On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 02:29:10AM +1000, Tim Starling wrote:
My tentative answer would be that I don't think we're very far ahead of the growth curve on storage. I don't know how expensive it will be or whether we will be able to deploy new hardware fast enough. Our record for deployment of storage hardware has been pretty poor.
Would it be productive to look into ATAoverEthernet SAN shelves? They're a bit pricey still, but they have the advantage that you don't need expensive controllers like FC in the attached boxen as well: you just Ethernet stuff together.
You'd want it on a separate LAN, for oblivious raisins, but the client drivers are in 2.6.11+, IIRC. The company that's spearheading this protocol has drive shelves up to 16 position, as I recall. Coraid is their name.
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Their 3U 15 drive shelf is $4k; they have a 24 slot which is probably 6K. And, of course, 500GB Seagate 7200.11 SATAs are about $100 each right now. I'm pretty sure the 1TBs are still ... well, let me look.
Yup, I was within 5%: $334 a piece at Newegg.
So, assuming the 24 slot -- and these cages do hardware raid in front of the AoE -- that's 12TB raw for $8400.
Or, of course, 24TB raw for slightly over $14k.
Or is the problem not capex but engineering and deployment?
Cheers, -- jra