Hi :) On Saturday 11 December 2010 17:38 Rudi Ahlers wrote > On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 6:31 PM, John R Pierce <pierce at 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 -- "We cannot treat computers as Humans. Computers need love." Happily using KDE 4.5.1 :)