Re: sas fileserver

[Tom Allison <tallison@tacocat.net>]

Michael West wrote:
>      I have been asked to help with getting a server for SAS.  One of
>      the large expenses of this is the 200Gb+ RAID-5 disk on the EMC frame.
>      When presented with $$$$$ the question came, can't I just get
>      something I can put under my desk and save $$$$$? 
>
>      The SAS server will be on WIN2K.  I am thinking of using Debian
>      with software RAID and SAMBA.  I have had good experience with this.
>      Maybe even use the 8mg cache western digital IDE drives.  We only expect a
>      dozen users simultaneous or so, but working with large datasets.  
>      
>      I have never seen anything about the best configuration of a file
>      server with few connections and gobs of data being used per
>      connection.  
>
>      Does anyone have experience with something similar?  How will SAMBA
>      perform when hammered by SAS?   
>
>      For the purposes of this thread, let us assume that the maintenance,
>      service, backup and recovery and such is satisfactorily worked out.
>      They are the major problems, but I am looking for advice on just
>      the fileserver question.
>
>      

If you are looking at a usage where each user is going to do a single pull of 
lots of data across the network, then it's a bit easier.
The slowest point is the network, so you probably won't see much benefit from 
a massive RAID 5 array system.  If the application reading the data is on 
this same machine (it doesn't sound like it is) then you will need a big fat 
array.

Samba should do well.
SCSI would benefit over EIDE if you can swing it.  The last I checked, the 
prices were much closer then they used to be (10% above EIDE for some sizes).


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