The need for storage

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

Dear All,

Forgive me if this is in the wrong forum, but i wasn't quite sure what to put this one.

 

The summer is coming to an end and we have all either upgraded or replaced our servers, but what we do with the old servers?

 

My first thought was to bin them or sell them off and buy a nice new SAN, but they are expensive. Then a thought stuck me, why not wipe them all clean install a piece of software that connects them all together and hey presto instant SAN. My trouble is I don't know which piece of software to use or even if it exists.

 

Any ideas??

 

TIA

 

Ian

[somabc]

You could use Openfiler - Open Source Storage Management Appliance

[jamesfed]

If you got new HP servers then you can trade the old ones in for cash

 

If you have enough old servers and make enough cashback then you could always buy a new cheapish SAN.

Edited September 1, 2011 by jamesfed

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

You could use Openfiler - Open Source Storage Management Appliance

 

Thanks for that reading the website now

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

Hi jamesfed sadly my old servers are a collection of Dell, HP, Fujitsui and Intel.

 

Hi Somabc I like the look of Openfiler, do you use it? I have a couple more questions before i kick off the download.

[jamesfed]

Hi jamesfed sadly my old servers are a collection of Dell, HP, Fujitsui and Intel.

 

It depends on what your new kit is - so if your NEW severs are HP then you can get the cash back, HP will take any make and model of the OLD servers.

[somabc]

No sorry I don't use it but it can be configured as a SAN and present via iSCSI

[Dos_Box]

Give ICT Direct a ring. They often have SAN's in stock and will probably do a trade in for your old servers (providing they are not too old!).

[dhicks]

Any ideas??

 

For physically fitting the largest amount of harddisks possible into a standard case, this five-slot drive enclosure that fits in 3 5.25" bays is about the best I've come accross:

 

LinITX.com - Chenbro 5 x 3.5" HDD Hot-Swap Bays - Fits in 3 x 5.25" ODD Bays

 

That should give you 6TB of storage with 5 2TB drives in a RAID 6 array, more if you use 3TB drives. I don't quite get this obsession that everyone seems to have recently about disassociating VM storage from the CPU and RAM via a SAN, that strikes me as more appropriate for a larger-scale cloud system, it's wasted on your average school server setup and introduces latency (and cost) in your storage. If you have an older server handy that you can install a bunch of storage in, simply use it as directly attached storage - you can use OpenFiler or similar or simply set it up as a Samba server integrated with Active Directory to serve files.

 

Looking at our Qnap server, it seems to consist of an Atom processor running mdadm software RAID connected via standard motherboard SATA ports - i.e., pretty much the same amount of processing power and harddrive throughput you'll get from an older server (the Qnap is probably a bit more energy-effcient, mind). Qnap, of course, provide a nice user-friendly GUI to help you set up RAID arrays and share files, but if all you want is a basic file server then you can do that yourself very easily.

[Geek_of_HeathMount]

Thank you all for your ideas. I tried Openfiler, and the install failed as the Ethernet cards where not switched on!! not being a linux person couldn't get past the error. So I did a little digging reached out to a few more friends and got a beta version of MS Storage Server, which seems to be working well on one of the servers. Reading dhicks post made me think of the the VESSARAID box I had put away, So I have dug that out powered it up and I am now trying to connect it to the Storage server. So far so good, its found the isci connector now all i need it to do is mount the drive.