Ohh they updated it!

@sn said in Virtual Data Room recommendations:

@scottalanmiller Technically "virtual data room" is similar to file server and primarily accessed over a browser session. In addition to the standard file server features, it may also include features like-

Bulk watermarking of documents "View only" mode for documents Real time activity logs Remote document shredding Fenced view to protect documents from someone taking a photo of the monitor with document open Q & A section and live discussions etc.

From a usage perspective, our "virtual data room" is shared between a bunch of firms (like insurers, lawyers, auditors, investors, engineering and construction companies etc) with different access levels who are working towards the completion of a specific project which may take 2-5 years to complete (please note, we are into wind/solar farm development). So I surely do not want all these guys on my file server doing crazy things like creating users and modifying originals.

At the moment, I am thinking of evaluating https://www.idealsvdr.com/virtual-data-room-features/ to see if they are worth switching from my current provider.

Interesting. Seems like a mistake in terms. Why does being available over "web" make it "virtual". Seems like a marketing term. I don't see anyone but Citrix using it, and Citrix has a trend of totally making up and misusing terms. Citrix' use of "virtual" is the industry standard for "wrong". I have a feeling that this isn't a legitimate term. Looking at the wikipedia entry for it, it looks very suspect. And the definition doesn't feel right - a specific access technology for something so general wouldn't be appropriate. And the lack of other products or vendors using the term for something so common and normal is suspicious. For example, Sharepoint and Alfresco have been doing this for forever, but never use the term.

This is the mobo that this will be connected to:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000P/X7DB8.cfm

@travisdh1 said in iSCSI port w/Windows iSCSI initiator dropping:

@art_of_shred said in iSCSI port w/Windows iSCSI initiator dropping:

Is Free-NAS ever a good idea? I've only ever heard nasty things said about it.

Only if you know nothing about building and managing storage is it going to serve a purpose. BSD or Solaris without the added bits would be the preferred route to use ZFS.

And if you don't know those bits, you should not be running a SAN.

@scottalanmiller I not quite at that max but pretty close at 56TB in a single volume local storage. Running Win 2012 R2 VM on Hyper-V 2012 R2 hypervisor. So far so good (2 yrs now). No issues other than that initial backup was a real b1tch but now that it's incremental, it's all good. No other caveats that I'm aware of.

@Dashrender said in RAID 10, 20 Disks, How Many Hot Spares:

So is it done? Does Matt understand and agree to the point that Scott was making?

Yes I believe so.

TL;DR attempt #1 #2 #3 #4 (counting edits)

RAID10 does not need hot spares

If you have spare slots you'd be better served by a larger array with more IOPS

The corner case (the one raised by the op's question?) is would hot spares reduce the risk of array failure. The answer is 100% absolutely yes it will reduce the risk of failure.

The disagreement (I think..?) was if that's necessary. We agreed that it isn't necessary to have any hot spares for RAID10 unless there's mitigating factors (examples: remote COLO with horrific access issues, extremely risk averse use case).

@Dashrender said in Replacing the Dead IPOD, SAN Bit the Dust:

@scottalanmiller said in Replacing the Dead IPOD, SAN Bit the Dust:

Also the needs of a SAN are different than the needs of a LAN. So you likely want different switches. I'd love Netgear Prosafe unmanaged on my SAN but would generally prefer Ubiquiti EdgeSwitches on my LAN.

Any opinion on Unifi Switches yet?

We use one in the lab and it's been great, but we aren't pushing its limits or anything.

@travisdh1 said in NitroShare for Simple Cross Platform File Sharing:

nitroshare: for those that don't know how to ssh?

It's cross platform, too. So lots of Windows users don't know how to SSH.

