[CentOS] settings up cheap a NAS / SAN server, is it possible?

Rudi Ahlers Rudi at SoftDux.com
Sun Jun 29 17:41:32 UTC 2008


Rainer Duffner wrote:
>
> Am 29.06.2008 um 09:08 schrieb Rudi Ahlers:
>
>> Hi all
>>
>> I want to look at setting up a simple / cheap SAN / NAS server using 
>> normal PIV motherboard, 2GB (or even more) RAM, Core 2 Duo CPU 
>> (probably a Intel 6700 / 6750 / 6800) & some SATA HDD's (4 or 6x 
>> 320GB - 750GB). My budget is limited, so I can't afford a pre-built 
>> NAS device.
>>
>> Can this be done with CentOS? I've been looking FreeNAS (which is 
>> built on FreeBSD), and it look like a great project, but since the 
>> hardware support in FreeBSD is limit, I'd rather use Linux for it.
>
>
> What hardware do you own that is not supported?
I haven's used FBSD (or any other BSD) since 4.9, and I know what 
hassles I had back then with some NIC's. But, it's worth a try. This is 
a Linux list, so I didn't think a BSD suggestion would come from it :)
>
>
>>
>> Has anyone done this? If so, please share a bit in your experiences :)
>>
>
>
> While it can certainly be done with CentOS, I'd take a look at 
> Solaris/OpenSolaris for that purpose.
> ZFS really beats anything else out there.
> But you need a lot of RAM. 2 GB is good, 4 GB would be better ;-)
> Actually, the calculation is that it needs a GB of RAM for every TB of 
> managed data.
> So, if RAM is scarce and the feature of ZFS are not needed (for 
> whatever reason), CentOS may be still be a good option.
>
>
>
> cheers,
> Rainer
I don't know Solaris. At all. I've never seen it (i.e. file & directory 
structure, security, kernel, etc). Apart from ZFS, what else would I 
gain? Can ZFS work on Linux? If not, I'm sure I could give Solaris a shot.

1GB per TB? mm, ok. This is my first attempt to this, so there's still a 
lot to learn. With 6 SATA slots available (2U case), I would probably 
only have about 3 - 4TB available (depending on whether I got for RAID 6 
or 10) - so I would really only need 4GB RAM, but I'm sure if I spend a 
bit more cash on the mobo, I could get one that supports 8TB.

I currently have a PC, with 4GB DDRII 667 RAM, i6750 CPU & some 160GB 
HDD's, but want to replace the HDD's at some stage when I have more cash.

-- 

Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
CEO, SoftDux

Web:   http://www.SoftDux.com
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