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    How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?

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    storagestorage planningstorage infrastructure
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    • JaredBuschJ
      JaredBusch @DustinB3403
      last edited by

      @DustinB3403 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

      I'd use multiple hosts and something like Starwinds vSAN so that I didn't have a single massive box to worry about.

      Sure I'd have more storage than I "need" due to how vSAN has to work on any given host, but I'd also reduce the risk of everything just taking a dive and being down.

      The alternative is to use multiple SANs and present iSCSI targets to your hypervisor.

      This is not how you build 170TB of usable storage. a vSAN means way more than 170TB in order to know it is online when one of those nodes go down.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • dafyreD
        dafyre @DustinB3403
        last edited by

        @DustinB3403 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

        I'd use multiple hosts and something like Starwinds vSAN so that I didn't have a single massive box to worry about.

        With Starwind's VSAN, you'd need 2 x Storage nodes with 170GB of storage. From what I gather, StarWind's VSAN is essentially network raid-1.

        scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • scottalanmillerS
          scottalanmiller @dafyre
          last edited by

          @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

          My Build would use some flavor of Linux and based on the Storinator Q30 Enhanced and configured for RAID10.

          This I would absolutely avoid. The Storinator has no place in a production SMB environment. It's exclusively designed for use as a RAIN node as part of an N+X cluster. It's disposable / ephemeral only. Any attempt to use it in another way, which would include any configuration with RAID, is misusing it by intent and will lead to support issues. It is not hot swap, it is not designed to be reliable. It's not meant to be serviced. All top considerations for a storage node. It's actually, other than capacity, the exact opposite of what you would seek in a storage device.

          dafyreD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller @dafyre
            last edited by

            @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

            From what I gather, StarWind's VSAN is essentially network raid-1.

            Not essentially. Is.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • scottalanmillerS
              scottalanmiller @dafyre
              last edited by

              @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

              With Starwind's VSAN, you'd need 2 x Storage nodes with 170GB of storage.

              With any RAID configuration where you want chassis failover. You at least need this.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • scottalanmillerS
                scottalanmiller @DustinB3403
                last edited by

                @DustinB3403 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                Which also raises the question is the 170TB 1 full backup, or some combination.

                Not backup, the OP was file storage.

                JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @dafyre
                  last edited by

                  @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                  Dual Power Supplies, No Setup / Configuration, and 24 x 14TB WD Purple Drives ~= $18,000.

                  You would not use Purple drives, either. Those are for streaming, not for file server usage. You'd want other kinds of drives for file server use.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • JaredBuschJ
                    JaredBusch @scottalanmiller
                    last edited by

                    @scottalanmiller said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                    @DustinB3403 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                    Which also raises the question is the 170TB 1 full backup, or some combination.

                    Not backup, the OP was file storage.

                    But @DustinB3403 was trying to drag this back to the original post, instead of reply appropriately to the call out of this topic.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • ObsolesceO
                      Obsolesce @dafyre
                      last edited by Obsolesce

                      @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                      As a response to the RAID10 Must use... thread, it got me to thinking.

                      [This topic isn't to rehash things stated in the other thread, so much as to hear how others would put something at this scale into production].

                      Business Goal: Build a production level storage system with 170TB of usable storage for SMB / NFS file shares for regular office workers up to power users and video editors.

                      • No NAS Products (Synology, QNAP), please.
                      • No Budget Constraints.
                      • RAIN Storage / multiple nodes can also be considered (CEPH, GLUSTER, etc).

                      My Build would use some flavor of Linux and based on the Storinator Q30 Enhanced and configured for RAID10.

                      Dual Power Supplies, No Setup / Configuration, and 24 x 14TB WD Purple Drives ~= $18,000.

                      (as we all know, the most significant cost will be the drives).

                      What would yours look like?

                      How much of the 170TB is video files, how much if it is hot? How big are the video files?

                      What are backup requirements?

                      Do you need triple the storage considerations for onprem backups plus a tape archive solution for off-site?

                      How quickly does that 170TB grow. You said 170TB of data, that tells me zero free space, so you already need more. How do you want to scale?

                      No budget? That makes no sense at all, Impossible.

                      It depends on many things.

                      Could it all live in the cloud with an onprem cache for hot or sticky data?

                      It's hard to give a real answer when the full scope and picture is not there.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ObsolesceO
                        Obsolesce
                        last edited by

                        Misread. So how much of the 170TB is used immediately and what's the projected growth rate?

                        dafyreD JaredBuschJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • dafyreD
                          dafyre @scottalanmiller
                          last edited by

                          @scottalanmiller said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                          @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                          My Build would use some flavor of Linux and based on the Storinator Q30 Enhanced and configured for RAID10.

                          This I would absolutely avoid. The Storinator has no place in a production SMB environment. It's exclusively designed for use as a RAIN node as part of an N+X cluster. It's disposable / ephemeral only. Any attempt to use it in another way, which would include any configuration with RAID, is misusing it by intent and will lead to support issues. It is not hot swap, it is not designed to be reliable. It's not meant to be serviced. All top considerations for a storage node. It's actually, other than capacity, the exact opposite of what you would seek in a storage device.

