Large disk array setup

From: Mike Bowers <mkbowers+t64_at_gsm.ucdavis.edu>
Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 12:22:17 -0700

We are currently running 2 600Mhz LX164 Alphas and a Dec 3000-700 under
Tru64. I have about 60 Gb of disk attached to one system and served out
via NFS to the others. Versions are 4.0D-4.0F.

Now we are getting some large data sets, such that I need to add about
500 Gb of disk storage.
It pretty much seems that some version of RAID is what I need. There
isn't a need for the absolute fastest access. I've considered attaching
one or more hardware raid systems to a new system that is used to only
serve the disk over NFS. The Compaq solutions I've been able to
'configure' via their web pages seem a little pricey for us. If I add
another system just for NFS, should I run Tru64, or would a high end,
say, Linux or FreeBSD box be able to do it? I know the current NFS
support in Linux isn't great, but apparently there are patches and/or
updates available that take care of this (kernel 2.4 I believe). Are
such stand-alone RAID servers as the Arena
(http://www.raidweb.com/scsi.html) any good? I think I need to stay
with pure SCSI solutions (rather than the SCSI/IDE arrays).

Another problem is backup. What do you use to backup this much disk
space? I know that even Raid 1 (mirror) isn't a substitute for backup.

Thanks for any suggestions/comments.

Mike
Received on Wed Jul 05 2000 - 19:34:02 NZST

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