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#11
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Nik Simpson wrote:
Bill Todd wrote: "WipeOut" wrote in message ... Hi, I am going to be setting up a couple of linux servers in the near future and these servers will have ever increasing storage needs.. One server will be a web/file server and the other will be a mail server.. I don't want to keep moving the data to bigger drives, I want to have the servers use a shared storage facility that runs RAID and that capacity can be increased as needed.. While Nik has offered good suggestions, he doesn't seem to have ever asked you *why* you want to share the storage between the two servers rather than simply use directly-attached storage with each one. That would give you two separate DAS arrays, each of which could be expanded according to need - and almost certainly the overall least-expensive solution, if there's no actual need to share the storage. Certainly a good point, truly shared storage does add additional cost and complexity to the solution. My bet is that the shared requirement is that he doesn't really know what the final storage requirements will be and which server will end up requiring the majority of the storage, in which case starting with a shared storage architecture does make life easier in some ways. But given the very small budget indicated in a later post, I'd be inclined to used DAS as well, and probably wouldn't use external arrays at all, just pick a server chassis with plenty of SATA/PATA hotswap drive bays which would give ample room for expansion for some time (you can 2-3U chassis that hold 3-4TB.) At the end of that time it might be time to relook at the issue, but given the lifespan of the typical server these days, its probably not going to happen until he's in the position of having to replace the original servers anyway. Yes, you are correct, I don't know how much storage capacity I am going to need in each server so the option of only upgrading a central storage facility seemed a better on.. Also it ment that storage space would be used more efficiently and I don't end up with a whole lot of waited space on one server while running short on another.. There is also the added benefit that I can add multiple app servers and load balance traffic across them if a single server does not have the processing capacity or if I want added redundancy.. By having a central data repository this addition of servers is easy.. What I am finding is, as you have said, DAS is cheaper then any of the alternatives so I think I will have to go that way for now and hope that the budget is there to migrate to a shared storage facility when the need presents its self.. Later.. |
#12
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WipeOut wrote:
What I am finding is, as you have said, DAS is cheaper then any of the alternatives so I think I will have to go that way for now and hope that the budget is there to migrate to a shared storage facility when the need presents its self.. IDE disks are indeed so incredibly cheap that it is hard to do better with shared storage. Actually, you can with NFS, but that is not a disk I would boot from in most cases. Thomas |
#13
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Even if you are using DAS/NAS system, these days there are software that can
make block device appear as fibre-channel disk.b FC SANs based on 1GBps technology is really cheap and plus you have ebay to get deal on 1Gbps FC HBAs I think falconstor.com has the software?? but will be very expensive. There is also this little known mayastor software that does the same. The website is http://www.pavitrasoft.com/mayastor/ and they seem to have software available for download without any harassing sales call. cheers "WipeOut" wrote in message ... Nik Simpson wrote: Budget I would estimate at around £1500 for the starting system with three 250GB or 300GB drives and expansion capacity to do to 6 or 8 drives.. So I think NAS is about the only option at that budget and even that may be pushing it.. Yup, 1500 quid isn't going to go far, I'd see if you can find a 1U server chassis with four hot swap drive bays, there are a bunch of them around, then add motherboard & controller to taste. Yea, Thats what I thought as well.. Maybe it will work as a solution for 12-18 months by which time hopefully the company is off the ground and making some money at which time I can look at the more enterprise level options.. Looks like the 3ware controllers are about the best option for what I am after and like you said a 1U or 2U server.. The rackmount chassis on their own are quite pricey and thats before adding all the internals.. Thanks for your thoughts and comments.. |
#14
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Even if you are using DAS/NAS system, these days there are software that can
make block device appear as fibre-channel disk.b FC SANs based on 1GBps technology is really cheap and plus you have ebay to get deal on 1Gbps FC HBAs I think falconstor.com has the software?? but will be very expensive. There is also this little known mayastor software that does the same. The website is http://www.pavitrasoft.com/mayastor/ and they seem to have software available for download without any harassing sales call. cheers "WipeOut" wrote in message ... Nik Simpson wrote: Budget I would estimate at around £1500 for the starting system with three 250GB or 300GB drives and expansion capacity to do to 6 or 8 drives.. So I think NAS is about the only option at that budget and even that may be pushing it.. Yup, 1500 quid isn't going to go far, I'd see if you can find a 1U server chassis with four hot swap drive bays, there are a bunch of them around, then add motherboard & controller to taste. Yea, Thats what I thought as well.. Maybe it will work as a solution for 12-18 months by which time hopefully the company is off the ground and making some money at which time I can look at the more enterprise level options.. Looks like the 3ware controllers are about the best option for what I am after and like you said a 1U or 2U server.. The rackmount chassis on their own are quite pricey and thats before adding all the internals.. Thanks for your thoughts and comments.. |
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