Windows Storage Server 2008 - Thoughts?

[themisfit610]

Hey guys,

I'm looking at a few different solutions for a massive storage system.

We're STARTING with 1 PB, and probably moving towards 2-3 in the next year or two.

In terms of cost, you can get bare 3.5" drives for about $75k. Building a bunch of BackBlaze pods can get it all done for ~$120k, but this doesn't include the shit-ton of labor necessary.

A 1PB array from HP (IBRIX Scale-out NAS) will cost you about $700k, and is pretty badass. However, since we're mainly doing archival, and don't need massive bandwidth / replication services, this is probably overkill.

A company called Digiliant builds SuperMicro chassis out with drives and sells them with Windows Storage Server (or a storage centric Linux distro). Windows Storage Server is cool in that you can build a distributed file system, and basically group all your storage together. So, for $300k I get a 1PB namespace for access via iSCSI, CIFS/SMB, or NFS.

I just haven't heard much about Storage Server, and am trying to get more info about it.

Any thoughts?

~MiSfit

 

[pjkenned]

Do you have a technet plus subscription? If so test it out. I've never tested it on that scale.

One thing is that on systems that big, you really want support from a big company. If something goes down, you want people with the experience to fix whatever you need. Also, at 1PB you are not talking about something that is super simple.

Also, blackblaze is fairly poor performance since everything is based on port multipliers.

 

[yinan]

For something that big this does not seem like a good idea. I generally like WSS for an iSCSI target, but you would need to buy and group together a bunch of Windows Servers. This configuration could get a bit ugly. For something this large look into the major storage vendors.

 

[MerlinRML]

Another vote for buying from a vendor who will support you. Yes you can save money upfront by building it yourself, but you have to factor in the costs of support and maintenance down the road. If you are unable to provide or afford the after sale support yourself, you need to buy from someone who can do that for you. With that said, the markups that storage vendors charge is obscene.

Don't forget, a storage vendor will warranty the whole solution. It's not just disks, or parts, it's the whole box and everything that goes into it. And after your 1-3 year warranty runs out, plan to purchase an additional few years if you need it. Manufacturers are happy to leave you behind and offer no replacements once they're done with a product, while storage vendors have to provide support for as long as they have any open support contracts which is usually until EOL+2-3 years.

 

[DukeN]

Another vote for a vendor that has done this before. Unless you have serious engineering resources dedicated to building and testing prior to rollout, and troubleshooting after.

Looks like the big name vendors already have products that are at the 1PB mark. Here's a link to an announcement from HP over a year back:
http://news.techworld.com/storage/12183/hp-reveals-petabyte-storage-for-enterprises/
IIRC EMC's DMX was the first of the top tier guys to come out with a Petabyte SAN.

There's also smaller names like BlueArc

 

[SammyJr]

Storage Server 2008 is just Windows 2008 with an iSCSI target option and different licensing. There are a few minor extra features beyond that. If you like Windows 2008's file server, then you'll like Storage Server. The Distributed File System feature has been around since Windows 2000, if not before.