Jack,
Nice write-up!
Couple comments, depending on number of clients, you might get better
performance with multiple RAID arrays to spread the IO out --- the
trade-off is more space lost to parity, but space is cheap...
Supermicro does make nice chassis and either build it yourself or
purchasing from a "white-box" vendor that uses their hardware is
reasonable depending on the purchasing situation and use. Also, just
using openfiler on IBM/HP/Dell hardware can work well. An example would
be a Dell 1 or 2 U node with external shelf disk shelf (I see you have
an MD1000 and Dell server racked just above this new one). Pricing is
variable though. I'd be interested in hearing any comparisons you have
between the Dell hardware and this new server as you get experience with
them over time.
Cheers,
Tom
On 3/11/10 2:31 PM, Kramer, Jack wrote:
> Okay, I did a (very quick) writeup about the whole thing and posted it on my AFS space. You can find it at http://www.msu.edu/~kramer45/openfiler/ . For those of you who don’t want to follow a link, I used a Supermicro 846A 4u chassis which has 24 SAS/SATA drive bays and then added a Supermicro motherboard, an Areca 1680IX 24 port raid card, 12gb of RAM, and basically let ‘er rip. There’s some details as to the build and configuration tweaks I had to make in the writeup and a couple of photos – I’ll post more photos the next time I have the unit down for service.
>
> And yeah, the writeup is done in iWeb – I didn’t feel like actually doing HTML and it’s surprisingly not that crappy for a very basic web editor.
> ----
> Jack Kramer
> Computer Systems Specialist
> University Relations, Michigan State University
> w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Jon Galbreath<[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Jon Galbreath<[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:29:05 -0500
> To: "[log in to unmask]"<[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Atom Based NAS Devices?
>
> I’m sure I’m not alone in my curiosity. Can you provide more details about the hardware you’re using?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
>
> Jon Galbreath
> MCSE/Security+
> Systems Administrator
> International Studies and Programs
> Ph: 517-884-2144
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> From: Kramer, Jack [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 9:12 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Atom Based NAS Devices?
>
> Another option in terms of NAS is rolling your own system based off of Openfiler (openfiler.org) or something like it (the BSD-based FreeNAS comes to mind). We’re in the process of deploying an Openfiler based system over here that’s providing 21TB of storage at a total cost of well under $10k. You could go hardware raid for large storage or, for something where performance isn’t as important, you could go software raid and save a bundle. It’s also a great way to repurpose hardware that you may have sitting around as the minimum system requirements are very low.
> ----
> Jack Kramer
> Computer Systems Specialist
> University Relations, Michigan State University
> w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955
>
>
>
>> From: Jason Coleman<[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Jason Coleman<[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:34:26 -0500
>> To: "[log in to unmask]"<[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Atom Based NAS Devices?
>>
>> I suggest researching it at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com, they were an
>> excellent resource when I was researching NAS devices for myself.
>>
>> The one you are looking at is too new to have a lot of info on yet. Thecus
>> is generally well regarded in the space though, but it's also at the higher
>> end, cost and a performance-wise of the SOHO space. You may try their
>> forums to see if there's any early adopters of it or to check on other Atom
>> based devices.
>>
>> Good luck!
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Al Puzzuoli [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 8:59 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: [MSUNAG] Atom Based NAS Devices?
>>
>> We're considering the possibility of purchasing an atom based NAS. Has
>> anyone researched these? What features are considered important aside from
>> iSCSI support? One that looks interesting to me is the Thecus
>> N4200:
>> http://bit.ly/aId9Dt
>>
>> A favorable review can be found here:
>> http://www.trustedreviews.com/networking/review/2010/02/24/Thecus-N4200-
>> 4-Bay-NAS/p1
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
>>
>> --Al
>
>
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