How do you setup file servers

spooky · 21 Jun 2008 at 22:51

Hi

,

I have recently perchased the following pieces of Dell equipment for my company network;

powervault NX1950
MD3000 external SAS raid array raid 5

My questions is, i have never configured raid before so could you teel me what is the best way to configure these pieces of equipment :confused:

????????

Thanks in advance

spooky

oddjob62 · 21 Jun 2008 at 23:00

That would depend on what they are being used for.

spooky · 21 Jun 2008 at 23:40

HI,

These will be used for storing files and users home directory within the company. The company files will be split up for each department.

I hope this helps

spooky

growse · 22 Jun 2008 at 09:01

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more information needed.

1) How many users?
2) Storage requirements?
3) Backup strategy?
4) Resiliance required?
5) Software to be used?
6) Permissioning needed?

Aside from "read the manual" to answer questions like "how do I turn it on?", I'd say you're broadly looking at sticking solaris / linux / windows on the box and then making the storage available as samba / windows shares on your network. Use windows if you want to hook it up to the AD and make the permissioning part slightly easier.

J1nxy · 22 Jun 2008 at 17:43

Not really, this thing runs Windows Unified Storage Server 2003 R2. That means that you use it just like a Windows Server but it has some of the none file server specific stuff chucked away and a few other thing bolted in.

Personally unless you are talking about serving a hell of a lot of users, configure the storage as a RAID 5 array with a hot spare or 2 depending on how much data storage you are willing to sacrifice.

The OS comes if it anything like the HP Equivalent pretty much configured out the box, you just then give it some network settings, add it to your domain and away you go.

You'll need some backup software of some type, but pretty much all the major vendor clients work fine with it, and don't forget the all important AV.

In terms of actual file structure lay it out so it easy to understand, apply permissions and map drives to

bobby_valentino · 23 Jun 2008 at 12:04

What would be a typical connection into the file server thats serving say 2000 users with thier home directories. 1gbps connection be sufficient? Or would you need say 2 x 1Gbps NIC's workign togeather to handle the load?

For all those who have a enterprise setup which are serving 1000+ users, how is your connection setup?

J1nxy · 23 Jun 2008 at 12:11

Typically a pair of 1Gbps connections teamed to provide improved throughput and also failover if one nic/switch/cable dies.

bobby_valentino · 23 Jun 2008 at 12:37

Does anyone have a screenshot of a HDTach so i can see the typical read speed on a RAID 5 file server?

bigredshark · 23 Jun 2008 at 12:53

bobby_valentino said:
What would be a typical connection into the file server thats serving say 2000 users with thier home directories. 1gbps connection be sufficient? Or would you need say 2 x 1Gbps NIC's workign togeather to handle the load?

For all those who have a enterprise setup which are serving 1000+ users, how is your connection setup?

2000 users? I'd be looking at a minimum of 4x 1Gig NICs teamed or preferably 10Gbit

bigredshark · 23 Jun 2008 at 12:54

bobby_valentino said:
Does anyone have a screenshot of a HDTach so i can see the typical read speed on a RAID 5 file server?

Not a good idea, depends far more on the disks, RAID controller, cache and other issues than on the RAID type...there's little alternative to RAID5 or RAID6 for file shares, RAID10 just isn't economical...

bobby_valentino · 23 Jun 2008 at 13:26

Roughly what would the read speed be, if you were to take a wild guess?

bigredshark · 23 Jun 2008 at 13:34

bobby_valentino said:
Roughly what would the read speed be, if you were to take a wild guess?

Well, I've seen numbers in the 450Mb/s range with mid range kit, my feeling is you could do better if you used enough disks, really high end controller etc..

J1nxy · 23 Jun 2008 at 13:39

It is so dependant on the number of disks, spindles, disk speeds etc. But 2000 users assuming they don't read and write a load of stuff to their home drives shouldn't be to much of a problem.

wasc · 23 Jun 2008 at 20:44

J1nxy said:
Personally unless you are talking about serving a hell of a lot of users, configure the storage as a RAID 5 array with a hot spare or 2 depending on how much data storage you are willing to sacrifice.

Another question might be how big the array will be (in GB or TB).

If the array is 1Tb in size (which is easily doable with the MD3000 - i believe a single one is capable of 15Tb, multi MD3000's i believe reach 45TB max), then maybe Raid 6 would be best rather than 5 with hotspares since Raid 6 can tolerate two simultaneous disk failures. Raid 5 has a vulnerable period when a disk dies while the hotspare rebuilds into the array, and with a large raid volume the rebuild time can be long.

J1nxy · 24 Jun 2008 at 19:54

wasc said:
Another question might be how big the array will be (in GB or TB).

If the array is 1Tb in size (which is easily doable with the MD3000 - i believe a single one is capable of 15Tb, multi MD3000's i believe reach 45TB max), then maybe Raid 6 would be best rather than 5 with hotspares since Raid 6 can tolerate two simultaneous disk failures. Raid 5 has a vulnerable period when a disk dies while the hotspare rebuilds into the array, and with a large raid volume the rebuild time can be long.

I'd go for RAID 6 but the spec sheet detail RAID 0,1,5 and 10 so 5 with hot spares would be the best of the listed option. The 15Tb is based on SATA disks and there is no production based configuration I could ever recommend based on SATA drives. They make good archive and VTL type system where you want big cheap storage but for serving files to users forget it, it should be SAS.