                          @scottalanmiller -- How would you build it? That is specifically my question or discussion point... How would you go about building a storage platform for 170TB usable data?

                          travisdh1T scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • dafyreD
                            dafyre @Obsolesce
                            last edited by

                            @Obsolesce said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                            Misread. So how much of the 170TB is used immediately and what's the projected growth rate?

                            40% Currently Used. 6% /year growth rate.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • JaredBuschJ
                              JaredBusch @Obsolesce
                              last edited by

                              @Obsolesce said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                              Misread. So how much of the 170TB is used immediately and what's the projected growth rate?

                              Not relevant. The concept is that we need 170TB usable. Usable implies available now.

                              You are asking a different question to resolve a different problem.

                              ObsolesceO V 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • travisdh1T
                                travisdh1 @dafyre
                                last edited by

                                @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                @scottalanmiller said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                My Build would use some flavor of Linux and based on the Storinator Q30 Enhanced and configured for RAID10.

                                This I would absolutely avoid. The Storinator has no place in a production SMB environment. It's exclusively designed for use as a RAIN node as part of an N+X cluster. It's disposable / ephemeral only. Any attempt to use it in another way, which would include any configuration with RAID, is misusing it by intent and will lead to support issues. It is not hot swap, it is not designed to be reliable. It's not meant to be serviced. All top considerations for a storage node. It's actually, other than capacity, the exact opposite of what you would seek in a storage device.

                                @scottalanmiller -- How would you build it? That is specifically my question or discussion point... How would you go about building a storage platform for 170TB usable data?

                                Assuming a single chassis, pick a linux distribution, and setup software raid, LVM, and XFS. My other two preferences would be ZFS on BSD, or hardware RAID.

                                Now if we start talking performance, backup or failover, it quickly becomes more difficult.

                                dafyreD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • dafyreD
                                  dafyre @travisdh1
                                  last edited by

                                  @travisdh1 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                  Now if we start talking performance, backup or failover, it quickly becomes more difficult.

                                  I'm specifically avoiding those topics for the sake of this post. I'm mainly curious as to what the hardware would look like... but more detailed than "buy a server and put hard drives in it" lol.

                                  ObsolesceO 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • dafyreD
                                    dafyre @travisdh1
                                    last edited by

                                    @travisdh1 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                    @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                    @scottalanmiller said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                    @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                    My Build would use some flavor of Linux and based on the Storinator Q30 Enhanced and configured for RAID10.

                                    This I would absolutely avoid. The Storinator has no place in a production SMB environment. It's exclusively designed for use as a RAIN node as part of an N+X cluster. It's disposable / ephemeral only. Any attempt to use it in another way, which would include any configuration with RAID, is misusing it by intent and will lead to support issues. It is not hot swap, it is not designed to be reliable. It's not meant to be serviced. All top considerations for a storage node. It's actually, other than capacity, the exact opposite of what you would seek in a storage device.

                                    @scottalanmiller -- How would you build it? That is specifically my question or discussion point... How would you go about building a storage platform for 170TB usable data?

                                    Assuming a single chassis, pick a linux distribution, and setup software raid, LVM, and XFS. My other two preferences would be ZFS on BSD, or hardware RAID.

                                    Now if we start talking performance, backup or failover, it quickly becomes more difficult.

                                    I'm not familiar with ZFS. I will stay far FAR FAAR FAAAAAAARRRRRRRR away from BTRFS. I've seen too many problems with it at my day job, lol.

                                    I'd likely go with Linux + XFS for the file system.

                                    scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                    • black3dynamiteB
                                      black3dynamite
                                      last edited by

                                      LVM Thin Pool and XFS for a file server?

                                      scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • ObsolesceO
                                        Obsolesce @dafyre
                                        last edited by

                                        @dafyre said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                        @travisdh1 said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                        Now if we start talking performance, backup or failover, it quickly becomes more difficult.

                                        I'm specifically avoiding those topics for the sake of this post. I'm mainly curious as to what the hardware would look like... but more detailed than "buy a server and put hard drives in it" lol.

                                        Dumb topic them.

                                        DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • DustinB3403D
                                          DustinB3403 @Obsolesce
                                          last edited by

                                          @Obsolesce said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                          Dumb topic them.

                                          :thumbs_up:

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • ObsolesceO
                                            Obsolesce @JaredBusch
                                            last edited by Obsolesce

                                            @JaredBusch said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                            @Obsolesce said in How would you build a File server with 170TB of Usable Storage?:

                                            Misread. So how much of the 170TB is used immediately and what's the projected growth rate?

                                            Not relevant. The concept is that we need 170TB usable. Usable implies available now.

                                            You are asking a different question to resolve a different problem.

                                            It is relevant because I have no idea what was put into the plan. For all I know, they only have 35TB of data that will only grow to 46TB over the next 5 years. If that's the case, it could change every aspect of the best solution.

                                            If you are saying to just take the 170TB that they just want that amount and tjays that... Then I don't care to put any thought into this thread and will just say buy a server, some DAS, and move on.

                                            JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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