On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 10:45:51AM +0000, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> on Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 06:21:17PM -0800, Michael West ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > I have been asked to help with getting a server for SAS. One of the
> > large expenses of this is the 200Gb+ RAID-5 disk on the EMC frame.
> > When presented with $$$$$ the question came, can't I just get
> > something I can put under my desk and save $$$$$?
> >
> > The SAS server will be on WIN2K. I am thinking of using Debian with
> > software RAID and SAMBA. I have had good experience with this. Maybe
> > even use the 8mg cache western digital IDE drives. We only expect a
> > dozen users simultaneous or so, but working with large datasets.
> >
> > I have never seen anything about the best configuration of a file
> > server with few connections and gobs of data being used per
> > connection.
> >
> > Does anyone have experience with something similar? How will SAMBA
> > perform when hammered by SAS?
> >
> > For the purposes of this thread, let us assume that the maintenance,
> > service, backup and recovery and such is satisfactorily worked out.
> > They are the major problems, but I am looking for advice on just the
> > fileserver question.
>
> Michael, a few suggestions.
>
> I've done a lot of SAS work, most of it in my past. I've also worked
> with GNU/Linux and some RAIDed filestorage, as well as Samba, more
> recently. GNU/Linux and Samba should be more than robust enough for
> this purpose.
>
> First, if what you're replacing is an EMC server, I'd suggest going
> whole-hog with GNU/Linux: SCSI RAID beats software on performance, and
> IDE RAID on reliability. The cost is higher by a significant fraction
> (more than double), but if this is your primary data store, that
> shouldn't be a hard sell. 200 GiB isn't all that big these days (you
> can buy single IDE drives with that capacity). Focus on reliability and
> backups. I've had very mixed results with 3Ware's Escalade products
> (5xxx, 6xxx, and 7xxx) over a couple of years.
Thanks,
The cost of a SCSI RAID adapter and SCSI vs. IDE disk is tiny compared
to what we get charged to use the EMC.
Is there an adapter you would recommend?
>
> SAS analysis usage is usually a large single data pull, followed by
> summarization and/or subsetting. Networked access kills performance, so
> you're likely not going to have all that much traffic on the dataserver.
> If you can run multiple NICs out of the box, either dedicated to a
> single analyst's PC, or on a load-balanced network, you'll improve
> throughput markedly. Contention on the fileserver itself is likely to
> be low, but SCSI will help you there.
>
Dual attached network. Got it.
> The pessimal configuration is when your SAS programmers try to do *all*
> their work on the fileserver, and there's always some yahoo who does.
> Saving working sets back is reasonable, but using the server for
> SASWORK, SASSSORT, or other temporary or scratch space, really loads up
> network traffic. Discourage this if possible.
We will have a large SASWORK on the application server. A
SAS/Compaq rep is going to come out and train our SAS folks on how
to get the processing going on in the right place.
>
> Peace.
and Plenty
>
> --
> Karsten M. Self <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
> What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
I am having trouble with the "alt"
Thanks for your help,
~Michael
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