Thanks, Matt. I hear what you're saying. I don't currently have a lot of faith in DFS-R. We're currently using that between our two DC/File/Print servers and I am not confident in it's ability to mirror every change. We had problems when we initially set up DFS-R with files being locked when it tried to mirror and thus the file not being copied over to the second server.
IF I go with a "home brew" solution, I will probably use something like Double Take to do the replication. From what I hear it's worth the price, which is only about $1000-$1500 per machine. Since we'll only be replicating between two machines, shouldn't be more than $2-3K for the software. I don't know enough about server hardware and RAID controllers to be that comfortable with building my own. That being said, I know there are a lot of geeks in close enough proximity that I could probably get some cheap labor to help me build something like that. J I'm still going to see what the Chattanooga VARs propose before I look at rolling my own. J John-AldrichTile-Tools From: Matthew W. Ross [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 11:58 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Home-brew SAN vs name-brand storage appliance ----- Original Message ----- From: John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:07:22 -0700 Subject: Home-brew SAN vs name-brand storage appliance > 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. > I'd be paired to set up quotas; My Documents, depending on how you set up the redirection, can include My Pictures, My Videos and My Music. Even if you don't allow those folders to automatically redirect with My Documents, big ugly piles of MP3s will show up in there someday. > > > A potential vendor suggested that to leave room for growth, etc, I might > want to plan on about 5 Tb of disk space. > I agree. Make a 5 year plan, or however long you want to setup with the people in your organization with the pursestrings. Make it clear that the solution you're providing will someday be inadequate, and you will have to do this all over again with new hardware and more storage. If they know that this solution should last until 2014, and you come back in 2016 saying it's time to upgrade... they know the hardware went beyond it's intended lifespan. > > > 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. > With such small pipes between locations, I'd be looking at any solution that can do delta copies on a schedule. DFS-R or Rsync come immediately to mind, although I know there are some big SANs that do this on the block level. > > > 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. > I understand this desire for redundant hardware. Let me be just the fly in the ointment: It doesn't matter. There will be something somewhere that will cause the system to fail. A controller will be faulty, but won't switch over to the secondary. A switch will need to be reset. A janitor will unplug the array. Ben will try to reset the USB controller, but reset everything Intel accidentally. (Hey, it's a very good example of good intentions that went awry!) In other words, Murphy will visit. > > > Now, what would you folks recommend? J > Virtualize, including your SAN. What you need is a quick recovery from when you have a failure. What's quick enough for you? If your virtual file server and DCs fail, and move to a secondary VM within 60 seconds, then your set. VMWare can do that for you. Between the two sites, I'd have an off-hours scheduled DFS-R between the two virtual File Servers, and have a backup as well. (Repeat the mantra: Replication is Not Backup.) This solution would probably be more redundant and less expensive than the Big Box SAN. In my opinion, I do think that the Big Box SANs are a good investment, but only when you can't scale to the same level using your own hardware. That's currently at about the 12TB level. Then you are beyond the level of what you require, ask somebody who does that kind of stuff for a living to help. > > > John-AldrichTile-Tools > Good luck. --Matt Ross Ephrata School District No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.423 / Virus Database: 270.14.27/2453 - Release Date: 10/23/09 06:56:00 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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