Sticky for SAN/NAS Advice?

[Duke]

Hi all,

 

There have been a lot of threads of the last few months asking for advice on whether network storage is needed, if people should buy SAN or NAS (and what the difference is), which providers are good, how to work out how much disk/IOPS they need, etc.

 

Is there any interest in writing a 'guide' that's kept up to date and stickied in the hardware forum? I know they are a lot of threads already and people could find most of their answers through searching, but something where all the information is together might be useful for people who don't know exactly what they're looking for?

 

I'm not suggesting that I write it all, although hopefully I'd have some useful input, just wondered if it was something some of the more knowledgeable people here might be willing to help with?

 

Cheers,

Chris

Edited June 10, 2011 by Duke

[Guest Guest]

I agree there are a lot of posts recently. Although I don't run a san anymore I am certainly willing to help; come up with the key point, check the work for errors/omissions etc.

 

One key point that I would certainly include is the networking side of it, specifically link aggregation, separating your storage network, vLans, etc, as there seems to be a lot of confusing on how networking actually works when you get down to your layer 2 stuff.

[plexer]

If you wish to create content like that fantastic but may I suggest you add it to the wiki?

 

Ben

[Duke]

If you wish to create content like that fantastic but may I suggest you add it to the wiki?

 

Heh, never thought of that...

 

Sounds like a much better idea, I never really use the Wiki (probably should!) so hadn't thought about it.

 

I'll try to get my ideas together and put some work in on it, thanks!

[plexer]

Thats great the wiki should be updated with subjects that are discussed a lot to give a starting base for people, sans, wireless, digital signage, virtualisation would all be good candidates.

 

Ben

[PeteHopton]

I would suggest a vendor agnostic guide looking at different technologies, compatibilities and methods of achieving things. I have previously written a guide on SANs primarily looking at performance vs energy savings benefits for different tiered storage elements which was presented as JISC conferences, so I might be able to use some of this to help start things off.

 

I see all over this forum 'xxx is good' but good for what, every technology has it's place and pro's and con's, things it should be used with, most products can be filed by 'technology' (actually a lot are rebranded boxes made in taiwan by a different, sometimes unheard of vendor).

[apaton]

I'm happy add some input/content.

 

Protocols, FC, iSCSI, CIFS and NFS

SAN Fabrics, L2/L3 (1Gbe & 10Gbe) & FC Switches (2/4/8Gbit)

Path Management - MultiPathing

Sizing, Capacity - I/O Profile, Virtulisation/VDI/Database & Filestore.

Storage Features Snapshot, Clone, Replication, Thin Provisioning.