[OpenAFS] Which storage technology to use for terabytes of storage with AFS?

[Jason Edgecombe]

Hi everyone,

Traditionally, we have used direct-attached scsi disk packs on Sun Sparc
servers running Solaria 9 for OpenAFS. This has given us the most bang
for the buck. We forgo RAID because we have the backup capabilities of AFS.

What types of storage technologies are other AFS sites using for their
AFS vicep partitions? We need to figure our future direction for the
next couple of years. Fibre channel seems all the rage, but it's quite
expensive. I'm open to any and all feedback. What works? What doesn't?
What offers the best bang for the buck on an OpenAFS server?

This is for an academic environment that fills both academic and
research needs. Researchers are asking for lots of AFS space (200GB+).
Of course this needs to be backed up as well.

Thanks,
Jason