I use Openfiler in production and am pretty happy with it – two servers, one 42TB and one 21TB (2tb and 1tb disks). Performance has been good. The system is attached to Windows Server hosts, both 2003 and 2008.
---- Jack Kramer Computer Systems Specialist University Relations, Michigan State University w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955 From: Jonathan Link <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 11:24:35 -0500 To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs I ran OpenFiler in production for 8 months due to some budgetary constraints and some general operational deficiencies leftover from my predecessor. I was generally pretty happy with it, and only had one minor issue where one LUN was showing as a RAW drive. I was able to successfully recover the data. It also seemed to be unresilient to changes, but that could be memory playing tricks on me. As I recall, OpenFiler wasn't supporting multiple SCSI reservations at the time, so I couldn't really use it in a VMWare environment, unless each guest was on its own LUN. On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 11:11 AM, David Lum <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I am looking to build a iSCSI on the relatively cheap (<$1000). Some poking around on the Internet makes it look like a couple of GbE NIC’s in a PC, said PC with say, 4 SATA drives in RAID10 and OpenFiler (http://www.openfiler.com/) would get you an iSCSI disk array. Amirite? Throw in a decent GbE switch (is the HP 1400-8G good enough?) and a Vista-later OS systems with 2 NIC’s and you’re set. I think. Vista and later come with a iSCSI initiator. On Hyper-V. Last week I for the first time installed the free 2008 R2 Hyper-V Not a ton to use at the console, but it does have a text-based menu so set NIC properties, machine/domain name, admin accounts, firewall properties, etc. With any luck I’ll be deploying it next week. 2008 R2 Hyper-V can use iSCSI and perform live migration (VMotion for you VMWare types). David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 503.548.5229 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 From: Oliver Marshall [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 8:55 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs Yeah I really like ESXi but somehow the lack of a…..windows-like OS puts me off of it. Something about having a “real” desktop there to do things on in case we need it. Is that mad (or a sign of impending madness) ? -- G2 Support Network Support : Online Backups : Server Management Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Web: http://www.g2support.com<http://www.g2support.com/> From: Jim Holmgren [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: 31 January 2011 16:51 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs Bear in mind that Equalogic = Dell, so your source for the MD3220i should be the same as your source for EQL. Re: HyperV vs ESXi – can’t say much for HyperV as I’ve no real experience with it, but I do know firsthand that EQL does work very nicely with ESXi. Jim From: Oliver Marshall [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 11:48 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs Thanks all. Good to know. I’ll spec out the prices for the MD3220i (which appears to the be the UK model) and also speak to Equalogic too. Next up….HyperV or ESXi :) -- G2 Support Network Support : Online Backups : Server Management Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Web: http://www.g2support.com<http://www.g2support.com/> From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: 31 January 2011 16:44 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs iSCSI will work just fine for hosting a VM environment, as well as some other workloads. If you already have a FC infrastructure, then that's not a bad reason to go there, but iSCSI is very mature and stable and good performance if you don't purchase the cheapest equipment you can find. First, as others have pointed out, you need to size up your needs... ASB (My Bio via About.Me<http://about.me/Andrew.S.Baker/bio>) Exploiting Technology for Business Advantage... On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Oliver Marshall <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Well, there will be maybe 3 VMs running on each host, most likely VM will have a redundant ‘spare’ running on the other physical host. The largest will be about 400GB+ of space running Exchange 2010 for about 100 users. Then perhaps a DC and a file server, and the latter will just be acting as a witness server for the Exchange DAG servers. I like the idea of iSCSI franky but experience of the s*** end of the market has put me off. Saying that the cost of the FC based setup puts me off even more :) Olly From: John Cook [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: 31 January 2011 16:26 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs I have 3 MD3000/3200i SANs and they work wonderfully. That being said I found that while the fiber has better throughput (we also have an old 2Gb EMC AX150 fiber SAN) It was a lot more expensive to set up (Fiber switches aren’t cheap) and of course you need some marginal capability in configuring said switch. John W. Cook System Administrator Partnership For Strong Families 5950 NW 1st Place Gainesville, Fl 32607 Office (352) 244-1610 Cell (352) 215-6944 MCSE, MCP+I, MCTS, CompTIA A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 From: Richard Stovall [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 11:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs Not a direct answer, but another shared storage option you could consider for that setup is an MD3XXX. On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Oliver Marshall <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Chaps We’re buying some bits to build a basic VM platform so that we can get rid of some old rack servers here. Being new to decent SANs (we have some crappy iscsi hardware that we just use for dumping scrap data on) what are peoples thoughts of iSCSI SANs vs FibreChannel SANs? We are planning on having two physical hosts (probably Dell PE710s running either Hyper-V or ESXi) with a lump of shared storage on a SAN but we are at odds here as to whether we should go iSCSI or FC. Any comments or suggestions? Olly ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin [https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html?ui=2&ik=de2f7d036e&view=att&th=12de1fed85cd9ef3&attid=0.2&disp=emb&zw] Network Support Online Backups Server Management [https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html?ui=2&ik=de2f7d036e&view=att&th=12de1fed85cd9ef3&attid=0.3&disp=emb&zw] Tel: 0845 307 3443 Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Web: http://www.g2support.com<http://www.g2support.com/> Twitter: g2support<http://twitter.com/home?status=@g2support> Newsletter: http://www.g2support.com/newsletter Mail: 2 Roundhill Road, Brighton, Sussex, BN2 3RF Have you said something nice about us to a friend or colleague ? Let us say thanks. Find out more at www.g2support.com/referral<http://www.g2support.com/referral> G2 Support LLP is registered at Mill House, 103 Holmes Avenue, HOVE BN3 7LE. Our registered company number is OC316341. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email, including attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and/or protected health information. Under the Federal Law (HIPAA), the intended recipient is obligated to keep this information secure and confidential. Any disclosure to third parties without authorization from the member of as permitted by law is prohibited and punishable under Federal Law. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. NOTA DE CONFIDENCIALIDAD: Este mensaje incluyendo cualquier anejo es para uso exclusivo del (los) destinatario (s) y puede incluir informaci?n confidencial y/o informaci?n de salud protegida. La Ley Federal (HIPAA) establece que el destinatario est? obligado a mantener la informaci?n confidencial y sequra. HIPAA proh?be y castiga cualquier divulgaci?n a terceras personas sin autorizaci?n del afiliado o permitido por ley. Si usted no es el destinatario, redirija esta mensaje al remitente, y destruye cualquier copia existente del mensaje original. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
