[CentOS] settings up cheap a NAS / SAN server, is it possible?
Rudi Ahlers
Rudi at SoftDux.com
Wed Jul 2 08:10:17 UTC 2008
Sorin Srbu wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf
>>
> Of
>
>> Les Mikesell
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 3:32 AM
>> To: CentOS mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [CentOS] settings up cheap a NAS / SAN server, is it possible?
>>
>> Sorin Srbu wrote:
>>
>>>> Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Grow data online, convert between RAID levels online, migrate data
>>>> between spindle types(FC<->SATA) online etc. Create a volume, and
>>>> you never have to worry about answering the question 'is it really
>>>> optimal?' because you can change it at any time without application
>>>> impact or downtime.
>>>>
>>> Sounds awfully expensive. True?
>>>
>> Most of them are, but you can add whole shelves of disks. I'm not sure
>> it matters so much in a case that holds six drives that you fill from
>> the start and then have nowhere to grow anyway.
>>
>
> The guy who initially asked, IIRC, wanted some 3-4TB storage. This can be
> accomplished easily with a regular mid/maxi-size tower and a handful of
> 1TB-SATA drives. Even the midsize oldish Compucase-case I have at home can fit
> four 3,5"-drives in the hd-cage and another four in the 5,25"-bays. Suppose
> you fill that case with 1TB-drives and you have 8TB available. My argument is
> that there is no explicit need for the hardware you mention, despite how sexy
> it sounds. 8-)
>
> My understanding was that he wanted some kind mid-level kind of storage
> solution based on hw he already had and not sink the entire budget on a
> roomful of EMC etc hardware. OTOH, this discussion has been a bit sidetracked
> since the beginning. 8-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
>
Hi Sorin,
You're quite right with what you say. I have a 2U chassis already, with
a Gigabyte motherboard + 2GB RAM + Core 2 Duo E7650. I also have a few
160GB SATA HDD's laying around, but they're too small. So, I'll be
option to put 6 (if I can get the HDD cages fitted into the chassis) 1TB
HDD's into it instead, which with RAID 10 will give me 3TB space.
Thus, I don't want to spend more money to buy new equipment if I have
this already.
Using CentOS is preferred since I know it the best. I haven't used
FreeBSD since v4.7 ( I think I had a look @ 4.9 & 5.4 as well), and I
don't know Solaris.
I think my action plan now will be to figure out how to install CentOS
on a USB memory stick and make it boot on any machine (making it easy to
replace if need be), and then to play around with the RAID a bit and see
how well it works.
--
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
CEO, SoftDux
Web: http://www.SoftDux.com
Check out my technical blog, http://blog.softdux.com for Linux or other technical stuff, or visit http://www.WebHostingTalk.co.za for Web Hosting stuff
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