Recommend me an enterprise rack mounted NAS

[mikkydoos]

Hi all,

 

Replacing a dying file server (as per my another thread).

 

This is going to be for shared VM storage... mixture of about 20 VMs... one is SQL and one a file server so need decent disk performance and I/O.

 

I'm currently looking at approx 24TB models with at least 4 x 1Gb iSCSI ports and disk expansion.

 

The rack Qnap I have hasn't impressed hence the request for opinions. The software on it is far too full of cr@ppy apps I don't need or want and I/O is p@ss poor.

 

 

Would anyone recommend Synology ? Never used them.

 

 

Need some opinions please...

 

 

Cheers in advance

Edited June 4, 2018 by mikkydoos

[bald_pig]

Synology make very good NAS units, the problem is that you need a SAN!

 

https://www.slashroot.in/san-vs-nas-difference-between-storage-area-network-and-network-attached-storage

 

We use a cluster of HP MSA2312i units, that we are looking to replace with more up to date equipment, but they haven't let us down!

[mikkydoos]

Can't afford a SAN @bald_pig.

 

Was looking at Starwind but I think a decent NAS is sufficient. This is going into a large primary.

[iom100]

Very happy with Synology here as basic storage. We don't run any VMs directly from it though - you'll have to specify some nice fast disks.

[geohanson]

I really like the Synology devices. We have an RS2416 and RS816 in one school which is used for file sharing/backups of our Apple Macs, and a DS416 in another school operating as a Veeam iSCSI backup target.

I also have a DS916 at home.

I would recommend them all day for NAS/file sharing use....

 

However I would be cautious of using one as VM storage.

Yes it will do it via iSCSI, but a SAN is purposely designed to do this.

You’re also (unless you have two) introducing a single point of failure.

I would look at Starwind/HP VSA/VSAN if you need HA.

Local storage will always be significantly faster than network or iSCSI.

I believe that within Hyper-V (if that’s what you are using) there are ways of replicating virtual machines across 2 nodes. It’s also reasonably simple to live migrate VMs across nodes (for maintenance etc) with no shared/network storage.

There are lots of ways to do it, but (even being a massive Synology fan) I would be very cautious about storing all my VMs on one.

[atcoates]

Synology info https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/feature/storage_virtualization

[Asgard]

We now have two redundant NetGear ReadyData SAN’s since they decided to bin them! And rather than blow serious money on a Dell Equalogic we decided to do it ourselves.

 

We went to ETB and got two of these (for £2280 ex vat each)

 

2 x Intel X5650 Xeon Six-Core 2.66GHz CPU

64 GB (8x8GB) DDR3 RAM

12 x 3TB NL-SAS 3.5" Dell hot plug hard drives

PERC H700 RAID Controller with 512MB

Embedded Broadcom 5716 Dual-Port GB Network

No optical drive installed

Dual Redundant Power Supplies (2xPSU)

iDRAC6 Enterprise

Bezel included

 

We then added a dual 10GB NIC

And two internal 2.5” 600gb 15k SAS for the OS (Server 2016 Standard)

 

Then made the 12 x 3TB drives one huge raid6 volume and the made it into an iscsi target and teamed the 10GB for a 20gb iscsi setup

 

Way quicker than our old SAN (which has SSD read/write cache) and was pretty quick itself

 

Running about 25VMs including three SQL VMs as a cluster shared volume for a 5 node Server 2016 Hyper-V Cluster

 

It was originally put onto our standby cluster and we moved a load of VMs over to it for evaluation. It ran great so the second box became the Cluster Volume for the production SAN.

 

Copy of our Visio diagram

[karldenton]

Have an Synology RS816 here for backups but also use a Fujitsu Calvin. This is fast enough to run vmware replicas if needed

[XiJ]

We’ve used Synology rack models In a corporate infrastructure for multiple VM’s with a couple of hosts. No problems. We’re happy with performance.

[mjk]

We've used QNAP in the past. Our current unit is 6yrs+ without issue and due for replacement this year.

https://www.qnap.com/en-uk/

[mikkydoos]

I hear you @Asgard & @geohanson

 

 

Situation is that currently I have all VM's running on 2 hosts with local storage. They are Veeam backed up to 2 NAS's and also replicated to the other host..

 

... so at any one time I have 2 backups, 1 replica and the live VM available to run.

 

The main problem is that on one of the hosts I've run out of disk slots so I can't increase capacity on that host... and I also want shared storage - migrating large disk files is slow.

 

Budget is an issue too.

[PotNoodleTech]

I run two Synology DS2413+ as backup targets in Veeam and they have been very good and reliable. I uninstalled some of the bloat they came with (Apache?) and keep the software updated regularly. No issues and performance is good when using Write Cache but make sure you power them via uninterruptable supplies.

 

I wouldn't however use them as VM Storage.

 

I would use Local storage rather than a NAS or a SAN. I prefer the KISS principle of Keep it Simple Stupid and it has not let me down touch wood. Chock your existing servers full of big SSDs, put them in RAID5 (or 1 or 6 depending on your preference) and just enjoy superfast super reliable VM storage at minimal cost and minimal complexity.

 

But that's just me!