On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:42 PM, John Aldrich <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Saturday 31 October 2009, Michael Evans wrote: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > From: Michael Evans <[email protected]> > > Date: Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 7:24 PM > > Subject: Re: [SLL] OT: NEC SAN > > To: John Aldrich <[email protected]> > > > > On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 2:50 PM, John Aldrich <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > On Friday 30 October 2009, you wrote: > > > > What are your needs and what product are you currently thinking of > > > > filling them with? > > > > > > Oh, and we're looking at starting out with about 2-3 Terabytes of > > > storage available and possibly adding another 2-3 Terabytes later on, > > > probably topping out at about 5 Terabytes. > > > > If you want hardware solutions that can be build with off the shelf > > technology: > > > > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103099 The > > controllers start at around $550 It uses a PCI-Express x8 slot and has > > 8 ports for drives. You could build a raid 6 set out of 5x1TB drives > > and fulfill your final target size; it still has two slots left for > > hot-spares. > > > > You could also use 1.5+tb drives in a raid 1+0 set or other similar > > solutions. > > > > Home. <http://www.newegg.com/Index.aspx?name=Home> > Computer > > Hardware0_.<http://www.newegg.com/Store/Computer.aspx?name=Computer-Hard > > ware> > > > > > Hard > > > Drives1_.<http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=15&name= > > >Hard-Drives> Controllers / RAID > > > > Cards2_.<http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=410&na > > me=Controllers-RAID-Cards> > > > > > *Internal Connectors[8 x SATA II ],Internal Connectors[16x SATA II > > > > ],Internal Connectors[12x SATA II ],Internal Connectors[24 x SATA II > > ],Internal Connectors[8 x SAS ],Internal Connectors[16 x SAS ],Internal > > Connectors[12 x SAS ],Internal Connectors[24 x SAS > > ],Interface[PCI-Express x8 ],* returned *11* results. > > > > > > If performance isn't as important as solution cost software raid > > (linux/bsd/windows all support variants) may be sufficient. > > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132003 So you > > can support a few extra drives. > > > > Raid 1+0 based solutions have virtually no CPU overhead; raid 5/6 > > solutions, in my experience, are quite effective for large rarely > > changed files (mythtv backend as an example). > > > > Software raid is, slowly, getting better. The recenly released mdadm > > 3.1 software supports reshaping raid5 to raid6. However if you require > > absolute performance hardware controllers are still the way to go. > > > > > > Compared to potentially much more expensive and difficult to support > > solutions: http://www.google.com/products?q=nec+D3+controller you may be > > better off building your own box entirely. > > > > Looking at motherboards on newegg it's a little difficult to find an > > explicitly -server- motherboard that fulfills your needs, however many > > desktop solutions exist, and there were a few server solutions that > > looked semi-useful. > > > > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131596 > > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131134 > > > > > > Oh, and in case you're wondering about all the newegg links. There's no > > relationship or anything like that; they just have the best set of tools > > for narrowing down products and usually have prices that are, if not > > the lowest, low enough to make going with a known good retailer better > > than chancing a unknown second party. > > > thanks. I'm a big fan of NewEgg myself. :-) I didn't care much for their > server stuff...not a lot there. :-( I appreciate the info and I'll keep > that > in mind. There's something to be said for having someone else on the hook > for helping support the equipment. :-) > True, but you can also look at it this way: * What are the benefits of buying a boxed solution? * What are the detractions of buying a boxed solution? Vendor Lockin, Replacement parts, what's the availability of service contracts and guarantees? How much are you paying for that level of assurance and service? Could you do a better job in cost and/or service deadlines internally? Maybe it makes sense to run a cluster-farm of redundant commodity hardware. A whole bunch of raid1 sets on redundant boxes aggregated together. Or even just a production/dev/spares set of servers.
