Hehehe® I've got more storage than that at home. :) I'm going to be deploying an iSCSI SAN at home, hopefully before year's end. I was supposed to do it last year, but things didn't quite work that way.
For your needs, I would definitely go with a DIY approach, with general purpose servers, additional storage, and one of the software SAN solutions, such as from StarWind Software. (You could start with the free one for a while, and work your way up, or go for the supported route immediately) If you have only 200GB per server now, you should be fine with 2TB or 3TB. No need to go overboard. By the time you need more storage, the cost of the disks will be MUCH better than now, so you'd have saved more money that over-engineering a solution today. I think that any of the appliance solutions will be overkill for you, unless you have specific needs that their software supports. (And a DIY approach can offer you more expansion than most of the entry level SAN solutions) iSCSI gives you plenty of flexibility, but bear in mind, and a well-crafted DIY strategy here will keep your costs manageable. *ASB *(My XeeSM Profile) <http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker> *Providing Competitive Advantage through Effective IT Leadership* On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 11:07 AM, John Aldrich <[email protected] > wrote: > Ok. To recap what I previously posted… J > > > > We are wanting to migrate the storage role off our DCs and have a redundant > storage device at a remote location. The link between those locations is a > hardware VPN between two ASA devices. At the remote location, we have a 5 > Mbit Metro Ethernet connection. At the main office we have a 2 Mbit metro-e > connection. > > > > We are currently using about 150-200 gigs of storage on each of two > servers. We want to leave room for growth so I can redirect “my documents” > and such for every desktop (about 100-125 users, including senior managers > and C-level executives.) Also, we plan on bringing email in-house sooner > rather than later. My current plan is to use Kerio Mail Server, and they say > on their website that for my user level, I should make sure I have between > 100-200 Gigs of disk space. I figure to be on the safe side, I should plan > on up to about 500 gigs of drive space for email. Add that to the probable > doubling of our current usage at a minimum when I add the “my documents” and > such, we’re right at a terabyte there. > > > > A potential vendor suggested that to leave room for growth, etc, I might > want to plan on about 5 Tb of disk space. > > > > Also, I would want to replicate any changes made to files on the primary > storage appliance to the remote / DR storage appliance on an async basis. > > > > Files would be shared out over the DCs as they currently are, only instead > of the files being stored locally they would be sharing out files from the > primary storage appliance. > > > > I am wanting to do this with server-class hardware, not a PC. What I like > about a SAN is that they can and do come with redundant everything, > including controllers, NICs, power supplies, etc. My concern is that if I > get a server and attach a RAID array to it, if the RAID controller fails, > I’m SOL until I get a replacement RAID controller. With a SAN, I don’t have > to worry about that, as it has a redundant RAID controller attached to the > RAID box fabric. > > > > Now, what would you folks recommend? J > > > > [image: John-Aldrich][image: Tile-Tools] > > > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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