Looking for a network storage solution (~7-10TB) (small-business)

C

cymon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 16, 2009
Messages
453
At the local college radio station we're looking to get a good quality network storage system. We just recently lost quite a bit of data as the Netgear ReadyNAS it was stored on (with no backups) died (as my appeals to get a proper backup solution went unheard).

It seems to me like an iSCSI SAN is a good approach to this, however, I very well could be wrong. We need a device that can store around 7-10TB of data, as we are planning on digitizing our entire music library, plus this will hold all of our archives (around 1 - 1.5TB per year). I'm hoping that we can use Solaris as the OS, however there are a few linux fans in the house. All of these have iSCSI support, however they do not all support the same filesystems so they would have to use separate LUNs.

Right now iSCSI is looking good to me. If we end up using Solaris, I can store the zones on the SAN, then in the event of a server failure, I can just remount them on another box and be up and running again. However, what would be better for the san array? Are we better off building a system based around OpenFiler, or should we get an array like a Dell MD3000i or the HP MSA2300i? Also, there is no way that we can afford to buy hard drives directly from Dell or HP. Is there any way we can get an array from HP or Dell or Sun, and then just put drives from NewEgg in there? I understand that it won't be supported, but is it in any way possible (we will have backups in place, of course, so don't worry about that)

Thank you in advance.
 
College radio usually means low budget, so no Dell or HP array. IMO no good reason to go back with a proprietary NAS, you'll be right back in the same situation you had with the Netgear.

Go with WHS or mdadm in Linux.
 
We do have a decent sized budget. Something like 5,000 to 10,000USD is doable. Lower is always better, but we do have money saved up in the event anything should happen. I can also try to utilize other funding sources. However, it does look like we're better off building our own, since we're not going to have any commercial support anyways.
 
With that kind of budget you could easily do a RAID5/6 array including offline backups. WHS/mdadm is still the answer IMO.
 
When I was outgrowing my current 12TB usable WHS, I re-tested openfiler and FreeNAS. I'm back to WHS (running in Hyper-V on Win Server 2008 R2). While you may be fine with iSCSI, realistically someone who comes in 1-2 years down the line is not going to be.

Also, you can very easily make raid arrays on hardware raid (assuming you remember 2TB MBR partitions and 4 partitions/ disk limitations) and then add to WHS without duplication. Assuming you use windows clients (and if you can use time machine Macs are fine too) WHS is really easy to do backups on.

Another option is to just run two Win Server 2k8 R2 boxes with storage roles installed. Add an Adaptec 52445, an Intel Quad NIC, and just throw 2TB hard drives in them. Assuming college radio means .edu pricing for the software, it's a decent option.
 
OpenSolaris 2009.06 gives you ZFS and RAID-Z/Z2/Z3, and IMHO is the pinnacle of soft-RAID solutions. You get deduplication now, built in kernel iSCSI & CIFS among many other goodies.

The major flaw in it at the moment is that expanding arrays is not possible in the traditional, easy sense. To expand say an array of 8 1.5TB drives, you have to add another 8 1.5TB drives to end up with a storage pool made up of 2 8 drive RAID-Z2 arrays. Logically one device in the end, however.

You can build the machine on desktop hardware or install it on an OEM server, works fine either way. Don't have to worry about RAID write-holes or any other issues.

Solaris is a steep learning curve, but there are some more user-friendly distributions available.

Also, your budget and you can go suck it. I get $1500/yr to run ours, my webstream box is a P3-933 dually. More than up to the task, just old ;)
 
I suggest this initial idea based on several factors, some listed below

1. Your focus is radio station. Human interaction with your audience rather than engineering research into computer. I suppose workable solution with minimum hassle.
2. Your budget of 5-10K USD allows slightly better option.
3. Your mentioned of backup indicates your consideration is slightly wider than just computer. Perhaps operation or workflow optimization, etc.

