SYNACK Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 I was going to put 2 or 3 2TB samsung drive in a Dell 830 and use it as a Raid 1 or 5 iscsi target for my 2950's It will be quite slow with only 3 disks, you would be better off with 4-6 1gb drives to push the speed. Two or three are not going to be much faster than a single 15k sas drive. You can use sata you just need to spread the load out between enough of them to make it fast enough.
sparker Posted January 29, 2011 Author Posted January 29, 2011 So SATA drives on a SAS backplane then - sorry I'm catching up slowly perhaps in a RAID 10? Just wondering what is in these servers I am looking at. If it has a SAS backplane then I suppose I could fill it up with SATA drives and use it for my storage as well as for my virtualisation? Does it have to have a separate SAN? Many thanks for your patience!
SYNACK Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 So SATA drives on a SAS backplane then - sorry I'm catching up slowly perhaps in a RAID 10? Just wondering what is in these servers I am looking at. If it has a SAS backplane then I suppose I could fill it up with SATA drives and use it for my storage as well as for my virtualisation? Does it have to have a separate SAN? Many thanks for your patience! Depends on the backplane, most of the modern ones support it though. You could put the storage in a vm host but then you may run into issues with it as an iSCSI target and if it fails it takes out your vms on both hosts. probably better to have a seporate storage box that does not need to be rebooted for updates etc with dual psus etc to make it as reliable as possible. Another possibly much easier option for using a server as a SAN would be to use Windows Storage Server which has a bunch of useful features and can be an iSCSI target as well if required. 1
sparker Posted January 29, 2011 Author Posted January 29, 2011 I had a quick look at WSS W8kR2 and it seems it is only available as a pre install on hardware. So If I have the 830 as a iSCSI target and two 2950s as my VM hosts in one rack on one site and then I can get everything swapped over and put the current production Acer machines on the other site and set them as RODCs - again as VMs, hat only leaves me with the problem of file access if I loose the site link? Doe sthat sound right /sensible?
SYNACK Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 (edited) Sounds right, may only need one RODC on the remote site. I woud host local site resources like printers for each site on a server within that site. I would also set up a different site in AD (AD Sites and services) and put the RODC in it so that you can better manage replication traffic over the WAN link. So long as you have dhcp and dns setup right for each site it should mean you still have a reasonably functional network even if the link fails. Documents are the tricky thing as the constantly change, stuff like application install shares can just be replicated or copied via scripts then pointed to via dfs and should be able to be kept live easily in the event of a link failure. Edited January 29, 2011 by SYNACK
sparker Posted January 29, 2011 Author Posted January 29, 2011 different site but same domain, I guess? Sorry I meant to say only 1 RODC, I was going to cluster the servers though so I can move the VMs over if I need to take one physical server down for maintenance. I am guessing that if I have two sites they will still replicate so my users will be able to log in at either site? I also have a synology NAS as a back up which I think can be a ISCSI target as well but having two would be a syncing nightemare so I shall try branch cache and a disaster or two might encourage the school to spring for another fibre link or perhaps the wifi will work! Many thanks for all your help today -
SYNACK Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 different site but same domain, I guess? Yes, thats right. Sorry I meant to say only 1 RODC, I was going to cluster the servers though so I can move the VMs over if I need to take one physical server down for maintenance. I am guessing that if I have two sites they will still replicate so my users will be able to log in at either site? I thought you were just clustering the vm servers which will allow you to do handovers like that. Were you looking at another mirrored vm setup at the remote site? The AD stuff will still replicate so any user will beable to log on at either site. The reason to chuck them in differentsites is that you can change the replication settings making it replicate at a lower bandwith and less frequently saving lots of traffic on the WAN. I also have a synology NAS as a back up which I think can be a ISCSI target as well but having two would be a syncing nightemare so I shall try branch cache and a disaster or two might encourage the school to spring for another fibre link or perhaps the wifi will work! Many thanks for all your help today - You are right remote syncing the two on an unreliable link would be a nightmare and you would need to use some third party software in the middle as therewould be no built in solution given they would be different systems (nas and openfiler). Glad the others and I could help.
sparker Posted January 29, 2011 Author Posted January 29, 2011 The sites are connected by a GbE fibre link and are only about 100 metres apart so WAN issues not so big. I was thinking to use my two current production servers at the other site ( once I have my new ones working) with some Hyper v then run a VM as RODC there. If I lost a physical server without that would lose the RODC so would my users lose login or would the main site DC keep everyone connected? I just noticed your location which means you have been talking to me all night - what a hero!
SYNACK Posted January 29, 2011 Posted January 29, 2011 Depends on how your network is setup but if if set correctly you should be able to use the remote dc for logon. Depends on if youhave seprate ip ranges at each site and routing. If it is your own bare fibre from one site to another then it is more like a remote cabinet on the same network and so a lot of the extra remote side stuff may be overkill and it may be much cheaper just to run another bit of fibre. I'm usually awake a large chunk of the night anyhow so no biggie 1
sparker Posted January 30, 2011 Author Posted January 30, 2011 Do you think on balance I am better off spending my 1k on a SAN and a 2950 or the two 2950 bearing in mind that I have two Acer720 production servers that could be used to support the 2950?
SYNACK Posted January 30, 2011 Posted January 30, 2011 If your Acers support virtualization extentions then I would go for the SAN migrate stuff over then reuse one of the old ones as a second virtualization host.
sparker Posted February 2, 2011 Author Posted February 2, 2011 Does anyone have good experiences with Openfiler (Setting up a High Availability NAS/SAN using Openfiler | Easy to Read Articles). I would like to use Windows strorage Server but it seems to be only available with Metal?
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