Hi :)
On Saturday 11 December 2010 17:38 Rudi Ahlers wrote
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 6:31 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
On 12/11/10 8:15 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
If you use any NAS (or a SAN) devices, what do you use? And I'm referring more to larger scale network storage than your home PC or home theater system.
We've had very good experiences with our NetGear ReadyNAS devices but I'm in the market for something new. The NetGear's aren't the cheapest ones around but they do what it says on the box. My only real gripe with them is the lack of decent scalability.
see, I'd consider ReadyNAS to be SOHO, just what you said you didn't want.
I'm now looking for something that could scale beyond 100TB on one device (not necessarily one unit though) and find it frustrating that most NAS's come in 1U or 2U at most.
Maybe I'm just not shopping around enough, or maybe I prefer to well known brands, I don't know.
the big boys in NAS are Network Appliance aka Netapp. �they will scale as large as your budget allows. �The FAS6200 line scales to something like 1400 drives and redundant HA controllers.
Yes, I know. But the problem I have with NetApp is that it's not build for a smaller market. i.e. a client looking to start small and scale as he needs, and can afford to.
What about a DIY NAS with an off the shelf server and storage array?
The NetGear's allow exactly just that. One can start small and grow as needed. There's no need to over budget or over spend. Often a client only needs about 5 to 12 TB storage, but with high availability. I suppose the redundant PSU's do help a bit with that, and both TheCus and ReadyNAS can be setup in high availability with 2 devices.
If you get your hands on COTS servers and storage arrays you can configure a NAS server with very good performance. If you can use GFS/GPFS/CXFS and configure a multi head NAS server you can sclae quite a lot. IBM sells this as SONAS, SGI also sells something similar with CXFS and you can do it yourself if you want it cheaper ;)
Scaling storage is quite simple if you use LVM + XFS: 1.- you add a new array or enclosure with its drives 2.- creat your RAID (5, 6, whatever) 3.- add the new RAID to your LVM 4.- grow XFS
You might need a couple of FC switches, depending on the number of of storage arrays, servers, and if you want HA.
I don't like appliances. Yeah, they're quite "easy/nice" to use, but it's a non stop paying for everything and quite a lock-in solution. Just MHO, mind you.
HTH
Rafa