[Box Backup] [OT ] - Products that connect many disk to a server?

[Jamie Neil]

Tobias Balle-Petersen wrote:
> What I really want to do is to attach a bunch of disks (8+) and run 
> software-raid on my Debian server.

I run software raid on most of my Debian servers. The only disadvantages 
that I'm aware of are:

1) Not hotswap (although I've been told that it is possible given the 
right hardware).

2) No battery backed write-back cache.

> Any suggestions or comments on the subject from other bb-users?

The system we were considering was a Chenbro RM215:

http://www.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?serno=47

Which holds up to 8 3.5" SATA drives in 2U, and a Tyan Tomcat S2925 
mainboard:

http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=169

which has 6 onboard SATA ports and takes ECC memory.

With 8*500GB drives (RAID5 with hot spare), an extra SATA controller, 
CPU and memory, it comes to about £1000, which is 30p/GB.

We're also considering the Dell PowerEdge 1900. It doesn't have caddies, 
and it's much bigger (5U), but it's well engineered, can take up to 8 
3.5" SATA drives, and a base system with 2 (throwaway) drives will only 
set you back £600, so once you add a bunch of third party drives it 
comes out to about the same price. Space used to be an issue for us, but 
now it's much more about power - it's hard to completely fill up a rack 
on a normal power feed.

-- 
Jamie Neil | <jamie@versado.net> | 0870 7777 454
Versado I.T. Services Ltd. | http://versado.net/ | 0845 450 1254