On Thu, 26 Aug 2010, Ian Stokes-Rees wrote: > On 8/25/10 10:05 PM, Dean Anderson wrote: > >> But avoid linux as a NFS server platfom. There is a funded project >> to improve the client at RedHat, but not the server. Sigh. > > With no significant experience administering NFS servers on anything > other than Linux, does it really make sense to consider OpenSolaris, or > a *BSD variant? I.e. will the performance/reliability gains outweigh the > pain/overhead of a new OS?
I'd examine your needs: reliability vs. performance vs. capacity vs. cost, taking into the account the administration cost. I might add an entire mirroring server, or backup server (connected by dedicated gig-ethernet to the main server). Get a UPS and air conditioner. Use quality components and ECC ram. A fileserver is not a computation server; reliability is more important that gigaflops. Make sure you have a hefty power supply of good quality and make sure everything is adequately cooled, with alerting and orderly, automatic shutdown if temperature rises into the critical range. I have noticed that users tend to think all of their data is 'critical', even source trees of code that hasn't changed in a year. They need to be schooled on what is 'critical' and what is not. But regarding the cost of dedicated NAS, perhaps you should buy and older, used unit. There's a NetApp F85, less drives, which will take you to 3 TB, buy-it-now on ebay for $75 + $26 shipping. ALso NetApp DS14s for $84 each plus $85 shipping (6 available from same seller). This might be the cheap & easy way to solve your problem. Of course, you still have to source the drives... _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
