Hi,
we're currently planing the update of our file server. In the moment we are successfully using a HP PA-RISC system with ~10TB disk space attached (2 FC HBA, 2 Brocade, 2 EMC FC4700).
The HP machine is nearly 5 years old and from our mail server (SuSE SLOX 4.1) which is also included into the SAN I've a few benchmarks showing an increase ~ factor 10.
So I'm thinking if linux could replace the HPUX as a file server.But there are a few questions open:
LVM2 is very close to the HPUX-LVM, but the HP can use mirroring within a logical volume. Would be a soft raid stable enough ? Anyone using it ?
Second one, who is using LINUX as a file server for a few hundred clients with a few TB attached ? Is JFS stable enough ? I would like to use it, because our TSM system(backup) likes it ... ;) I heard some rumors about Linux NFS servers giving up their work after a certain time (weeks or so). Again any experience (no more rumors!) ?
Last question, is it possible to use say four VG on three file servers all connected within the SAN ?
FS1 - VG1 (/dev/sda) FS2 - VG2 (/dev/sdb) FS3 - VG3 (/dev/sdc), VG4 (/dev/md0 -[sdd+sdf]
Every FS can see all devices, but should only use what is configured for the server. So if one fails, I can activated the VG on another FS, use a virtual IP restart NFS and samba and everything should work again. A simple fail over and load balancing so to say. I want to spread the service over 3 machines to improve the IO and have a fail over if something goes wrong. Heartbeat is working well and together with some scripts it should be no to hard to configure. We have 80% windows user causing 20-40% traffic and 20% UNIX users causing 60-80% of the network IO. We are running some heavy IO simulations with a few hundred GB IO (read and write).
I know it's no directly addressed to this list, but maybe a few people here are also using bigger file server and have some experience.
Every input is welcome !!
Thanks for your help.
Bye, Peer
_________________________________________________________ Max-Planck-Institut fuer Biogeochemie Dr. Peer-Joachim Koch Hans-Kn�ll Str.10 Telefon: ++49 3641 57-6705 D-07745 Jena Telefax: ++49 3641 57-7705
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