NAS Solutions

howler · 29 Aug 2008 at 09:21

I'm possibly looking at NAS solutions, we have 3 servers that share various data to our users and it would ne nice to consolodate them

What sort of stuff is available these days?

I've also stumbled across Windows 2003 Storage server, what's that like?

RSR · 29 Aug 2008 at 21:02

Its bascally a very cut down verison of Win2k3 aimed at the storage market. Plus normal SP's dont work on it.

Andy

BruBoy · 1 Sep 2008 at 16:15

We have a 4x400Gb rack mount ReadyNAS 1100 that works nicely.

Integrates with AD for permissions and has lots of good backup options.

RSR · 3 Sep 2008 at 16:46

BruBoy said:
We have a 4x400Gb rack mount ReadyNAS 1100 that works nicely.

Integrates with AD for permissions and has lots of good backup options.

Only problem i have found with them type of devices are they are pretty slow in terms of data throughput.

Andy

BruBoy · 3 Sep 2008 at 18:19

Yup - not earth shattering

JBod · 4 Sep 2008 at 16:26

howler said:
I'm possibly looking at NAS solutions, we have 3 servers that share various data to our users and it would ne nice to consolodate them

What sort of stuff is available these days?

I've also stumbled across Windows 2003 Storage server, what's that like?

Need more details on how you are going to use it. Is this going to be for windows? linux or both? What sort of budget are you looking at? What performance do you need (in operations a second)?

BoomAM · 10 Sep 2008 at 21:35

andyd said:
Its bascally a very cut down verison of Win2k3 aimed at the storage market. Plus normal SP's dont work on it.

Andy

I think its a little unfair on storage server to leave it at that.
Whilst it strips out a lot of the other stuff, it also adds LOADs more storage based options. iSCSI, Exchange targets, ect;

Curiosityx · 17 Sep 2008 at 00:09

Based on your budget i would consider firstly (DAS) Direct attatched storage, second to that fiber attatched shared storage or a preconfigured storage server like the DL160 G5

Both can be achieved using HP, for the cheaper DAS solution have a look at the Storageworks range specifically Modular Smart Array 30 which is a direct attatched SAS varient.

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/

Andy100 · 17 Sep 2008 at 00:40

We've just purchased a HP AiO1200 confirgured with 6TB of storage. I'm trying my fill it up with pr0n and illegal videos but it's taking a while!

On a more serious note these are pretty well specced machines running Storage Server. It has 2 x gig nics, redundant power and the SS software is great.

bigredshark · 17 Sep 2008 at 11:40

Curiosityx said:
Based on your budget i would consider firstly (DAS) Direct attatched storage, second to that fiber attatched shared storage or a preconfigured storage server like the DL160 G5

Both can be achieved using HP, for the cheaper DAS solution have a look at the Storageworks range specifically Modular Smart Array 30 which is a direct attatched SAS varient.

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/

MSA30 was never a good choice for storage capacity or value, good for adding fast disks to a database server but thats about all, it's almost EOL these days anyway, better looking at the new SAS attached arrays (MSA50/60/70)...

RSR · 23 Sep 2008 at 12:03

BoomAM said:
I think its a little unfair on storage server to leave it at that.
Whilst it strips out a lot of the other stuff, it also adds LOADs more storage based options. iSCSI, Exchange targets, ect;

True.

IMO if your going to be using iSCSI etc. your going to better off with a SAN.

Andy

Origin · 27 Sep 2008 at 21:11

bigredshark said:
MSA30 was never a good choice for storage capacity or value, good for adding fast disks to a database server but thats about all, it's almost EOL these days anyway, better looking at the new SAS attached arrays (MSA50/60/70)...

Very true, MSA 30 is practically EOL now. You are beter off with the 60 or 70 (LFF vs SFF drives) so depends on how much storage you need to get to really although they can be daisy chained from the controller.

MSA 60 - Single enclosure - Maximum storage capacity of 5.4 TB (with twelve HP SAS 3G 450 GB hard drives) or 12 TB (with twelve HP SATA 3G 1 TB hard drives)

MSA 70 - Single enclosure -Maximum storage capacity of 3.6 TB (with twenty five 146 GB 3G DP SAS), or 6.2 TB (with twenty five HP SATA 3G 250 GB hard drives)

VBN · 9 Oct 2008 at 21:13

BruBoy said:
We have a 4x400Gb rack mount ReadyNAS 1100 that works nicely.

Integrates with AD for permissions and has lots of good backup options.

I've been looking at getting one of these for some cheap storage to remove a load of archive and a production image library off my NetApp San.

I was looking at getting two 4TB models and then using DFS replication over my high speed link to the colo, unless it has some kind of snap mirroring technology.

Any caveats that you have found with this hardware?

Banzai_Joe · 10 Oct 2008 at 11:13

I installed a HP Proliant DL160 G5 storageserver with 1.3TB of usable storage (after raid 5).
it sits in the stack with 5 other servers and up to 70 clients attaching to it.
Its perfectly fine for our needs in both space and performance terms.
Retrospect auto backs up to our tape library every night which is now easier since all the data is in one place now.