Beeks Analytics appliances separate system, capture, and analysis storage to optimise performance and reliability. This section outlines the standard storage architecture, RAID configurations, and available expansion options to support high-throughput and long-retention deployments.

System Storage (Boot & OS)

Beeks Analytics appliances ship with a dedicated RAID1 volume for the operating system. This is implemented using a BOSS-S2 controller with dual M.2 SSDs.

  • Purpose: OS, logging, and transient temp files

  • Capacity: 480 GB

  • Technology: M.2 SATA SSD

  • RAID level: RAID1 (mirror)

This volume is self-contained and managed separately from capture/analysis data volumes.

Data Storage (Capture & Analysis)

All analytics and capture data is stored on separate dedicated storage volumes, typically backed by RAID10 or RAID6, depending on the appliance variant and performance requirements.

  • Purpose: application configuration and install, databases, capture files

  • Capacity: 3.2 TB up to 8.4 PB

  • Technology: E3.S TLC or E3.S QLC

  • RAID level: 

    • For dedicated analytics volumes: RAID1

    • For capture or replay volumes: RAID5

See Partitioning and Filesystem Layout for volume and mountpoint details.

RAID10 offers better write performance; RAID6 offers better capacity and protection with slower write throughput. Beeks defaults to RAID10 unless otherwise specified.

RAID Controller Options

The role of RAID controllers in a Beeks Analytics appliance depends on the system's function and performance requirements. Bear in mind that the number of RAID controllers is determined by the chassis choice.

The table below outlines recommended configurations for different deployment scenarios.

RAID Controller Options

Storage Expansion Option

Certain deployments may require external storage for:

  • Long-term packet retention

  • Regulatory compliance (archiving)

  • Multi-week retrospective analysis

For these cases, Beeks offers the E2L storage variant, which includes:

  • A Dell MD1400 external JBOD array

  • Connected via a Dell PERC H840 RAID controller

  • Up to 12× HDDs or SSDs in RAID6 configuration

This expansion is fully supported in combination with 2U chassis variants.

E2L deployments are becoming less common as advances in E3.S NVMe and QLC flash technologies enable extremely high-capacity storage within compact 2U and 1U appliance form factors

This shows the benefits of the Beeks Analytics open architecture, where savings from adopting new commercial off-the-shelf hardware improvements are passed on to the customer as cost savings or scaling gains.

Storage Options Summary Table

Storage Options

Notes:

  • The ‘Capture Storage (compressed)’ figures assume that compression cards are used to compress the capture files. For more information, see Capture Benchmarks section of the Beeks Analytics Performance Guide.

  • There is a CAP1XXL variant available that uses 3.5” 7.2k SAS disks - 16x16TB of them. This is an option where there is a particular reason to avoid NVME drives.

  • The ‘SED Available’ column lists whether self-encryption capability is available for that form factor, as standard.

This table lists the options that are available as standard from Dell. However, please note that we can support non-Dell Self-Encrypting Drives in our appliances. These allow much larger SED drive sizes to be included. This option also allows the OS and Analytics volumes to use Self-Encrypting Drives, if required.