> Hey Guys,
>
>
> I'm looking for some perspectives on the storage options available
> today, and on the horizon...
>
>
> Specifically, I'm thinking about something that would be a little
> handier and more future proof for my servers I run. Specifically, I run
> VMWare Server on Linux and several virtual machines all on the same
> hardware.
>
> There are several different variables and technologies at this point:
>
> - direct attach w. software or hardware RAID
>
> - file systems such as ZFS and BTRFS and the cool stuff you can do with
> them
>
> - NAS
>
> - external RAID arrays
>
> - iSCSI
>
> - getting higher quality disks such as SCSI and solid state drives
>
>
>
> In a perfect world, here is what I'd like:
>
>
> - A storage device not tethered to my servers so that I can add more
> storage as needed without planning for downtime and running dd, and
> upgrade server hardware without having to reinvest in storage.
>
> - Fast I/O suitable for running VMs. There are tricks that can be
> employed which will help one get by with SATA, but you still have to be
> careful not to do heavy disk operations on the host as to render the
> guests unresponsive. This is a nuisance, and of course makes
> hypothetically backing up complete VM disk images difficult.
>
> - Disk redundancy, i.e. some sort of RAID configuration.
>
> - Some sort of solution somewhere between Cletus the Slackjaw Yokel's
> Windows XP box and high level enterprise stuff. I like the idea of
> spreading out the I/O demand across several cheap disks, adding more
> disk as needed, replacing failed disks as necessary. I don't need crazy
> fast I/O, I just need something a little more than a single SATA disk.
> So, enterprise level technology is not what I'm after here, just
> convenience and decent performance.
>
> - Something that will be relatively future proof and not cost me a
> fortune :)
>
> - I'm using nearly 250 gig right now so my capacity needs are not
> tremendous, but it would cost me a lot more than what I'm paying now to
> run within a VPS provider such as Linode or Slicehost, and I'd rather
> not get into the position where my costs grow significantly just to add
> a modest amount of disk space. My storage needs don't warrant an
> expensive SAN such as the ones that are no doubt in use by these
> providers, one of my VMs is running Windows, and I like the control I
> have now and I like working with my server provider. So, I'm not really
> keen on moving my eight servers to VMs provided by one of these companies
>
> - A way to backup all of this data (snapshots), preferably via the same
> overall design so that I have something I can test with and perhaps even
> fail over to in the event of an emergency. I know that offsite
> redundancy is the golden egg for many companies, but hey, this is a
> perfect world type wishlist! :) I use Amazon S3 for an offsite backup in
> addition to my current backup to backup my most important data, but to
> keep my costs to a minimum I'd prefer to just stay with rsync to
> multiple cheap disks.
>
>
> I'm interested in learning more about iSCSI, and am fascinated with
> BTRFS and ZFS. Do any of you have any experience with any of this, have
> any general recommendations, thoughts, predictions, anything? I don't
> need to buy anything tomorrow, I'm just thinking that it would be nice
> to think ahead a little.
>
> It seems like I'm kind of stuck in between not needing to invest heavily
> in storage like a big company would, yet I'm pushing the limits of
> run-of-the-mill consumer grade direct attach SATA type stuff - the kind
> of solution that would be great for using with Time Machine to store
> pictures of your kids.
>
You might try looking into using freenas. it can do alot of the things you
are looking for and has support for zfs and iscsi at this point.
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