Date: 11 Sep 2001 19:14:15 -0700 From: sawilson@sawilson.com To: massimo@datacode.it Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: NAS solution Message-ID: <20010912021415.2084.cpmta@c001.snv.cp.net>
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Hello There, At a large ISP I used to work at, we swore by netapps: http://www.netapp.com They are pretty expensive, but very easy to work with and very reliable. Definitely industrial grade NAS. Some of the key features that made them a godsend were: #1 snapshots. You could set the netapp up to take a filesystem "snapshot" at a particular time. If a user accidentally deleted something, it was pretty easy to do a cp and restore it. #2 growing filesystems. You could add disks to a running group and grow it without turning anything off or down. #3 easy backup. I wrote a backup script in perl for 200+ gigs of data using the UNIX dump command. You can hook a decent dlt stacker right up to the back of the thing, and remotely backup other netapps to the same tape library. We used a breece hill q2.15 stacker. #4 cifs and NFS. Both UNIX and microslut machines can share the same storage. #4 configuration flexibility. You can chose from multiple networking options (100tx, giga, etc.) and disk options (UW, U2W, fibre channel, etc.) #5 stability. It's a proprietary OS of some sort they use. An instructor I had for netapp 101 hinted that it's a SunOS based kernel. Short of the occasional hard disk failure, we rarely had any problems in the 3 years I played with them. Hot swapping of dead drives for hot spares happened seemlessly. #5 Ease of use. You can configure the things from console, with a GUI tool, or with a web based interface that runs on port 80. We found that the console tools were more than enough, and very simple to use. Netapp has also been around longer than most of the other players in the game. They have a great product. It is an expensive option, but it's well worth the money. I think they have some sort of used hardware program geared towards small businesses that don't need 50 terabytes of storage. Best Regards, S.A.Wilson On Wed, 29 August 2001, Massimo Lusetti wrote: > > > I've to choose a network attached solutions to serve a file base about 200 GB > (growing) via NSF and CIFS/SMB to about 15 WKS. > > Does anyone have any experience ? > In particular you believe is the case to look at solutions form vendors like > IBM or HP or just build a solid server with a lot of disks in (which i think > solution from vendors are like) ?! > > Thanks. > > Regards > -- > Massimo Lusetti > Network Department Manager > > url: http://www.datacode.it > email: info@datacode.it > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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