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

[Steve Devine]

Jason Edgecombe wrote:
> Steve Devine wrote:
>   
>> Jason Edgecombe wrote:
>>     
>>> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> OpenAFS-info@openafs.org
>>> https://lists.openafs.org/mailman/listinfo/openafs-info
>>>   
>>>       
>> We are using Iscsi for user vols. We put volumes that require higher
>> performance on a Fiber Based San.
>>
>>     
> What's serving the iSCSI? Is it a storage appliance of some sort?
>
> Thanks,
> Jason
>
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>   
We are using a unit from infortrend.com its ISCSi to SATA. (16) 500G 
drives in a raid6 config. So we are getting about 6.5 T out of it.
Some things about this scare me I won't deny but it is a lot of disk 
space for reasonable prices. (seems like it was around 7~8k)
Seek time is an issue when you have 350G partitions. I also worry about 
salvage times if we suffer a crash .. but I compiled the fileservers 
with fast restart and so far I have not had to test it. We have been 
online with this device about 10 months. So far so good.


-- 
Steve Devine
Network Storage & Printing
Academic Computing & Network Services
Michigan State University

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