Open-Experts – The Data Storage Podcast: Test the Trial

Welcome to Open-Experts – The Data Storage Podcasts, episode #3! Today, Todd digs into real-world troubleshooting adventures and the importance of testing before investing. From real-life non-IT stories to baffling NAS connection issues tied to a bad cable — it’s a friendly reminder that even seasoned engineers aren’t immune to surprises. From the challenges of identifying the root cause to the strategies for efficient problem-solving, Todd highlights why having the right tools, processes, and ability to test the product matters so much! Learn why Open-E JovianDSS trials are designed to let you fully explore the platform’s capabilities, ensuring it’s the perfect fit for your production data storage needs before you commit.

But tthere’s more! In episode #3, we also dive into the newly tested Toshiba Enterprise Capacity MG Series 22TB drive, a massive “bit tank” designed for enterprise infrastructures. We share insights from Open-E’s QA Team testing process, comparing SAS and SATA options for optimal performance and more! So tune in, test your storage, and remember: always back up!

Listen to the Episode Now:

or read the transcript:

I know some of you have had this issue in the past, but man! Okay, so even with all my years with experience in the business, I was working on a case regarding a connection issue to their NAS share as it was lost. Now, what made this hard to troubleshoot was that they had a power hit just before the issue happened. Meaning it was reachable before. So, we went down that rabbit hole, bad NICs, switch port, maybe the share or the data set, or the pool of the drives. After working through it all, it ended up being a bad passive device. Yes, the freaking cable was bad! I know, what are the odds that a power outage would cause a cable to go bad? None! So, this is why jokes are created, right? Like, what do you call with a group of engineers? Anyone? Yeah, an outage. So, I create during my year’s processes to troubleshoot certain ways to trap an issue. And I always start from the wall and work towards the server, but I failed at this one. So, yeah, I guess even us, experienced guys, can have this bite us.

Okay, time for where is the Open-E JovianDSS trial that you can download and start testing?

It’s right on our main website on the top right side that says download trial, and it’s in red so you can’t miss it. What I wanted to talk about this trivial topic is you should not buy something you cannot test. I’ve seen many times where you download and buy, and it does not work the way you need it to work for many reasons as we all know. And regardless of the cost being little to a lot, it’s the time alone is enough to eat into your work budget, right? We at Open-E, we’re big in this arena to test. We want you to try, beat it up, slap it, kick it around, pull back its ears, lift up the tail. And see if this is what you want or is going to help you in your business for production storage service, because it’s really critical, right?

Um, so, for example, though maybe not the best example, I bought one of those cleaning robots, right? For like 700 bucks. And after setting it up and setting up the app, you know, the rest of the stuff that comes with it… guess what? It sucked!. Not the way it should have been sucking. So it didn’t work as a regular vacuum cleaner. Thus, I couldn’t test it and try, Oh, my return? That’s another story. So, I lost that window of opportunity. So what Open-E has offered – this option from day one on its first product in the market, we always offer full versions of our product without limiting you to test all the features. We offer the trials to allow you to test in a single node, HA standard, or metro cluster. So you could use all the features, and we give you 60 days. And if that’s not enough time due to many reasons, engineers get slammed, they’re busy, distracted, other projects is in the forefront, and you have to place that on hold… It’s not a problem – just give us a call. Or email us at info@open-e.com telling us your trial serial number and let us know how much time you need, and we’ll help you out, and make that happen within a day. We would rather you do this than take a chance and buy and wish you did not. I mean, who would want that? That would be like being on a blind date, and you’re stuck with that person for, let’s say, I don’t know, a week. Well, maybe not that drastic, but you get the idea. And no, this has not happened to me, as I would ask for that date to be on a trial version. Though doubt that that would ever happen, right? But anyway, yeah, we’re tangent for sure.

But anyway, when you download the trial, it will be in an ISO file, so you can install it on a physical system or even as a VM on ESX, Hyper V, Proxmox. I mean, I have it running on my Windows 11 workstation and using Hyper V, and I’m able to test the trial with Metro Cluster. So it works, it works great.

So this saves time, and you don’t have to eat up a physical system. Also, the information is in our release notes on how to do that as well. We also do not hound you or bug you like other competitors do. Yes, we will send you and reach out to you only once and say hello, and if you have any questions, let us know. And that’s it. 90 percent of the engineers always ask for a follow-up to ask questions that they may have. And we prefer this so that way you can ask the right questions. Also, it’s our philosophy to be proactive instead of reactive. Saves time for you and our time as well.

I mean, we had an engineer download a trial three months ago – that’s why I kind of brought this up – and he used a Gmail account, so we don’t know who he is. Not a problem. So, he asked for a scheduled call to go over some questions that he had, and we did. And a month later, he calls us and asks if he can use his resale to buy our product. We said okay, we verified them, and it ended up being a four-petabyte order. And the company he worked for was a major stock symbol in the market. So, I guess what I’m saying here is regardless of who you are, we will still treat you the same as if you’re from a mom-and-pop, .gov, .mil, or .x, or jus a Gmail account.

And speaking of testing our trial versions! Recently our QA Team tested one of our technology partners’ brand new drives that was released out in the market. It’s the Toshiba Enterprise Capacity Drive called the MG Series and it’s 22 terabytes. This is huge. Now that’s just not a BitBucket, it’s more like a BitTank.

It’s available in SAS and SATA models with 512B and 4KN advanced format sector. The Open-E JovianDSS adjusts to either one, so no worries there. 7200 RPM industry standard, 3.5 inch. This is perfect for massive enterprise capacity infrastructures for file and block data storage solutions!. Also great for CCTV recordings and for sure backup solutions along with our On- & Off-site Data Protection.

And like I said, it’s a bit tank. And by the way, I favor the SAS drives, just my opinion due to getting more information from the SAS drives, especially when you’re reading logs and diagnostics. And a couple other reasons versus the SATA drive. Aand the cost isn’t that much of a difference. So if you ask me. I would go with SAS. And yes, there are going to be some of you that are going to email me, call me, and say ‘Well, for single nodes, SATA is way cheaper!’. Uh, yeah, okay, but, just go with SAS and just be done with it.

Okay, time for me to end this as I have cases to work on, and we are so busy, like a three-legged hamster running from two damn cats!

Remember to back up no matter what. Ask yourself, how fast can you restore your data? Now go out and fix something like a real engineer. See ya!