Solaris : Anyone using solaris for data storage?

[cjohnsonuk]

With ZFS under solaris supporting dedupe natively (from what I've read) has anyone considered using a Solaris/Samba/CIFS/ZFS solution for data storage? As most of our students' work is going to be similar to a greater extent than that of IT users in industry and as teacher generally share resources for use in multiple classes I think school data is a prime case where dedupe will bring benefits.


It would be good to see a case study and what benefits were realised.

Anyone know of any success stories like this?

ChrisJ

PS A link to a comparison between Solaris 10 and opensolaris would be appreciated too. From what I can see both are free but which should I choose?

[CyberNerd]

We are using Linux/Samba for student data storage - that offers a number of benefits in itself, without ZFS.
This is my setup:
http://www.edugeek.net/wiki/index.ph..._Homedirectory

the de duplication would be really useful, I'd be really grateful if you could add a ZFS howto if you get it working


also, could ZFS be used for clustering in hte same was GFS can?

Clustered Samba - SambaWiki

[cjohnsonuk]

Unfortunately were so near being BSFed theres little chance we'll get to take on new project like this. Our data server has 16 1TB drives hung off the back so its more than just a little commitment for us to even look into the feasibility.

Chris

[CyberNerd]

On the bright side, BSF will be wasting enough money that you won't need to be worrying about saving cash from de-duplication

[garethedmondson]

With ZFS under solaris supporting dedupe natively (from what I've read) has anyone considered using a Solaris/Samba/CIFS/ZFS solution for data storage? As most of our students' work is going to be similar to a greater extent than that of IT users in industry and as teacher generally share resources for use in multiple classes I think school data is a prime case where dedupe will bring benefits.


It would be good to see a case study and what benefits were realised.

Anyone know of any success stories like this?

ChrisJ

PS A link to a comparison between Solaris 10 and opensolaris would be appreciated too. From what I can see both are free but which should I choose?

A little sad fact - my cousin is a developer on Open Solaris and works for Sun. Just thought to put that in there.

GJE

[dhicks]

With ZFS under solaris supporting dedupe natively (from what I've read) has anyone considered using a Solaris/Samba/CIFS/ZFS solution for data storage?

I tried to install Solaris a while back, but with no success on our (cheap, often second-hand) server hardware. Therefore I'm writing my own file-level deduplicating photo storage server. I think FreeBSD supports ZFS, too, so that's another option if you want ZFS support.

--
David Hicks

[Soulfish]

Technically we're using OpenSolaris with ZFS (we have a Sun 7110 storage system ).

I am looking at using OpenSolaris and ZFS for a cheap backup server that I'd like to build however. Any tips/pitfalls anyone comes across would be great

[apaton]

Home Brew storage. Solaris/OpenSolaris with ZFS is a fantastic choice of as a file server.
Excellent blog on trails and tribulations of ZFS at home - A Home Fileserver using ZFS

Don't want the hassle of home brew? then purchase a Sun 7000 storage

Andy

[apaton]

PS A link to a comparison between Solaris 10 and opensolaris would be appreciated too. From what I can see both are free but which should I choose?

If you want the latest features (Dedupe, TimeSlider.....) then OpenSolaris is the way to go. If you want rock steady reliability then Solaris with ZFS delivering NFS and Samba. (I know Solaris has CIFS but I like SAMBA).

Another thing you have to consider is that Sun Solaris' NON-Security patches are not freely available. You would need to put in place a contract or subscription.££

Andy