I’m not really sure where to put this, but since I’m looking for specific advice about networking as part of it, I figured here was as good a place as any.
Current Storage: I am in the process of upgrading my storage solution. Currently, I have a SansDigital 4 bay eSATA enclosure connected to a Highpoint Rocket RAID 622. In it, there are 3 WD20EARS Green Drives that have been set to not park the heads using WDIDLE3 in RAID5. This setup has been running almost 24/7/365 for nearly 4 years. It was originally in my dekstop then moved to a 1U server once that was purchased.
Current Servers:
My initial plan was to get an HBA and install it into the linux box and run ZFS on Linux and directly connect the 2 computers via their second GbE ports. By trade I am a Windows sysadmin but do some backup linux admin at work as well. ZFS seems to be something that I need to be learning as our storage pools at work get larger and larger. Also the advantages ZFS gives over traditional RAID are very appealing to me.
Now, I find myself wavering. I've found out that my CS24-TY has a mezzainne slot for a 10Gb fiber card. This gives me a lttle bit of flexibility that I didn't have before as both machines only have one PCIe slot. I could put a SAS HBA into the CS24-TY and use Windows Storage Spaces, get the mezzanine fiber channel card, and a fiber channel card for the CS24-SC and direct conect the 2 servers so that I would the be able to directly access the shared drive when needed for encoding (something a 1Gb link would be too slow for).
However, this is where my knowledge gets a bit fuzzy. I've never worked with fiber before and finding the mezzanine card has not been easy. I have found this: Dell 10GB Fiber Channel Dual Port Host Bus Adapter Jpynn | eBay and others of the same part number fairly readily, but they are listed as HBAs. Does this mean that they are for fiber channel storage only, or can they be used for networking? I would imagine that I'd be able to find something that they can connect to on the other end readily as well or am I wrong there?
Another question I find myself asking is Storage Spaces vs ZFS. I have never used either but ZFS is obviously the more mature product. ZFS seems like it is more tailored to what I would like to be doing, but obviously, I'm far more comfortable in Windows. SS may be the smarter long term solution for me as well since I have made a career out of Windows and need to learn its ways.
And last for now. I have been looking at the Dell H200E as far as the HBA. It seems to fit best with my hardware as-is. Everything I have is Dell so I don't forsee any compatibility problems, The J23 is 3GbSAS, the H200 is 6Gb so no slow-downs there. I may have to flash it to IT mode but there are walk-throughs here for that if needed. Any better solutions?
Thanks for reading and any insights
Current Storage: I am in the process of upgrading my storage solution. Currently, I have a SansDigital 4 bay eSATA enclosure connected to a Highpoint Rocket RAID 622. In it, there are 3 WD20EARS Green Drives that have been set to not park the heads using WDIDLE3 in RAID5. This setup has been running almost 24/7/365 for nearly 4 years. It was originally in my dekstop then moved to a 1U server once that was purchased.
Current Servers:
- I have a Dell CS24-TY with Dual L5520s and 36GB of RAM (22GB not allocated to VMs). This machine is a Hyper-V host running Server 2012 R2 and 3 VM's that run constantly. This currently houses the Highpoint 622 and enclosure
- DC, DHCP, DNS
- File Server, Plex, Torrent
- Git (not really necessary, but no real reason to take it down either)
- I also have a Dell CS24-SC with Dual L5420s and 8GB of RAM (RAM can be bought cheaply right now). This computer is running CentOS 6.5 and is currently used primarily for encoding DVDs and Blurays. I have also dabbled in compiling Android/Cyanogenmod with it.
- I have purchased a Dell J23 JBOD enclosure. I was able to get this for $50+$38 shipping and then found drive trays at $25 for 15 trays.
My initial plan was to get an HBA and install it into the linux box and run ZFS on Linux and directly connect the 2 computers via their second GbE ports. By trade I am a Windows sysadmin but do some backup linux admin at work as well. ZFS seems to be something that I need to be learning as our storage pools at work get larger and larger. Also the advantages ZFS gives over traditional RAID are very appealing to me.
Now, I find myself wavering. I've found out that my CS24-TY has a mezzainne slot for a 10Gb fiber card. This gives me a lttle bit of flexibility that I didn't have before as both machines only have one PCIe slot. I could put a SAS HBA into the CS24-TY and use Windows Storage Spaces, get the mezzanine fiber channel card, and a fiber channel card for the CS24-SC and direct conect the 2 servers so that I would the be able to directly access the shared drive when needed for encoding (something a 1Gb link would be too slow for).
However, this is where my knowledge gets a bit fuzzy. I've never worked with fiber before and finding the mezzanine card has not been easy. I have found this: Dell 10GB Fiber Channel Dual Port Host Bus Adapter Jpynn | eBay and others of the same part number fairly readily, but they are listed as HBAs. Does this mean that they are for fiber channel storage only, or can they be used for networking? I would imagine that I'd be able to find something that they can connect to on the other end readily as well or am I wrong there?
Another question I find myself asking is Storage Spaces vs ZFS. I have never used either but ZFS is obviously the more mature product. ZFS seems like it is more tailored to what I would like to be doing, but obviously, I'm far more comfortable in Windows. SS may be the smarter long term solution for me as well since I have made a career out of Windows and need to learn its ways.
And last for now. I have been looking at the Dell H200E as far as the HBA. It seems to fit best with my hardware as-is. Everything I have is Dell so I don't forsee any compatibility problems, The J23 is 3GbSAS, the H200 is 6Gb so no slow-downs there. I may have to flash it to IT mode but there are walk-throughs here for that if needed. Any better solutions?
Thanks for reading and any insights
