Network connection chart for Office:

Connect your storage system to a router or an access point in the office, or in the case of the CM404 you can connect the system to your wireless network as a client, or use it to enhance your current wireless network by using it as an access point.  You can have a simple configuration where all users on the network have complete access to the CM Series storage system or you can configure the users, groups, and their permissions along with quotas to allow for more control.  You can also archive the CM Series by connecting it to USB storage devices or consolidate data on existing USB storage devices using one touch transfer capabilities of the CM400/CM404.

Network Connection chart for Home:

Very similar to the connection chart for the office, except for the fact that you can connect home media devices to the network to access the content on the CM Series storage device.  The storage space on the CM Series becomes available to all PC’s and networked media devices connected to the home network.  Media devices that can work with networked storage can now have access to the large capacity of the CM series.

Recoverability/Configuration options: 

Configuration options for the CM series ranges from maximum recoverability to maximum storage capacity.

You have two options for a recoverable configuration: 

RAID1 (also known as Mirroring) or RAID5 (also known as Parity)  If you use either of these options, the total storage capacity is reduced but the data is protected in the event of a single drive failure.

You also have a few choices for configuring the system for maximum storage capacity.  You can have each of the four drives perform as four individual disks without any impact on the other, where this configuration is called "just a bunch of disks" or JBOD for short.  You can also configure the system for RAID0 (also known as striping).  In this configuration all four of the disks work in to provide high transfer rates from the system.  And lastly, you can configure the system in a Linear mode, where the data fills up one disk and then goes on to fill the next disk,...and so on.  With these choices, it is important to remember that the data is not protected from any drive failures.

Depending on the model number of the Sabio Storage Product and the number of drives in the system, the choices available to you might vary. 

Mirroring or RAID 1

In this mode, the total storage space is divided between two hard disks of equal size, and every time something is saved, it is automatically saved to each drive.  You see just the combined output of both drives so you don’t have to worry about saving files twice or making sure that each copy is on different drives.  In the Mirroring mode, even if one drive fails, the system can easily recover.  This method of recoverability uses the most amount of storage space; the usable space is (slightly less than) half of the total capacity of the storage device.

Parity of RAID 5

In this mode, the data is divided into two or three pieces and an equal amount of parity data, using an advanced formula.  When written to the drive system, each data piece (along with the parity) is stored on a different drive.  If a single drive fails, the system can rebuild the data on the missing drive by examining the data on the remaining drives.  A minimum of three drives are needed in a system, and in this method, the total storage capacity is reduced by the capacity of one drive.

JBOD

In this mode all drives show up as independent drives and function as such. If a drive should fail when the system is configured with the JBOD option, you lose the data on the drive that fails, but everything else continues to function properly.  You can swap out the failed drive.

Striping or RAID 0

In this mode, all drives are combined into one single storage space.  This method gives the fastest read performance, and is useful for applications where extremely fast data transfer is critical, such as in video or multi-track audio editing.  Similar to the JBOD mode, Striping gives maximum capacity from the CM4.  However, because the striped data is split over multiple drives, if any single drive fails, ALL the data stored on the CM4 is lost.  Consequently, Striping mode should only be used for data that is not retained for long periods of time.

Linear Mode:

In this mode, all the drives are combined into a single storage space.  Disks are used one at a time until their capacity is reached.  A single drive failure will cause you to lose ALL your data, the benefits of this method of storage configuration are limited.