@Texkonc said in PERC H730P Mini - Multiple LV's:

Dustin

Oh ok

@DustinB3403 said in CP - Dell vs HP server quotes:

I've received two quotes for new server hardware - one from our local reseller and one directly from Dell. As far as I can tell, the two quotes are identical spec-wise but the local reseller is almost $12k more expensive. Here are the two quotes:

Quote from Dell:
2x Dell PowerEdge R430 servers $6,665.60

2x Xeon E5-2630 v3 CPUs 2x 32 GB RDIMM Diskless configuration
1x Dell SCv2020 iSCSI SAN $10,303.26 14x Dell 1.2 TB SAS 12GB, 10k, 2.5" HD
1x Dell N2048 gigabit switch $1,693.49

TOTAL: $18,662.35

HP Quote from local reseller:
2x HP ProLiant DL360 servers $7,266.00

2x Xeon E5-2630 v3 CPUs 64 GB RAM (unknown configuration) Diskless configuration
1x HP MSA 2040 SAN $20,932.00 14x HP MSA 1.2 TB 10K SAS 2.5in drives includes $5,850 in labor so actual price
is only $15,082
1x Cisco Catalyst 2960-X gigabit switch $2,320.00

TOTAL: $30,518.00

Difference: $11,855.65

Is there any reason why I should choose the HP solution over the Dell solution? I will be running vSphere 6 on these servers. I'm not familiar with managing either server line so either way I'll be learning new management tools. When it comes to support I think I trust my local reseller more than Dell but $12k extra is hard to stomach just for that.

[Edit: CP Code M.]

Unless that OP is restricted to 1U hosts, I would go with the quote from Xbyte for Dell 730xd with same specs as in quotes is
0_1477764464719_upload-e7876862-aaf2-4c7d-9461-089a8141fab5

Multiply by 2, add Starwind's vSAN and a couple 10Gb NICs and he's done. Especially if only 2 hosts. Same(ish) price, way more reliability, better performance all around. I'd post that reco on SW but would likely get banned lol.

The one thing not mentioned is if there are other hosts connecting to the SAN.

@Dashrender said in Running Xen Server from a USB Drive.:

@BRRABill said in Running Xen Server from a USB Drive.:

If I was doing it over again from scratch, I'd probably not use USB.

That being said, I have not had any issues thus far.

Are you redirecting logs?

Yes.

@JaredBusch said in Scott Alan Miller: Storage 101:

@scottalanmiller said in Scott Alan Miller: Storage 101:

@s.hackleman said in Scott Alan Miller: Storage 101:

I didn't get to make it up, but I have been watching the sessions and burning up my data plan. Thanks for posting these. I also wanted to take a minute to call out the guy sitting front and center to just surf the internet the entire time SAM is talking.

I didn't even notice that, I'm going to look for it now.

In the red? That is @DustinB3403

Ha no it is not!

@BRRABill said in 4 PB on USB3 Drives Single Storage Array:

Speaking of storage ...did the new licensing model for AetherStore come out yet?

Hey everyone! We haven’t officially released pricing for AetherStore 2.0 yet but as many of you know from MangoCon, AetherStore 2.0 will be Freemium. Exact pricing to be publicly announced soon. Hint: it’s going to be VERY affordable (think less expensive than Glacier).

We’ve already talked to several of you about installing the 2.0 Early Release, which we’ll start circulating soon. If you haven’t already talked to us and would like access to the Early Release PM me!

We are thinking of making a choco package for early release and pinging the package name around before it’s publicly available. How many of you use choco?

It goes to 11, so it must be better than the ones that only go to 10.
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Sorry, can't help myself sometimes.

@Shuey said in Invalid Drive Movement from HP SmartArray P411 RAID Controller with StorageWorks MSA60:

Thanks again to everyone who replied and gave feedback on this. It's great to know that there's a solid community of knowledgeable people who are willing to share their expertise - I really appreciate it!!

Sadly we didn't find your solution. But happily you found it on your own!

@JaredBusch said in EMC ScaleIO Available for Free for Non-Production Use:

@KOOLER said in EMC ScaleIO Available for Free:

@scottalanmiller said in EMC ScaleIO Available for Free:

@jason says that the EULA allows for production usage, just without support.

Not really...

https://www.emc.com/content/terms/eula-scaleio.htm

E. “Internal Business Purposes” means an internal (non-commercial) Use for the purpose(s) of testing and demonstrating the features of the Software, and not for Customer product development, product testing, or other Customer research and development or commercial purposes.

Nothing in that says not for production use. But it does say not for commercial purposes and customer development, etc. To me that reads, if I use it internally to run my business, i can.

If the law states you can't kill people it doesn't mean you can kill them with a fork just because fork isn't mentioned.

Production use = Commercial purpose

If you don't agree - go ahead, put SIO into production and be ready to re-write your house to your lawyer. I don't see what I can do to help here 😉