Re: Looking to build storage of about 3TB -- recommendations?


daben wrote:
> Hi All
>
> For my research I need large storage for satellite data files. I am
> looking to build storage for about 1TB redundant array and >2TB
> volatile array. I have looked around at snap servers or other SAN
> solutions. I also have looked at scsi solutions but don't think that
> scsi is economicable. What I am proposing is to build 2 arrays of SATA
> drives with the following setup:
>
> 1 3u supermicro chasis with 15 hotswappable sata bays
> 2 3ware RAID controller (for ex 9550SX-8LP)
> 12 WD SATA HDS (400GB)
>
> RAID ARRAY 1: RAID 5, 5 drives total, 1 hot spare == 1.2TB
> RAID ARRAY 2: RAID 0 (or none), 7 drives total == 2.8TB
>
> This will all be hooked to dual xeon chips with and internal boot/sys
> mount. Will probably use win2k3 server due to software requirements.

>
> The second array is for temporary storage and can crash and we will not
> loose much except the need to download again. The first array needs to
> be fault tolerant. We envision swapping out drives in array 2 as
> larger drives become available.
>
> My questions are:
>
> + Can anyone propose reasons NOT to do this?

> + Are the better solutions?
> + NOTE: We anticipate this will cost $5k-$6k -- the other solutins are
> MUCH more that I have seen
>
> thanks
> daben

Nor sure I understand how you're going to connect the server(s) to the
array. Fibre channel could add significantly to the cost. iSCSI could
create a 1Gb/sec bottleneck, file serving as in CIFS would probably be
even slower, but you don't mention performance reqs.

Also, how are you going to back up array 1?

Another point of concern is that recovery from a disk error on array 1
could take hours or days. I would go with raid 6 and with RAID enhanced
SATA drives (WD and Seagate have them).

.

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