Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
event of a system outage? If a server is down and you need to do a restore, you can't either stop people from rebooting for
As my users to stop working? really? Yeah sure I could ask them to stop rebooting without asking - but damn, that would be rough since my first comment to them is to always reboot.
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
Okay, but that means that you probably don't need quad nodes and quad mirrors on AetherStore, either. Because you are only comparing it to a two mirror one node NAS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
Okay, but that means that you probably don't need quad nodes and quad mirrors on AetherStore, either. Because you are only comparing it to a two mirror one node NAS.
Sure, but I have a near zero percent chance that my NAS will just turn off during the day as well.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
As my users to stop working? really? Yeah sure I could ask them to stop rebooting without asking - but damn, that would be rough since my first comment to them is to always reboot.
It would actually be rough? I mean this sounds crazy. You are in your ten year server loss event. The biggest deal that happens to IT in a decade. You have a server that has died and you need to do a restore....
And your four users reboot so much, so often that even for once a decade you can't ask them to at least stagger their reboots for a few minutes while you pull data off?
I'm calling BS. If that's the case, your already so fragile that you can't be functioning. And they can't be doing any work, their machines never stop rebooting!
This is, quite simply, not a possible scenario in the real world.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
Well that makes me feel better.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
Well that makes me feel better.
And remember, it's only the head node that you'd be waiting for, ever. What's the reboot length on those boxes and what's the frequency and are they doing this 24x7? Would writes after hours still have this problem? Are you planning to stream backups offsite during the day?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
Well that makes me feel better.
And remember, it's only the head node that you'd be waiting for, ever. What's the reboot length on those boxes and what's the frequency and are they doing this 24x7? Would writes after hours still have this problem? Are you planning to stream backups offsite during the day?
Well the head node I would assume isn't a PC, but instead a VM (as JB mentioned before) but maybe that's just crazy on our parts as well.
Reboot length - 3-4 mins I'd guess on the outside.
Frequency - daily and sometimes randomly multiple times a day.
syncing backups only after hours. -
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Well the head node I would assume isn't a PC, but instead a VM (as JB mentioned before) but maybe that's just crazy on our parts as well.
Well, normally that's not what is assumed but that's fine. If that's the case, then just assign that VM enough storage and you have nothing to worry about.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Frequency - daily and sometimes randomly multiple times a day.
Daily? You made it sound like it was ever ten minutes around the clock. You think it would be rough to ask them to hold off on a daily reboot during a critical system restore?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
syncing backups only after hours.
ANd that's when they do the rebooting?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Frequency - daily and sometimes randomly multiple times a day.
Daily? You made it sound like it was ever ten minutes around the clock. You think it would be rough to ask them to hold off on a daily reboot during a critical system restore?
I'm sorry you read that into it. It's still daily or better. If the onsite NAS was offline during a backup window (taken hourly) that will cause the system to hang or loose a backup.
Now is that the end of the world, if only on is missed, probably not. And clearly, if we are in an outage situation, I can tell people to leave their machines alone so I can get max performance, etc..
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In the situation of writing the backup you'd only worry about the head having enough capacity to ingest the backup and staggered uptime from some of the other nodes. So probably okay.
For restores, that's the only time I'd anticipate telling people to delay reboots because the server restore out ranks whatever their reboots are for.
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Would be nice if AetherStore could lock the machines during an emergency.
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It's weird to think you'd just run the main node from any ol' PC in the network.
Like JB, I added the service of the head node to a VM that had nearly zero storage on it. I don't want this stuff on my hypervisor storage, otherwise why would I be using AetherStore at all?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
It's weird to think you'd just run the main node from any ol' PC in the network.
Like JB, I added the service of the head node to a VM that had nearly zero storage on it. I don't want this stuff on my hypervisor storage, otherwise why would I be using AetherStore at all?
You probably wouldn't do that. Well, you could if that machine needed the storage.
I'd assume most people just use it as a mounted "network" drive for backup targets.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
It's weird to think you'd just run the main node from any ol' PC in the network.
Like JB, I added the service of the head node to a VM that had nearly zero storage on it. I don't want this stuff on my hypervisor storage, otherwise why would I be using AetherStore at all?
You probably wouldn't do that. Well, you could if that machine needed the storage.
I'd assume most people just use it as a mounted "network" drive for backup targets.
I don't follow - I wouldn't do what? Install the head into a VM? You're saying you would only install the head node into a VM if the head node itself needed the storage? uh OK.. sure.
Question - how many head nodes can you have for an AetherStore array? if it's only one, would you really install it on a PC out in userland?
I suppose it's one thing for the NAS to be unavailable here and there when used as a backup location, but, we forget, this solution can also be used as traditional network storage as well. So if this is acting as a file repository for work files - does it go offline when the head node goes offline?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
It's weird to think you'd just run the main node from any ol' PC in the network.
Like JB, I added the service of the head node to a VM that had nearly zero storage on it. I don't want this stuff on my hypervisor storage, otherwise why would I be using AetherStore at all?
You probably wouldn't do that. Well, you could if that machine needed the storage.
I'd assume most people just use it as a mounted "network" drive for backup targets.
I don't follow - I wouldn't do what? Install the head into a VM? You're saying you would only install the head node into a VM if the head node itself needed the storage? uh OK.. sure.
Question - how many head nodes can you have for an AetherStore array? if it's only one, would you really install it on a PC out in userland?
I suppose it's one thing for the NAS to be unavailable here and there when used as a backup location, but, we forget, this solution can also be used as traditional network storage as well. So if this is acting as a file repository for work files - does it go offline when the head node goes offline?
Wouldn't just install it "on any 'ol PC"
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Well the head node I would assume isn't a PC, but instead a VM (as JB mentioned before) but maybe that's just crazy on our parts as well.
Well, normally that's not what is assumed but that's fine. If that's the case, then just assign that VM enough storage and you have nothing to worry about.
Well, no, that is not what you assume. It is not what a lot of others assume and had issues with during the original beta. Stop skimming.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Question - how many head nodes can you have for an AetherStore array? if it's only one, would you really install it on a PC out in userland?
One, and you are damned right, I do not want it in userland.
