On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 12:16:28PM -0500, Sidney Cammeresi wrote:
> We don't have a lot of data, we mostly just need more spindles. So we'd
> want 12-14 disks, size isn't a big deal, like 2-4TB should be plenty.
You can probably get something like an HP MSA 1000 for not a lot of
money. We've got an older one here that we used for Exchange - it has 3
shelves of 14 72GB drives each - around 3TB total. A lot of spindles
though.
> We also want a vendor who will `get' Linux and won't whine that we aren't
> running Redhat CoreFrobozz 45.2 on a WhizzBang 3000 machine because that's
> the ONLY thing they'll support at all. Not that we expect to need a
> lot of support, I just have a low tolerance for bullshit.
Most SAN vendors have a low tolerance for customers who run fast and
loose with kernels, drivers, and firmware. This isn't SCSI and the
standards are a bit of challenge. You can expect a very limited support
matrix. Admittedly I've only played with the big boys - EMC, HP,
McData, and Brocade, but they've all sung the same song. You can get a
bit looser if you go with a NAS solution instead since then you're
playing by the NFS or CIFS protocols.
You will find Linux support from the big companies but generally it's
the big distros - Red Hat and SuSe that are supported (e.g. qualified).
If you ask me, I'll tell you to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux and an HP
SAN. I know it will work though, since I've put them into production.
.../Ed
--
Ed Wilts, RHCE
Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program