Hi,
The language lab from the local university has contacted me. They'd like to have a low-cost file server for storing all their language video files. They have a mix of Windows, Mac OS X and even Linux clients, roughly 50 machines. The files are quite big, and they calculated a total amount of 2 To of storage.
I'm not very proficient with hardware, meaning either I'm dealing with remote servers in some datacenter, or otherwise I install CentOS desktops on any hardware people throw at me.
Since the aim is lowcost, would it be wrong to install that fileserver on a no-name desktop PC with a 64bit processor and enough RAM, and then simply put 2 x 2 To hard disks in it, either with a mirroring RAID (can never remember which does what in 0, 1 and 5) or some rsync script regularly copying over the first disk to the second? Or do you have something more apt to suggest?
What value does the language lab associate to these files? And how is backup done?
Rainer