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I need help finding a suitable NAS solution. Let me explain:
We're launching a service soon that, among other things, will store a small amount of user-specific content, likely to be small pictures (typically < 50 KB each) or videos (typically < 200 KB each). User content will typically be private - accessed only by the user herself - and be stored for typically 1-2 months; the stored content will be accessed rarely, typically on the day it was stored and not much more often, but needs to be available for immediate access for the guaranteed duration. Not all users will avail of this service, though some could use plenty (in the 10s of megabytes, though certainly not in the 100s) and we don't want to put in restrictions (yet) on how much they can use. Our target customer base, over a 2-year period, is in the tens of thousands worldwide.
The servers running our website are equipped with 250 GB SATA drives in RAID-1; initially, we will use a USB drive for daily backup (in the unlikely event of both hard drives in the RAID failing together). However, longer term, especially if the "archives" feature proves popular, we're going to need some sort of dedicated storage system that is ideally expanadable into the terabytes, all data being available online. This data may be backed up on tape or in RAID-1 again.
We looked around for an NAS solution and vendor H* came back with a quote that exceeded US$ 10,000 for a system that's basically 4 x 300 GB (appears to be one Xeon server running Windows Storage Server with a modular SmartArray running the drives). The price, as you can imagine, knocked my socks off (and burnt holes in 'em for good measure!).
I figured I'd ask the experts: is this kind of thing over-kill? Is there a cheaper alternative, given that the load (number of people accessing their archives at any given time + number of pictures / videos being stored at any given moment) is not likely to be too high?
Would seriously appreciate your thoughts.
So, shop for a server with space for a bunch of drives, and possibly external expandability to a bunch more drives...
I'd say you can do this for a lot less than $10,000.
Any reason for Windows? Or is that just that particular vendor's solution?
I'd start looking at the vendors who specialize in Linux servers. Pick a reasonably-large (physically) box that holds a goodly number of drives, and pick the appropriate option for SATA RAID.
For example, I just went to one such vendor website and configured a 4U server with 16 drive slots, and configured it with 8 320GB 7200RPM drives, and an 8-port SATA RAID controller. It comes to $4200. So, twice as much storage and less than half the cost.
The drives are cheap, so go with the biggest box that seems reasonable. Probably no need for multiple CPU chips given your modest access stats - skip the Quad Opterons motherboards... So, another example, go with a 5U case, 2gHz Opteron, 24 x 400GB drives, 2x 16-channel RAID controller, comes to $8900. Start out with "only" 8 drives and one RAID controller, and it's $5200.
I'm sure you can also find pre-packaged ready-to-run NAS systems at similar costs. The key is matching your particular requirements to the system. You probably don't need 4 or 8 CPUs in the box. You may not need many gigabytes of memory for caching. You don't need high-performance SCSI drives. Sounds like the vendor either didn't understand your needs or doesn't have a wide enough range of products to be able to match them.
thanks for your reply. Interestingly enough, IB* also sent in a quote: much much more in line with the numbers you mentioned. Thank God - I thought we were sunk. ;-)
Thanks again for your advice.
Regards.
If you can get a suitable IBM box for a similar cost, I'd highly recommend it. I've used two. Their rack servers are built like a tank. Good remote management features. (Optional extra, but nice to be able to upgrade a BIOS over the Internet...) And they just work. Their hot-swap rails for the hard drives are particularly rugged, a consideration when you are going to have a BUNCH of drives.