I suggest other forum members to propose you

1. Norco-based case with hot-plug drive cage so you do not need to waste time fixing disk failure, which will occur eventually.
2. Change internal fans/whatever to quiet-version. sensing your origin as radio station I suppose people there are a lot more sensitive to noise
3. Use Athlon X4 620/8GB unbuffered ECC-RAM/Asus AMD consumer motherboard(ECC-able). You can reduce the config for cheaper combination but keep the spirit of the setup.
4. Disk Controller: This is a bit tricky and budget dependent. The Norco usually allows you to expand many drives. Motherboard only has built-in 6-SATA ports so you probably need to use additional controller. Some cards offer ports but no raid function so you can use with sw-raid.
4a. HW-RAID: 8-24 ports : Easy to use. Little complication. Buy two. Expensive.
4b. SW-RAID: as mentioned in various posts OpenSolaris ZFS or Linux mdadm.
4c. I run mdadm myself. Sometimes I observed the array occasionally rebuilding for reasons that I failed to understand even with proper shutdown and power-off. My array size is small but you need to watch for 1 or 2TB rebuild.
5. Good power supply and UPS.
6. The host has plenty disk expansion so in case you station changes focus to full-scale audio/video/on-demand streaming, the setup can host the additional demand. (never know, perhaps streaming college activities video, student sports, etc)
7. Please buy 2 or 3 Intel-branded gigabit network cards.

I wanted to mention additional
1. Tech geeks can operate in "Just-In-Time" JIT mode because they can fix many things on their own.
2. Non-tech users usually are better off buying slightly higher spec in this case so that you can focus on other things later. Unless you have the habit of upgrading on yearly basis, this route will sustain you for many years with ease, (see movax's post where he runs on P3-dual)

Edit 1 : in this age, this is really not that expensive for your purpose. I strongly encourage you to consider at least low-cost hardware-raid your system-disk. The rest (other data/media files) you can decide depending on your budget or other needs.
 
Last edited:
The storage machine is going to be stored (eventually) in the university datacenter. Until then, it will be in a dedicated equipment room on an APC UPS. I have been reading this forum lately, especially the 'storage showoff thread'. I would like to be able to use this as more than just a storage server, a streaming relay and a (backup, perhaps) web server would be nice. Right now we're running on a dual P4 Xeon machine, so an AMD Quad-Core will be fine, plus it will offer ECC protection that you mentioned. I plan to run Solaris on all of our servers.

I plan to have the boot drives (which will store all solaris zone as well) as SAS drives in Raid 1. Potentially Raid 0+1. There will only be a few drives, I believe that a controller like the LSI 1068E will suffice. The main storage array will be a RaidZ pool based upon the Supermicro SAS controller (with the Marvell SAS chip). I am looking at Intel dual-port gigE nics, which will be hooked into a VLAN on an HP 2510G dedicated to the storage network.

The main objective of this array is to hold our archived broadcasts, which the FCC requires us to maintain. The failure of the Netgear NAS, was the sole copy of 3 years of archives has convinced the higher-ups that we must maintain a proper storage infrastructure. We're also investigating some radio station automation software, called CampCaster. We need a large amount of space to store as much of our library as possible (a good few rooms filled with CD shelves ~7ft tall).

Thank you for all the help, and thanks to everyone else in the Data Storage subforum for making all this information available. I'm going to see how this all fits together, with our budget and the rest of the engineering crew.

movax said:
Also, your budget and you can go suck it. I get $1500/yr to run ours, my webstream box is a P3-933 dually. More than up to the task, just old
Click to expand...

This is a pretty small amount of our operating budget. Granted, we've also been around since the 1930s. Don't worry, you'll get there. If you're broadcasting FM radio look at Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants.
 
cymon said:
This is a pretty small amount of our operating budget. Granted, we've also been around since the 1930s. Don't worry, you'll get there. If you're broadcasting FM radio look at Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants.
Click to expand...

We are LPFM. I maintain a single APC 42U rack that holds all our equipment, crossovers/patch-panel, modulator, etc. Our IT department sucks hard, but I've managed to secure some dedicated upstream for us (2Mbit, yessss). The machines live in the rack, and I rsync archives off-campus so they remain secure. I could easily consolidate our station into one single VM server, but I've got no money to do so.

Rsync'ing stuff off-campus is the ideal backup solution. Even if my POS JBOD-drives machine melts down and explodes here, I have everything 3000 miles away in California on a quality server with professional maintenance.

For your boot drives, you could just use a SSD. After my OS Raptor died, I just use a vanilla MLC SSD because I don't care about write speeds on that drive. RAID-Z2 for your storage array is probably the ideal choice (2-drive failure tolerance).

Make sure the CPU is an AMD newer than Family 15 or an Intel chip, because Family 15 and below AMD CPUs do not frequency scale. I run my machine on a 4450e undervolted/underclocked, but more CPU power will improve CPU performance.

Here are some older pic of mine:
3663657815_e01657063e_b.jpg

3663657377_42d70031f8_b.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top