I don't have money for FC or a SAN, so I've stuck with DAS. I've had good
experience with building many smallish servers rather than one big or
expensive one.
I'm currently using cheap Dell PowerEdge servers running linux. I think we
got them for about $800/ea, and they support console redirection (critical
when you have lots of physical servers). We added a 2-port 3ware raid1 for
the OS and a 4-port 3ware for the data (raid1 or raid5 depending on the
requirements). Right now I'm keeping the servers to around 1TB each, but
they're capable of hosting 2-4TB each (depending on raid level) with the
largest current drives.
If money were no object, I'd have opted for hot-swappable drives, but with
under 1TB of data on each, any time I've needed to replace a drive I've
just moved the volumes to another server.
These systems are cheap enough (under about $1.5K each for everything) that
I keep a spare of everything just in case (spare fully configured and
running server plus spare raid cards and drives on the shelf).
I _strongly_ advise raid. Raid1 for the OS and raid1, 5, or 6 for the data,
depending on your requirements. I know some people have reported impressive
results with linux software raid, but I swear by 3ware hardware raid
controllers; they "just work." Just avoid "fakeraid" controller cards
(promise, low-end adaptec, etc) like the plague. They're far more trouble
than they're worth.
I really like solaris, but this setup is MUCH cheaper and faster than our
old solaris setup.
On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, Jason Edgecombe wrote:
Hi everyone,
Traditionally, we have used direct-attached scsi disk packs on Sun Sparc
servers running Solaria 9 for OpenAFS. This has given us the most bang
for the buck. We forgo RAID because we have the backup capabilities of AFS.
What types of storage technologies are other AFS sites using for their
AFS vicep partitions? We need to figure our future direction for the
next couple of years. Fibre channel seems all the rage, but it's quite
expensive. I'm open to any and all feedback. What works? What doesn't?
What offers the best bang for the buck on an OpenAFS server?
This is for an academic environment that fills both academic and
research needs. Researchers are asking for lots of AFS space (200GB+).
Of course this needs to be backed up as well.
Thanks,
Jason
Cheers, Stephen
--
Stephen Joyce
Systems Administrator P A N I C
Physics & Astronomy Department Physics & Astronomy
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Network Infrastructure
voice: (919) 962-7214 and Computing
fax: (919) 962-0480 http://www.panic.unc.edu
Don't judge a book by its movie.
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