Suggestions for a 10-20TB linux compatible storage array ?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 12:20:31PM -0500, William Weaver wrote:
> I want to give my advice but I have a laundry list of questions that need
> to be asked first.
> 
> Is only a single machine storing to the server or will it be multiple?
> What type of backup are you using?
> How about redundancy?
> Any specs on data required transfer speed?
> What type of local network do they have and is a network share an
> acceptable solution?
> Are they looking for a one time investment or do they want/need
> future expansion?
> Are you doing this work in house or is it contract based? This matters
> mostly for budgetary reasons.
> 
> Initially I would suggest looking at connecting via a network share. While
> USB 3.0 is theoretically faster you're going to be limited by your hard
> drive speed. A gigabit network switch/router, which if they aren't on they
> should be, allows for a file transfer connection that will max the hard
> drives speed but doesn't suffer the issues of USB such as single access
> point. This also allows for you to use a lightweight linux distro and  a
> samba, nfs, or gluster network share depending on what OS's will have to
> access it and your requirements. With that, 5k for a 20T box is easy. You
> could easily make a 20G raid 1 for that price when you look at WD greens
> being only 100 for 2T.

A single SATA drive can saturate a gigabit link these days.  A RAID5 of 8
of them will do much more.  eSATA as 3Gbit or maybe 6Gbit or USB3 at 5Gbit
will be much faster than gigabit ethernet and have much less overhead.

Unless you use a 10Gbit card in your PC that is doing the hosting of
the RAID you won't match the speed.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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