I've been reading a few things and began a few books on the subject but it was pretty difficult to understand in some cases. I tried to find some informations to actually build one from scratch and havn't been able to find any good information about it. Do you actually know some places to find info on NAS ans SAN for a begginer like me who'd eventually like to build his own?
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SAN & NAS
- Thread starter alext5
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morpheus6d9
[H]ard|Gawd
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- Mar 11, 2005
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Define mainstream hardware?
At a minimum you are going to need a couple of things:
- For direct attached SAN: 1 HBA, cabling, and a storage device. But, this won't help you learn much
- For a basic SAN: a fiber switch ($$$), a couple of HBAs, and a storage device
HBAs usually run several hundred dollars each. You can find them cheaper, but the switch vendors certify their products with certain brands and models.
A basic switch could be found for as little as ~$600. But, you get what you pay for. These can really get expensive.
SATA storage chasis have really dropped in price. I've seen some third party chasis for under $2000.
I don't know what your budget is. But, I would expect to start at 3-4k for a basic system.
At a minimum you are going to need a couple of things:
- For direct attached SAN: 1 HBA, cabling, and a storage device. But, this won't help you learn much
- For a basic SAN: a fiber switch ($$$), a couple of HBAs, and a storage device
HBAs usually run several hundred dollars each. You can find them cheaper, but the switch vendors certify their products with certain brands and models.
A basic switch could be found for as little as ~$600. But, you get what you pay for. These can really get expensive.
SATA storage chasis have really dropped in price. I've seen some third party chasis for under $2000.
I don't know what your budget is. But, I would expect to start at 3-4k for a basic system.
Ok it's more clear that way, by mainstream I mean, standard gigabit switch, ATA, SATA hard drive...I mean if I'm doing anything it will be to experience, I am currently in Computer Science Network Administration (it's not the exact translation since I am in Quebec and everything is in french) and I'd like to start like one step further than my mates in school so I can get a better job when getting out of school and Storage Networking got my attention, so I was just testing waters about this particular branch of Networking.
I was also looking at Cisco certification this afternoon and noticed there was a special certification for Storage Networking. Anybody works with this kind of stuff or know where it can get me in the end? Any advice or information is greatly appreciated.
I was also looking at Cisco certification this afternoon and noticed there was a special certification for Storage Networking. Anybody works with this kind of stuff or know where it can get me in the end? Any advice or information is greatly appreciated.
alext5 said:
EMC techs make a ton of $ supporting their SAN equipment. We are totally dependant upon our SANs for our hybrid environment (Windows, UNIX\Linux\Solaris, and Altix). I wouldn't limit yourself, but by all means it is in somewhat of a high demand.
alext5 said:
You may want to read about iSCSI. Cant say I've actually messed with it personally, but from what I've read you should be able to provide a lot of the functionality of a SAN over ethernet using fairly cheap hardware. Of course being on the cheap it won't compare to an enterprise solution, but it should be able to provide you with an environment to play in and explore fun stuff like clustering and such - sounds perfect for just getting the experience.
Frobozz said:
There are numerous vendors that sell iSCSI based SANs. Falconstor for one (http://www.chrisdotson.com/2006/02/paypal-not-as-safe-as-you-think.html http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1675504,00.asp). I'm not aware of any homebrew iSCSI setups, but that doesn't mean there isn't an open source iSCSI server implementation out there, but you probably won't get advanced features like snapshots.
iSCSI has been around for a long while and is really starting to gain some ground. The performance is fine for a lot of small businesses (sustained write to our san over 1gbit copper was about ~90MB/S without jumbo frames). I guess it's what you would call mainstream hardware, but it's running with custom software (the main server, clients all connect with the MS iSCSI initiator).
