI, SATA, and Fibre Optic. Please notice I said factory installed. The 4400 has a single PCI card slot (half height) and the 4200, 4500, 15000 have two full height slots, one being PCI and the other being PCI-X. Pretty much any card of the right card type can be installed in these units since these are standard slots (like a video card or other Interface card and so on). The key is if the OS will have drivers built in for it and have options to utilize the card (if using the Guardian OS). With the Guardian OS, you are pretty much stuck with using the cards that have been factory installed, or cards like a video card and so forth that do not require an OS installed driver or OS supported options for BASIC operation. I used the Video card as the example because it helps with a 4400 that does not have a Video adapter for basic POST use.

In the case of the Guardian OS Snap Servers, these cards are used for external interfacing to other devices, via SCSI, SATA, and Fibre Optics. Some of the cards may have internal connectors, but they are not used for internal unit use in any units I have seen.

What kind of devices am I talking about? Well, how about tape backup units, or expansion units as the main uses? They can be used for MANY MANY other things, but this is the primary uses most often. There are other expansion units, but the main ones for these units are the Snap Disk 10 and Snap Disk 30.

The Snap Disk 10: Is a 4 drive unit that looks very much like a 4200, 4500, or 15000 unit. It contains 4 drives and the interface to connect to one of these units and adds 4 additional drive for those units. I have not used one myself, but the documentation indicates that these additional 4 drives can be mixed in with your current RAID arrays, or as Spares, or as their own RAID arrays with the 4200, 4500, or 15000 acting as the head unit (the actual Server). Thus making your 4 drive unit an 8 drive unit. The only bottleneck will be the speed of the interface being used. This is a very good and cool thing.

The factory installed interface for use with a Snap Disk 10 is a SATA interface (the units both still use PATA drives). This uses a proprietary connector cable and looks just like a SCSI connector. Many people think the Snap Disk 10 is SCSI, but it is actually a SATA connection. In the circles I travel in, I have been told you could replace the interfaces with the SCSI interfaces, for higher speed and reliability, but I do not know if it has been done etc. But, in theory, it should work. However, not having a Snap Disk 10 myself, I cannot say if this can be done in the Snap Disk 10 or not. Maybe David will pipe in here since he has one. The factory installed interface though, is a SCSI looking SATA interface.

The Snap Disk 30: Is my favorite of these devices. I will have one some day!
This unit is similar to a Snap Disk 10, except that it uses a Fibre Optic interface and has 16 Drives! This will turn your 4200, 4500, 15000 unit into a 20 Drive unit for practical application. WOW! I do not know if it could be converted to the SATA or SCSI adapter (since I have not seen the insides of one), but it really doesn't matter. Why? Because the SATA and SCSI interfaces simply would not be able to keep up with the data flow required for arrays with this many drives, not to mention reliability of data bits keeping the arrays intact. Thus why it uses the Fibre Optics Interface. I would also not use less than a full Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz CPU or less than 1 GB of Reg ECC DDR as a minimum. I think 2.6 or 2.8 Ghz and above with 2 GB of Reg ECC DDR is much better. In fact, this is why the Snap 15000 has a 3 Ghz CPU and 2 GB of Reg ECC DDR. The 15000 is designed as the Head Unit for a Snap Disk 30, and also why it comes with a Fibre Optic card.


Now for some prices on these cards. The SCSI cards can be found on average for $200 on eBay and elsewhere, but this IMO is a little high in price. If you look around, and watch eBay, you can find them sometimes for $100 and if you are patient, $75. The SATA cards seem to be harder to find and get confused as SCSI cards quite often. Now the Fibre Optic cards are a different matter. They are expensive! I have yet to see one for sale anywhere, including eBay, for less that $798. I am sure they can be had for less, but you will have to be real resourcefull and very patient, as well as lucky.

Back to the Snap Disk 30 a moment, for those wanting to expand. They are normally in the $1600, $2000, and $2500 zone, but I recently saw a New Open Box Snap Disk 30 on eBay with all 16 x 250 GB drives installed (4TB) for $900. If I had the money at the time, I would have snapped it up (parden the pun). If you are patient, you can get them for these kinds of prices. Just remember, you have to have a Fibre Optic card to use the Snap Disk 30.

DO NOT underestimate the uses for these Interface cards. They can be used for a multitude of things. Even if you do not think you want or need one now, you may very well some day. Thus, when you buy Guardian Snap Servers, watch to see if they have these cards installed or can be upgraded to include them.

I hope this helps...

[blue68f100]

I do not know about the scsi card, but the SATA is plenty fast. You can not tell any difference between the local 4500 drives or S10. There is a single controller card in the S10. It uses the same sleds as the 4500. The options for the S10 are Raid 0, 1, 5 or global spares. Now on configuration you can have seperate shares (safest) or span the share on the 4500 (main unit). But if you span or use it to expand the Raid5 array (7disk array, 1 spare) and the S10 goes down you loose your data. So it's safer to use it as a seperate unit.

There is no power switch, the unit is fully controlled by the main unit. Adaptec warns you, not to use a SCSI cable with the SATA card. They say they are different. I have not confirmed this.

btw, it has high velosity fans in it too.

[Phoenix32]

David, I must be damn good. Over 100 views with not one correction, question, or comment other than you.

[gdeaks]

Hello there, I've got a 4400 that died kinda. Went really slow then stopped responding, I have an old PCI video card that I tried to plug into it to see any messages, but won't even switch on with it in. The serial out only mentions a "to flash press enter now" then nothing else. The PCI Slot is kinda like a shortened PCI-X any idea's???

[Phoenix32]

It sounds like it is in recovery mode, what do you think David?

As for the rest, I need a whole lot more information, or get my hands on it to be able to say. Too many possibilities at this point.

David?

[blue68f100]

Use the null modem cable to see what is going on in the background.
Think the settings are 19.2k or 115k N, 8, 1 it's been a while since I've connected. The settings are in the Guardian OS User Manual.

I will agree with Andy that it has booted into recovery mode. The logs may also reveal what is going on.

[Phoenix32]

It's 115K. The logs should tell us something (I hope anywise)...

[Phoenix32]

Anything new on that 4400?