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

[Mark Lane]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 11:30 PM, Anthony de Boer <adb-SACILpcuo74 at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> Software raid required a competent admin.
>
> I'm told that even hardware raid requires someone more clued than the
> datacentre simian who, on finding no written procedure to deal with a
> server that had started beeping, stuck a screwdriver in the beeper so
> it'd stop bothering them.
>
> Naturally, all this didn't come out until the screaming from HQ that
> accompanied the departure of that box from the network due to the
> eventual failure of the other drive.
>
> To that I can add the story of starting at a past new job and being told
> to use such-and-such a server, it's spare, for my first deployment, and
> after finding it had two dead drives in it eventually cornering somebody
> with the above about-a-year-ago story who realized it was that same box
> sitting in the rack abandoned as-was.
>
> --
> Anthony de Boer
> --
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I use to design and sell NAS systems for a Living. The best way to go
is get a 3U or 4U rackmount chassis with enough hot-swap bays for our
size of array. You will need raid cards for sure because the onboard
raid won't support all the drives you need nor will it be good enough.
We use to use 3ware Cards but LSI is no longer developing them so
while still available, they do provide the performance that RAID
controllers. The last time I looked at raid controllers, I noticed the
LSI sells SAS raid controllers, This is not an issue because the SAS
controllers actually support both SAS and SATA Drives.

I would get a server quality motherboard but the processor(s) don't
have to be great. You will want make sure you have enough memory to
serve you the files how planning to do so. I believe there's a formula
for how much memory your need for each NFS client. Networking will be
your bottle neck. If you are just serving one computer, you just put a
10GigE controller in each machine. If you are serving multiple
machines, I would suggest getting just 10GigE controller and the GigE
switch with a 10G uplink port.

All in All there must be someone around who still makes these custom boxes.
-- 
Mark Lane <lmlane-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
http://2100computerlane.net
--
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