+5 I find that 4-5 years is the norm, especially with the recent (and still very fresh or current for some people) recession in mind. At 3 years, you haven't even fully amortized the hardware yet.
One thing that virtualization is going to help with going forward is isolating hardware and i/o improvements from the applications that sit on top of it. It is much easier to add incremental hardware and migrate the most critical VMs to it, thereby gaining significant performance improvements for those apps, and modest performance improvements for servers and apps which are left behind on the older-and-now-less-burdened host servers. Virtualizing both storage and servers is the way to go. -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Jonathan Link <[email protected]>wrote: > A file server is probably a good candidate for a longer life cycle than > most servers. It needs good memory, good storage, and good network > capability. As long as you can maintain a support contract on the box, I'd > keep it in service. > > That being said, you indicate my growth estimate is OK, but you don't > indicate which one. If youre growth is linear, any file server you pick > (and almost any size disk) is fine. However, if you're experiencing > exponential data growth, then you're going to be around 4 TB of data by the > end of life of your server. My contention is that the server is becoming > immaterial to your storage problem. Looking at a SAN or NAS now, could save > you considerable headaches in the future. I didn't say it like that (Jon > Harris already had), but I was trying to lead you there. Splitting data to > different HD's/devices/servers will actually make you go crazy. My current > data store (which is split among servers) is roughly 1 TB, before I > virtualized storage, storage was probably my biggest headache, I never seemd > to have enough where I needed it. Now if I need more, I allocate more and > I'm done. if I need more capacity (which I do), I order more/bigger disks > or could order another unit. > > If I replaced all my servers every three years, I'd be hard pressed to do > some of the other things I'm interested in doing or are better for the > firm. That being said, I do replace workstations (notebooks) every three > years. > On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Holstrom, Don <[email protected]> wrote: > >> You get five years out of a server? I think *you* need the help. I was >> just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all my >> workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 workstations >> and servers. >> >> >> >> Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is why >> I am splitting the data onto several HDs. Thanks for your help… >> >> >> >> *From:* Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]] >> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM >> >> *To:* NT System Admin Issues >> *Subject:* Re: How would you go about this? >> >> >> >> I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart >> your request. >> >> We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. There >> are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear growth or >> geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB of data per >> year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 months. So, if >> you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed life of a server) >> you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. >> >> Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server is >> the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data every 19 >> months or so. >> >> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here to >> the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one server. I >> brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup went out of >> that range. >> >> I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. >> >> So >> >> I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a >> pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 or 08, >> figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for data, two 2TBS >> backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for other data, also backed >> up. Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. >> >> What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will >> continue to increase at the same rate... >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
