OT: Hardware suggestion

[Christopher Browne]

On 9/13/06, Madison Kelly <linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> JM wrote:
> > Hi ALL,
> >
> >       I have 32 linux servers that will connect to a SAN Network.. can anyone
> > suggest a good storage to connect to a SAN Network? EMC, SUN Storage,
> > NetApps, DS series.
> >
> >       I cant rely on the vendors... hmmm
> >
> > Thanks,
>
> I am not sure if this is what you are looking at, but StorCase (same
> company who make Kingston RAM which is used in most servers) have a lot
> of storage products. I was looking into them when I was looking at
> twin-tailed disk arrays. If nothing else, give them a ring as the guys
> there are generally very friendly.
>
> When I asked about Linux support for one of their products (unrelated)
> they didn't know the answer but instead of ending it there the guy went
> and tried out the hardware on a Linux machine in their lab. Worth a few
> points. :)

These are *very* different kinds of animals...

SAN servers tend to start at $100K, and prices can go up considerably
from there.

We've got some EMC units; they are surely fast, but they are evidently
painful to configure.

An interesting option that we were looking at recently was with
@lliance Technologies; they have an iSCSI thing that apparently is
*most* fascinating, spreading updates across a disk array dynamically,
with the fun effect that database traffic winds up striping itself
across a barrel of disks, whilst archival traffic (backups, and other
things that get read/written rarely) share space cooperatively.

That means that you get as many spindles as the I/O intense activities
need, and can (almost magically) use the spare space for
archival-style storage...

http://www.alltec.com/entcomp/storage/

Alliance has some good guys...
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